This could be for new schools looking for a quick assessment of how QuickSchools can help improve how you manage your school. Or, it could be for existing schools looking to refresh their skills after the summer break. We can also show you how to take advantage of all your subscription has to offer. Whatever the reason, if you’re interested in a demo, fill the form below, and we’ll contact you with details.

Go to the “Admissions” > “Inquiries” module (be sure the module is enabled via the “Features” page), and click on the link to “embed an inquiry form on your school website”:

Online Form for Inquiries

We recommend starting with the “Easy Embed” option, which is really just a single line of code to be added to your website. The screen will allow you do several things:

• Define additional custom fields (using the new Module-Based Custom Fields)
• Customize a confirmation email message to be sent to the inquirer
• Configure additional recipients to be notified of new inquiry submissions
• Preview the form before using it

Screenshot is below:

Configure Online Form: Click for larger view

And here’s the resulting online form (without any additional formatting):

Sample Completed Form

If you want full control over the form, you can use the Advanced Embed option. But you’ll need good working knowledge of web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.), in order to manipulate it properly.

We’re currently working on the HTML widget for Admissions Applications. We expect a beta version to be released very soon. Keep an eye out for it on our blog and Facebook page.

As always, let us know what you think. And come chat with us, if you have any questions or comments.

UPDATE May 15, 2013:

Online Forms for Admission Applications are already available. We’ll post a blog article about it soon.

1. You must be part of our Facebook Page. Just Like the Page, so you can post a link to your video there.

2. Include the name of the school in your video. Please be sure to get the school’s permission as well before participating.

3. Create your video. Make sure that the video is horizontal (like a movie). And keep it between 2 – 5 minutes.

4. Upload your completed video to YouTube or Facebook, and then share/post the video on our FaceBook Page.

5. We’ll stop accepting new entries on June 5. Winners will be announced on June 7

We’ll be rewarding 3 entries for their creativity. We’ll be giving away 3 iPad Minis to the 3 most interesting entries.

iPad Mini – Up for Grabs

We look forward to your entries. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this article, post a message on our Facebook Page, or send an email to azroy@quickschools.com.

So share with us your experience using QuickSchools. We want to know all about it. We’ll be giving away 3 iPad Minis to the most creative responses! Here’s what we’re thinking:

Put together a short 2 – 5 minute video about your experience using QuickSchools. You can describe any aspect of your experience, like how you use QuickSchools on a daily basis, or how QuickSchools has changed the way you work. Please include the name of the school in your video as well. Then share your video on our Facebook Page.

iPad Mini – Up for Grabs

You should of course get permission of the school and any participants in the video, as we may share your video for promotional purposes. The videos will need to be horizontal (landscape) format. And we’ll be judging videos based on creativity, quality of the video, as well as content.

More details on this initiative will be posted on our blog in the coming days, so keep an eye out for it. And if you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this article. Or you can send an email to azroy@quickschools.com.

QuickSchools Scheduler

Some features of the Scheduling Module:

• You can setup multiple master schedules (but only ONE can be activated at a time).
• You can setup different period structures for different grade levels, via the “Options” button.
• Periods now support distinct start and end times.
• You can setup breaks for Lunch or Recess, which will appear greyed out.
• You can schedule subjects by either clicking on the green “<” icon, or by dragging the orange “S” (for single-period” or “D” (for double-period) icon into an appropriate cell. Unschedule subjects by clicking on the red “>” icon, or by dragging the subject back to the subjects area in the right.
• Right click on a scheduled subject for additional options, like to Unschedule, Pin/Unpin, or to Edit Note.
• When assigning a subject to a cell, the system will warn you of conflicts in other grade levels. The system will re-assign the conflicted subject to another cell, if it is not pinned.
• You can Pin subjects to a cell by right-clicking on the subject, and selecting “Pin” from the dropdown. Pinned subjects are indicated with a green “i” icon.
• Pinned subjects will not be re-assigned when met with a conflict. Cells with conflicted subjects are indicated with a red asterisk (*).
• Once a master schedule is activated, you can view/print a schedule by student, teacher or grade level. Personalized schedule will only contain subjects related to the student, teacher or grade level.

