We are building a new feature called Period Zero Attendance, or Daily-Equivalent Attendance. What this essentially means is that QuickSchools will track and report a daily attendance equivalent, based on period or subject-based attendance. This will be an optional feature for schools that track period or subject-based attendance.

How does it work?

Schools will continue to take attendance by period or subject. However, for every school day, each student will be marked with an equivalent daily attendance. So for example, if a student is marked present for 5 out of 7 periods, QuickSchools will convert this to a daily equivalent, based on certain rules. As a result, the student may be marked Present, Absent, Tardy or Half Day Present for the day. 

This daily attendance will be stored in Period Zero (hence the name “Period Zero Attendance”). When reporting attendance, the system will use / display the Daily Attendance by default. And the period / subject attendance is merely recorded for tracking / informational purposes only.

How will the Daily-Equivalent be calculated?

By default, the QuickSchools will use the FIRST attendance record as the Daily Attendance. This means that if a student is absent for the first period, but present for the remaining periods, the student will be marked as Absent by default. An administrator can then change the Daily Attendance to Present or Half Day Present based on rules set by the school.

Later on, we will provide different default calculation methods. Some possible options we are considering:

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Several minor improvements for this release, plus a few general improvements to our Master Scheduler. Here are the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

Master Scheduler Improvements

• Refactor Screens for standalone Orchestra Master Scheduler Plan
• Expand support for Constraints (by row and column)
• Improve how sections are re-assigned
• Improve Summary Report support for Master Scheduler
• Improve flow for deleting courses
• Support Bulk Removal of Course Requests by Report
• Support multiple sections in a single period, in student PDF
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

Other General Improvements

• Include attachments when copying Lesson Plans
• Improve Google Drive Integration support for large data sets
• Improve how Summary Reports are run concurrently
• Support Gradebook Category in Report Creator
• Fix initial authentication connection to Canvas
• Fix Delay when Changing Password
• Fix Time Zone Difference when creating Live Stream events
• Cosmetic UI Improvements (Relabelling buttons)
• General improvements to server exception errors

Here are the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

Master Scheduler Improvements

• New Orchestra Subscription Plan for Master Scheduler only, includes 
  • New Login Page
  • Updated Footer and links
  • New Features Page
• Display Section Assignments in Student and Parent Portals
• New Printable Section Assignments PDF
• Improve Course Catalog Importer to support updates

Other General Improvements

• Email Templates from Student Profile (see below)
• Automatically Match Courses in Google Classroom Course Mappings
• Ability to disconnect to Google Classroom
• System checks for existing emails for new Trial Sign-Ups
• Miscellaneous Fixes when creating new Trial Accounts
• Generic Importer for Tests & Assessments (BETA)
• Custom Background Image (BETA)
• Improve reporting on Lunch Ordering app (for Pending/Cancelled Orders)
• Improve how announcements can be hidden
• Improve display of transactions on Billing History page
• Support Enrollment Date in Students API Resource
• Continue Framework Improvements for Emails
• Fix Non-School Days on Attendance Calendar for Group Schools
• Fix Scheduled Google Classroom Sync
• Fix Gradebook Template with Scale Score
• Fix Displayed Date for Attendance Not-Yet-Taken Notifications (BETA)

Email Templates from Student Profile

We have long supported Email Templates, for various modules. We’ve not extended this support to the student record:

When accessing a student record, there is now a “Email Profile” link, that will allow you to use Email Templates to send emails. For more information on our Email Templating capability, check out the link below: