Category: Tips and Tutorials

Publishing / Locking Report Cards

Azroy Kandan4 Comments

The first time you create a new QuickSchools Report Card grading session, they are not viewable by parents. After all, recently created report cards need time to be filled and reviewed. Once you are satisfied with the results, you can then “publish” the report cards by locking it. Just go to “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards”, and click on the “Manage” link. Here’s what the pop-up looks like:

Locking/Publishing Report Cards
Locking/Publishing Report Cards

Just click on “Lock Report Cards” to proceed. The first time you lock the report cards, constitutes publishing, and parents will be able to view the report cards from then on.

Unlocking Report Cards

If for some reason, you decide that you need to make changes to a locked/published report card, you can unlock the report cards by going to “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” and clicking on the “Manage” link. Simply click on the “Unlock” link for the appropriate report card session.Read More »

Sharing Documents with Parents

Azroy Kandan2 Comments

Hey all,

With the release of the new Parent Message Board, which has the ability to post/share links, you can now more easily share documents with parents, like Disclaimers, Forms, and Policies. Note that QuickSchools still does not support an area to upload/store documents for all parents, but you could upload these documents to Google Docs and/or DropBox and then share a link to the document via the Parent Message Board. This should work pretty well for the near term. For more information on how to post a message on the Parent Message Board, check out this article.

Let us know what you think.

Extra Credit in QuickSchools Gradebook

Azroy Kandan6 Comments

For those of you thinking of giving out extra credit in the gradebook, here’s how you can do it on QuickSchools:

First, create a final grade without the Extra Credit. Feel free to use the Re-normalize function under “Grading Setup”. This will calculate a grade for all students, even if there are missing/empty categories in the calculation. Be sure to uncheck the “Is final grade?” check box, as this is technically not the final grade since it does not include extra credit.

Next, create a column called “Extra Credit” and give it a total marks of 1. Fill this column as necessary.

Finally, create a second formula that takes 100% from the previously calculated final grade, and adds 1% for the Extra Credit. This is what your final Gradebook should look like with the extra credit and 2 formulas. Notice only ONE column is designated “(Final Grade)” (as opposed to “(Formula)”).

Extra Credit in QuickSchools GradeBook
Extra Credit in QuickSchools GradeBook

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to create/update the final grade calculation, here’s what it should look like:Read More »

New Parent Messaging Board for the Parent Portal

Azroy Kandan8 Comments

QuickSchools is excited to announce our new Parent Messaging Board, available on our new HTML5 interface. For those of you still on our older Flash version, here’s a good reason to upgrade the HTML5 version.

When a parent first logs into their Parent Portal, here’s what they can see:

QuickSchools Parent Portal
QuickSchools Parent Portal

Notice that in additional to seeing multiple students from the same Parent Portal account, parents can also see upcoming events, and messages posted by the school. Links that appear on the message board are also clickable.

If you are a school administrator or teacher that wants to post an announcement to all parents, you’ll need access to the Parent Portal module. Here’s what the Parent Portal screen looks like for administrators:Read More »

Updated Transcripts Module for HTML5

Azroy Kandan8 Comments

Hello all,

I know it’s been a while since we last posted an article on our QuickSchools blog. Believe me, there are a tonne of improvements coming very soon, but we’ve just been too busy to tell you about it. The HTML5 release is in its final stages of beta testing. In fact, all new trial accounts automatically get the new HTML5 version. Existing subscribers can request to be transitioned to the new HTML5 version whenever they’re ready.

So let’s go over some new improvements in the transcripts module. Here’s a screenshot of our new “Basic Transcript” template that will be replacing the “Generic Multi-page Transcript”:

New Basic Transcripts on HTML5
New Basic Transcripts on HTML5

Here are some highlights:

Read More »

QuickSchools Fee Tracking

Azroy Kandan12 Comments

We have a few videos on youtube already, detailing how the Fee Tracking module works. I thought I’d summarize some of the key features of the Fee Tracking module here, and reference the videos that we have available on youtube:

Here’s a summary of the Fee Tracking capabilities:

  • You can keep track of Fees and Payments for each student, and the system will keep track of outstanding balances.
  • You can create Standard Charges that can be applied in bulk to all students, or to a sub-set of students (based on grade level and other criteria).
  • All Fee Tracking transactions are dated based on date of entry. The date of the transaction cannot be changed. You can however indicate the date in the transaction description.
  • The fee tracking module does not generate invoices or receipts. Instead, the Fee Tracking module can generate statements for each student, detailing an opening balance, transactions since the last statement, and an ending balance (like a credit card statement).
  • Transactions in the fee tracking module can be categorized for reporting purposes. So you could track “Tuition Fees” separately from “Administrative Fees” for example, if categorized accordingly.
  • All transactions and summary information can be exported to Excel for offline manipulation, or for import into an external program.
  • Statements that are generated are in PDF format, and can be printed or emailed to parents as attachments.
  • If you’d like the PDF statement to be formatted a certain way (to include payment instructions, for example), let us know, and we can customize that for you.

Here is a list of videos that we have:

Read More »

Displaying grades from multiple terms in the Report Cards

Azroy Kandan1 Comment

We have several report card templates that display grades from multiple terms like “Three Four Galore”, “Quarterly Classic” and “Descriptive Joy”. We frequently use the “Three Four Galore” template as an example in our blog. For example, you can check out the articles entitled “QuickSchools Report Card Features” and “Subject-Specific Criteria for QuickSchools Report Cards”.

When using these report card templates, the system does it’s best to figure out which columns to fill for any particular marking period. It does this by sorting the existing report card marking periods by date. So the first marking period will fill the first column, the second marking period will fill the second, and so forth. However, if you have several marking periods per academic term (like a mid-term and a final-term marking period), that may throw the system off, and you have to explicitly tell the system which columns to fills for the particular grading session.

So here’s how it works. Go to the “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” menu, and click on the “Manage” link. This will display a list of report card grading sessions in your account:

List of report sessions after clicking on “Manage”
List of report sessions after clicking on “Manage”

Then click on “Edit” for any particular grading session.Read More »