As always, check it out, and let us know what you think.

We’re looking forward to your feedback!

Here’s an example of the Parent Portal Class Discussion screen:

Online Class Discussions for Parents and Students

The Student version of the Class Discussion is very similar to the Parent Portal, except that the student will only see their own subjects. Features for the parent and student versions of Class Discussions include:

• The number of new messages appears on the top right of the portal. Clicking on the number icon will display a summary of new messages. Clicking on a specific message notification will take you to the new message on the “Class Discussions” screen.
• Users can view messages for multiple subjects on the same screen. No need to switch between subjects.
• Users can participate in the discussion by commenting on an existing post, or by posting a new comment to a specific subject.

Teachers on the other hand have a slightly different view:

Online Class Discussions for Teachers

The menu has been renamed to “Class Discussions” (previously “Teacher Pages”) for consistency. Teachers can only view and interact with one subject at a time, to avoid confusion. Once a subject is selected, all related discussion messages will appear below.

Please note that Class Discussion messages are not private one-to-one messages. Private Messaging will be introduced in a future release. Class Discussions are visible to all teachers, students and parents related to that subject / course.

If you do not see the “Class Discussions” menu, contact your school administrator. Only the school administrator can enable the module via the “Features” page.

Do let us know what you think of this new feature. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how this feature can be further improved. We welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Happy posting and commenting!

At QuickSchools, we make it a point to only show you what you need, when you need it. In fact, when you first sign up for a free 30-day trial, you only have 5 menus -  “Getting Started”, “Home”, “Teachers”, “Students” and “Reports”. So where are all the other modules (because you know we have more)? This is where the “Features” page comes in.

QuickSchools Features Page for Administrators

The “Features” page is only available to the school administrator, and it controls modules as well as access to modules. In the beginning, all modules are turned off, and we recommend activating modules one at a time, to ensure all users know how to use a module before rolling out another. For example, you probably want to make sure that teachers are recording grades in the Online Gradebook properly, before rolling out the Parent Portal.

To turn on a module, simply click on the check box next to the module name. As a school administrator, the module should automatically appear on the top navigation bar. Clicking on the “Configure” button will allow you to further refine how the module is configured, as well as who has access to the various parts of the module. Here’s an example of configuring the Attendance module (each module will have different configuration elements):

Configuring the Attendance Module

Note that in this screen, you decide whether attendance is taken once a day, or multiple times a day. You can also decide who can take attendance on behalf of other teachers, and who has the ability to set up multi-period attendance. Access can be assigned to specific users, or to specific roles (as defined under the “School Settings” page).

Other things you can do on the Features page include (1) changing the subscription plan that you’re on, and (2) configuring general settings and access for your account. This includes access to creating new academic terms, as well access to downloading XML back ups. Feel free to explore the settings here.

The bottom line is, we believe in integrated user access. You should not have multiple logins for accessing different parts of the software. Instead, each user will have a single username, and administrators assign access to users for specific modules.

As always, we welcome your thoughts on this. Come chat with us

• We now support Drop Downs (in addition to regular Text Fields)
• You can sort fields
• You can add headers and regular text to organize your custom fields
• You can allow specific users to view and/or edit specific fields
• You can very easily delete and restore fields as well

For right now, the new Custom Fields section is only available in the Teachers module, but we’ll be adding the same Custom Fields section to other modules, like Admissions, Students and Discipline. Here’s a quick rundown of how it works:

The Custom Fields section should initially look like this:

Empty Custom Fields Area

Simply click on the “Add Custom Field” button to add a new field:

Adding a New Custom Field

If you select a dropdown, you can specify the dropdown contents, but putting each selection in its own line.

Adding a Custom Drop Down

Once you save, your custom fields can look like something like this:

Completed Custom Fields

As an administrator, you can click on the field to rename them. Clicking on the “X” will delete the field. If you’re satisfied with the fields, you can remove this edit capability by locking the custom fields. Click on “Configure form” for the advanced options:

Advanced Options via “Configure Form”

The configure button actually offers several features (as mentioned earlier). Just to re-iterate:

• You can sort fields by dragging the 4 dots on the left side.
• You can change the field type, and the drop down options.
• You can control who can view or edit specific fields by role or by specific user
• You can delete fields as well. Deleted fields can also be restored at any time.
• Finally, you can remove the edit capability for field names by locking the form. You can of course unlock it later, if future changes are required.

And that’s it. Let us know what you think about this new feature, and if there’s a particular area where you’d like to see this new addition. We thank you for your feedback and support.

UPDATE May 14, 2013:

The new Custom Fields are now available in Admissions Inquiries. Enjoy!

Adoption of software has always been a difficult problem, for systems in general, especially when there is a wide range of users, each with their own unique skill set and experience. At QuickSchools, we try to simplify the adoption process. So how do we do it?

1 – Keep the application simple

Simplicity is key. We try very hard to simplify the interactions that you have with QuickSchools. For example, entering evaluations for report cards should be intuitive and easy to understand. It should NOT be a string of screens designed to limit data entry errors (but instead creates more work for the user). We’ve learned this lesson, and we’ve incorporated it into our philosophy, so that users can adopt our software quickly and more easily.

2 – Video Tutorials

For parts of the areas that may not be so intuitive, simply because you’re not used to a system, or the process itself is innately complicated, we have video tutorials embedded on the screen. Just sit back, click on play, and let us show you how it works. Videos are also available at http://www.youtube.com/quickschools

In-Screen Tutorial Videos

3 – Online Manuals

For those who prefer to read instructions at your own pace, we also have Online Manuals that can be printed and absorbed off-line. Check it out at http://docs.quickschools.com

QuicKSchools Online Manual

4 – Online Chat Agents

Finally, if you just need a quick answer to a burning question, you can just come chat with us. Our chat agents will do what it takes to get you moving in the right direction. Whether it’s a quick hint, or a detailed step-by-step walk through, our Live Chat agents are there to assist you nights and weekends.

QuickSchools Live Chat Support

5 – Online Demos / Webinars (upon request)

And if all else fails, we can always request for an online demo / webinar to go over the more complicated aspects of the software. We can use GoToMeeting or Join.Me to conduct the online demo / webinar.

The bottom line here is that we offer The Best Customer Support Service, and we’re really proud of it. We try very hard to listen to what our customers want and need. So if you have any difficulty rolling out QuickSchools, just keep the communication lines open, and encourage all your staff to contact us directly when faced with any questions or problems. We’ll get you there.

Chat with us. We’re here for you…

Everyone knows someone and we hope you’ll help recommend us to your friends so that they’ll get to experience the QuickSchools magic! Just enter their info below and we’ll do the rest.

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Step 1: Sign-up for a free 30-day trial

Just fill in a simply form, give your school it’s own URL, and you’re off! Here’s a link to sign-up:

http://www.quickschools.com/quickschools/pricing

Step 2: Test drive a feature

You can’t really test a school system without students and subjects. By clicking on one of the Test Drive features, the system will create test students and test subjects for you, so that you can interact with the software.

QuickSchools Test Drive

If you like what you see, and you’re ready to input your own students, simply click on “Clear Test Data”, and that will remove all the test data related to the test students and test subjects you created.

Clear Test Data

Step 3: Come chat with us

The chat feature is an awesome tool for you and all your staff. Any time, day or night, or even weekends, you can ask our chat agents for support. They’ll set you on the right track, as you’re putting in evaluations into your Gradebook and Report Cards.

QuickSchools Live Chat Support

Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions as well. We welcome them, since we won’t really know what customers really want unless you tell us. We prioritize new features and enhancements based on demand, and at no additional charge. It’s all part of your subscription.

Step 4: Request an Online Demo / Webinar

Still not sure if this is the best solution for you? Then request an Online Demo, and we’ll discuss your requirements in further detail over the phone. We’ll also walk you through the software via screen sharing.

Step 5: Start a subscription

Need more time than the allotted 30 days? Then just start a subscription with the minimum 2 students. You can cancel at any time. And even if school is not in session, there are many advantages to starting a subscription early.

That’s about it. As always, come chat with us if you have any questions.

New QuickSchools Parent Portal Interface

You can now check the status of the student right after logging in. Just click on the appropriate links to view a particular aspect of the student’s status (like Report Cards, Grades, Attendance, or Homework). Or click on “View Complete Record” to get the original tab-based view like before.

We hope you like this new improvement

The first time you sign up for a 30-day QuickSchools trial, you’ll notice that your account is configured for K-12 by default. But you can very easily change your settings to accommodate your particular type of school. Here are some steps to help you get started:

Step 1: Turn on College Level Settings

To turn on the College Level Settings, click on the “Features” link on the top right, and then click on the “Edit Overall Settings” button near the top right:

Turning on College Settings

From there, make sure you check off the “Turn on College Level Settings” check box.

Turning on the College Settings

Once you save, you’ll notice a new “Class Setup” menu along the top. Click there for the next step.

Step 2: Set up your Programs

The “Class Setup” lists out all the grade levels in your school. But for the purposes of your school, you can use this to list out the programs that you offer. Here is an example below:

Setting up Programs via Class Setup

If you don’t have any specific program, you can add something generic like “General”. You will need at least ONE class to continue to the next step, which is under the “Courses” menu.

Step 3: Set up your Courses and Enrollments

Under “Courses” > “Course Setup”, you can create courses for each program. And each course may have several sections or offerings. In the example below, we have the “Electrical Technical” Program that has 3 courses. However, the “Wiring Standards & Practices” course is offered at 2 different times, and a student would only be enrolled in either one of the section, although both are part of the same course.

Setting up Courses / Subjects

Hopefully, this example illustrates one way of organization your programs, courses and sections to suit your needs.

Once you’ve set up your courses, you can enroll specific students into specific courses / sections by clicking on the link under the “Enrollment” column.

Enrolling Students into Courses

Simply search and select a student from the “Enroll Student” box.

Finally, you can use the “Edit” button to change / reassign the course to specific instructors. And know that if need be, you can also assign multiple instructors to the same course section.

Editing Course Info and Assigned Instructors

With subjects and enrollments all configured, you can then continue to use the various other areas of the software, like the gradebook, the report cards, messaging, as well as the student portal, just to name a few.

Please come chat with us if you have any questions.

Here’s an example report card that includes several standards and commentary for subjects being taught to the student:

Sample Primary Report Card

This was created using our readily-available “Family Verbose” report card template. The standards-based evaluations can actually be dropdowns, and they can be customized for each subject via the “Report Cards” > “Subject Specific Criteria” menu (if enabled):

Setting up Subject Specific Criteria

To select this template for your school, simply go to “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” menu, and click on the “Select Template” link:

Changing the Report Card Template

From there, you can choose from a variety of template. Select the one appropriate for your school and marking period (you can use different templates for different marking periods, as well as for different grades):

Selecting a Report Card Template

Finally, if you’re interested in setting up standards for specific subjects, you’ll need to turn on the “Subject-Based Criteria” available at the bottom of the screen:

Turning on the Subject Specific Criteria menu

For more information on how to set up standards in your report card, please come chat with us. You can also check out this article from a previous blog post:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2012/01/28/subject-specific-criteria/

In summary, the QuickSchools Report Cards Module is very versatile, and easy to configure. If you don’t like any of the readily available templates, or if you have trouble deciding which is the best for you, please contact out technical support staff. If you send us a sample of your existing report cards, we can either recommend a template for you, or build you a custom template at no charge. And you can do all this during your 30-day QuickSchools trial, so you’ll know EXACTLY what your report cards will look like before paying a single cent.

Come chat with us today!

Here’s what the screen will look like if you try to activate an empty semester that currently does not contain any subjects:

Activating an Empty Semester

Just click on “Yes, copy subjects”, and the system will automatically re-create subjects that you had setup in the previous semester. If you’d like to manually recreate the subjects for the new semester, then you can simply select “No, just activate empty semester”.

Here’s what the screen will look like if you attempt to activate an empty semester in a future academic year:

Activating New Academic Year

Again, simply click on the appropriate action. The main difference here, is that you will most likely want to promote your students to the next grade level (in additional to copying the subjects). So if you do select, “Yes, copy subjects”, you will be shown an additional message:

Promote Students

After clicking on “OK”, you will be taken to the “Create Year & Semester” screen, where you will be asked to map/control how your students are promoted. You can read more about this feature in the article about creating new academic terms and new gradebooks.

We hope this improvement will work well for all our customers. Please, come chat with us if you have any feedback. We hope to make many more improvements over the coming months.

Download Transcripts in Bulk

Once you’ve downloaded the file transcripts (initially in compressed zip format), you can extract the files into a folder, then select all the files in bulk with your mouse, right-click, and select print. Check out the original post to mass print report cards here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2011/10/20/mass-printing-report-cards/

If you need help, please come chat with us.

Just wanted to quickly share our latest QuickSchools brochure, in line with our recent facelift. Here’s what the brochure looks like:

QuickSchools Brochure

Click here to download a high-res version of our brochure.

Thanks!

We’ve just released our new Private Messaging feature, currently only available for teachers. But we’ll soon roll this out to Parents and Students as well, so that Parents and Students can communicate privately with teachers and other staff. Here’s what it looks like:

Private Messaging for Teachers

Just to recap some of the functionality:

• You can access Private Messages by clicking on the Messages icon on the top right, next to your profile picture
• You can have a private conversation with one or more other individuals (group discussions are supported)
• Your inbox is located on the left side. Unread messages are highlighted in red.

Creating a Group Discussion

And that’s pretty much it. Again, this feature is currently only available for teachers, but we’ll roll it out to the other portals in a future release. Let us know what you think about this, or if you have any suggestions to improve.

Up to now, we’ve designed QuickSchools so that messaging is one-way i.e. via the Parent Portal, from the school to the students/parents.

This year, we will introduce a new messaging capability in QuickSchools so that effective communication can take place between teachers, parents and students. Teachers will be able to connect privately with other teachers and with parents as well. You will see a new Messages icon appearing by your profile picture which will indicate if there are messages waiting for you. Clicking on the icon will take you to the Messages screen where you can see all your messages.

QuickSchools Messages will be released in beta in April this year and we hope this will result in better and more effective communication.

UPDATED Feb 20, 2013:

First version of Private Messaging is now available for teachers:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/02/20/new-private-messaging-between-teachers/

We’ll include parents and students in a future release. Thanks!

Students (and maybe parents too) of the class will then be able to connect through their respective portals and share their thoughts as well. Hopefully, the Teacher Pages feature will encourage discussions and exchange of ideas that ultimately enhances the classroom learning experience.

We are very excited about this new feature and we’ll share more details once the feature’s released.

UPDATED May 3, 2013:

The Teacher Pages module had been released, but it has been renamed to “Class Discussions”. We will be posting it on our blog in the next few days. You can turn it on via the “Features” page. Let us know what you think about it.

UPDATED May 6, 2013:

Online Class Discussions now LIVE!

http://blog.quickschools.com/2013/05/06/online-class-discussions/

• Updated Gradebook Module
• Family Billing and Online Payments
• Online Manuals
• In-Screen Tutorial Videos
• Updated Transcripts Module
• Parent Message Board

Under development and soon to be released:

• Subject-based Discussions (like the Teacher Lounge and Parent Message Board, but for subjects)
• Portal Messaging (ability to send messages to other users via the portal)

With that said, all schools have now been moved to the new HTML5 interface. Just take note that this new version of QuickSchools does not run on Internet Explorer 8 or below. You’ll need to upgrade to at least Internet Explorer 9. However, we highly recommend Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

If you have any problems, please come chat with us.

This means, that schools no longer need to adjust their tuition fees, to take into account the cost of the online transactions. Instead, the cost of the online transactions can be passed along to the parent as a convenience fee. Parents can still opt to pay by other means, to avoid the online payment convenience fees, but they’ll always have the option of paying online.

To turn on this option, just go to the “Features” page, and click on the “Configure” link next to the “Fees Tracking” module. A section of the pop-up will look like this:

Pass Online Payment Transaction Fees to Parent

Just make sure you have the appropriate boxes checked, and when parents come online to view their bills, they’ll see the following option:

Parents can pay online with transaction fees

We hope you like this new addition, and we look forward to more comments and feedback. To learn more about our Online Payments module, please check out our original post here.

Online Manual Help Link

One of the nice things about our new Online Manuals is that not only can you print specific sections, but you can also add/discuss comments. Our copy writers will then incorporate comments into future revisions of the Online Manuals:

QuicKSchools Online Manual

Please note that the Online Manual is just another resource available to you. Please continue to use our Online Live Chat for questions. We will continue to post tips and best practices, as well as new feature announcements on our blog. So be sure to visit regularly. All videos on our application, blog and online manuals should also be available on our YouTube channel as well.

Here’s our current list of available resources:

• Online Manual – http://docs.quickschools.com
• In-Screen Video Tutorials
• Website – http://www.quickschools.com
• Blog – http://blog.quickschools.com
• YouTube Channel – http://www.youtube.com/quickschools
• Online Live Chat

Here’s an example of what the transcript might look like:

Sample Transcript

Notice that this template also supports the Weighted GPA discussed in a previous article.

To setup this transcript, you will need to perform/verify the following:

1 – New Semester Setup > View All Semesters

This template assumes that you have 4 quarters set up per year (and not 2 semesters). Each quarter will have its own gradebook, and the system will average the final grade for 2 quarters to get the semester grade. Make sure the academic terms are in sequence, based on the start and end dates of the term.

New Semester Setup

2 – Transcripts > Transcripts Configuration

You will need to select “Year-based” for this to work. The system will then group the first 2, and the last 2 quarters configured under “View All Semesters” to calculate the semester grade.

Transcript Configuration

3 – Transcripts > Transcript Selection

Go ahead and select the “Consolidated 2-Column Transcript” template, and configure/customize the parameters to your liking.

Transcript Selection

When you’re done, you can go to “Transcripts” > “Transcripts” and view a transcript record for a student. The completed format should be similar to the one we showed above.

Good luck. And as always, if you need help, come chat with us!

In-Screen Tutorial Videos

We’ll be introducing more videos for all our screens as we go. Let us know what you think, of if you’d like tutorial videos to appear for specific screens. Online Manuals are coming soon as well.

With the winter break coming to an end, you may want to create a new academic term in your QuickSchools account. Be sure to copy over the subjects from the previous term into the new academic term (for those that need to). You can read more about setting up the new academic term (along with new gradebooks) here:

http://blog.quickschools.com/2011/10/28/creating-new-academic-terms-and-new-gradebooks/

As always, if you need help, come chat with us. Happy holidays!

Similar to the Report Cards configuration, here’s what the configuration widget looks like when configuring a transcript that supports weighted GPA:

Transcript Configuration options for Weighted GPA

Simply select how you want to weigh Honors and Advanced Placement subjects, and the corresponding section will appear in your transcript. Here’s an example of what the transcript will looking using our “Basic Transcript” template:

Sample Transcript with Weighted GPA

I should re-iterate again that the weights are applied based on the subject name, as described in the configuration options. Just make sure that the subject name contains one of the listed keywords, like “Honors” or “(HON)” or “(AP)”. Keywords are case-sensitive.

You can now post files and pictures directly onto the Parent Message Board (as well as on the Teacher Lounge). Thumbnails will automatically be created for pictures, so that you can see them on screen. And clicking on the thumbnail will pop up the full image. Check it out!

Post Pictures and Files on QuickSchools

We’ll keep you posted with more improvements coming up.

Setting Country Code for Mass Parent Messaging

The default is set to +1 for the United States and Canada. Simply change it to the appropriate code (with the PLUS sign in front), and click save. And all phone numbers without a plus sign in front will use the default country code you’ve specified.

If you need to send a message to a parent outside your default country code, simply type in the full phone number, with the plus sign and the country code in the front, into the phone number field. The system will not use the default country code setting if you specify the plus sign in the phone field.

Please share your feedback with us any time via chat

Change the Currency on the Fees Tracking module

Simply change the currency symbol and save. Voila! This improvement is only available in the new HTML5 version, so be sure to upgrade if you haven’t done so already. And keep a look for more cool features to come.

Want a cool new feature? Tell us about it, and we’ll cross reference it with what other schools are asking for. High-demand features are prioritized higher in our engineering queue. We’d love to hear your feedback.

1. Online Payments: Schools in North America can now offer parents to pay online via the Parent Portal.
2. Family Billing: Schools can now charge multiple students to a single parent

Both features are part of the “Fee Tracking” module, available on all our plans. To turn it on, just go to “Features” page, and click on the “Configure” button next to the “Fee Tracking” module. You should see a screen like this. Simply check the appropriate boxes, and save:

Enable / Configure Fee Tracking from the Features page

Online Payments

For online payments, we use a service called Stripe.com. You’ll need to sign up for an account, from the newly activated “Parent Payments” page:

Parent Payments using Stripe

Once you’ve entered your bank details, payments by parents will automatically be deposited into your account. Here’s what parents will see from their Parent Portal:

Parent Portal with Online Payments enabled

Some other features to note, you can use Stripe to perform full and partial refunds, handle disputes and payment failures. On occasion, you may need to synchronize transactions between Stripe and your QuickSchools account, but this process is fairly easy.

Please note that Stripe currently only works in the US and Canada (they may expand to other areas soon). They also accept USD and CAD currencies for US and Canadian banks.

Also note that all transactions incur a service charge. Please check your “Parent Payments” page for more info.

Family Billing

Once family billing is turned on, you’ll need to set the Primary Payer for each student. This is done from the student record. And so you may have multiple students linked to the same Primary Payer:

Primary Payer for Family Billing in Student record

From there, the Fee Tracking module will be modified such that you can apply charges and payments to specific families (in this case, primary payer), and then allocate amounts to specific students as well:

Fee Tracking with Family Billing

Anyway, please feel free to try these out, and come chat with us if you have any questions. We’ll be publishing Online Manuals for these very soon as well.

Teachers “Home” page after logging in

We’re very anxious to get feedback on this before we push it live to all our customers. Please let us know you think. If you’d like to try out this new look-and-feel, please come chat with out of our agents. Here are some more screenshots (click to enlarge):

Report Cards Listing

Configuration Options under “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” for select templates

Simply select how you want to weigh Honors and Advanced Placement subjects, and the corresponding section will appear in your report card. Here’s an example of what the report card will looking using our “Contemporary Quarters” template:

“Contemporary Quarters” report card with Weighted GPA enabled

Notice that the Weighted GPA calculation is different from the typical GPA. You can also re-label the text that appears here to suit your needs, by clicking on the “Customize Template” link available on the “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” menu.

Finally, I should mention that the weights are applied based on the subject name, as described in the configuration options. Just make sure that the subject name contains one of the listed keywords, like “Honors” or “(HON)” or “(AP)”. Keywords are case-sensitive.

If you see a report card template that you like, but it doesn’t have the weighted GPA section that you need, come chat with us, and we may be able to add it in for you.

As always, let us know what you think. Or come chat with us anytime with questions.

12 PM EST – Looks like Zopim has restored partial access to Live Chats. So we can take support chat requests for the time being. We’ll keep you updated when full service is restored.

Thanks!

11 AM EST – So apparently our Live Chat Provider, zopim.com, is effected by Hurricane Sandy in New York. And so our Live Chat support is temporarily down. We’ll update this blog post once it’s up again. In the meantime, please feel free to email support questions to support@quickschools.com, and we’ll respond as best we can. Here’s a link to the Zopim blog for the latest updates:

https://blog.zopim.com/

Thank you for your patience.

Expect more video tutorials to be released soon. They will be integrated with our new Online Manuals which we’ll be announcing soon too. Although our Live Chat agents will be more than happy to walk you through the more involving parts of the software, users will soon be able to peruse through our Online Manuals as well. Please keep a look out for its release.

There are basically 2 options available to you:

1 – Gradebook Progress Reports

If you’re already using the QuickSchools gradebook, and you simply want to print out a snapshot of all gradebook entries, you can open up the student record, and go to the “Gradebook” tab. This tab displays all current gradebook entries for the student:

Gradebook Tab on Student Record

On the right side of that screen, there is a link to view/download the gradebook entries as a PDF. Here’s what the PDF might look like:

PDF of Gradebook Entries for Student

Note here that the Gradebook PDF currently ONLY displays the numerical marks that were entered into the Gradebook. If you wish to supplement your assessments with comments or other grading criteria/standards, you’ll need to use the Report Cards module discussed below.

2 – Progress Reports / Mid-Terms using the Report Cards module

Creating a Progress Report using the Report Cards module is just like creating a regular report card. Go to “Report Cards” > “Setup Report Cards” and click on the “Create New” link. The following pop-up will appear:

Creating Progress Reports using the Report Cards module

Give the marking period a name. The name of the marking period will typically appear in the printed progress report, so use something descriptive like “2012/2013 1^St Quarter Progress Report”. If you’ve created a progress report before, be sure to select the previous progress report from the “Copy Setup From” dropdown, so that the new progress report will be pre-configured based on your previous progress report settings. Once you click “OK”, your new progress report will be created. If this is your first progress report, feel free to select a report card template, and configure your progress report appropriately.

How do I control what subjects appear in a student’s report card?

There are essentially 2 mechanisms for controlling which subjects appear in a students report cards:

1 – Enrolling Student into Subjects

A student report card will only display subjects that a student is enrolled in. So to enroll (or unenroll) a student, simply go to the “Subjects” > “Subject Enrollment” screen, and make sure that the student’s name is checked for the corresponding subject. Students can also be enrolled in subjects from a different grade level. Note here that enrolling a student into a subject means that the students name will also appear in the gradebook and subject-based attendance.

Enrolling Students into Subjects

2 – Hiding Subjects from the Student Report Card

There are some instances where the student is validly enrolled in a subject, perhaps for subject-based attendance, but the subject itself is not graded, and should not appear in the report card. In these cases, you can open up the report card under the main “Report Cards” > “Report Cards” menu for that student, click on the subject until a pop-up appears, and then click on one of the “Hide subject” options:

Hiding Subjects from Report Cards

You can hide subjects for the specific student, or for all students enrolled in that class. Hidden subjects will appear at the bottom of the report cards, and clicking on the subject will unhide the subject from the report card.

Unhide Subjects from Report Cards

If you need further help with this, please come chat with us.

Every state has its own reporting requirements that change from year to year. We can work with individual schools to get this reporting requirement squared off. As an example, here we discuss our recent state reporting implementation for Pennsylvania called PIMS.

All of the customization discussed below is done by our technical staff, once we receive the reporting requirements from the school.

STEP 1: Customize a student tab for state required fields:

Custom Student Tab for State Reporting

As you can see, we can create custom fields in the form of text fields, check boxes, radio buttons and even dropdowns. The dropdowns are especially helpful, if you want to select something descriptive, but output a short code for the report. For example, the dropdown may say “A – Adult” but the state report will only show “A”.

Once the custom tab is ready, the school can start storing information about the student, which would then be reported to the state. But how do we get the saved student data into a reportable format?

STEP 2: Customize a report with all state required fields and formatted columns:

The next step is to create a custom report, which will appear in the “Reports” module. Clicking “View” will produce an on screen report on your browser, while “Excel” will export to Excel:

Custom Report for State Reporting

Your state report may require empty fields in specific columns. We can create those as well. Some generated fields (that are not stored in the custom tab) will appear outside the formatted area, and would need to be moved around. Here’s what the browser-based report may look like:

Custom Report for State Reporting

Once you’re satisfied with the basic report, you can export it to excel and perform further manipulation, to move columns around etc. Excel is the most versatile medium for quick data manipulation, for just this sort of thing. And you can also save your Excel file into other formats, like CSV or Flat Files, depending on the state.

If state reporting requirements are important to you, please chat with us about it. We look forward to any feedback you may have as well.

I’m loving it!

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.

Unlocking Report Cards

When a report card is unlocked, the report cards will retain all evaluations that were previously published. This means that if the gradebook was recently updated, changes in the final grade calculation in the gradebook will not be reflected in the report card. If you mouse over the marks in the report card, you will see what the locked values are, and what the most recent values are from the gradebook. You would then manually edit the marks / grades in the report card, if desired.

One thing to note though, if the report cards have been locked before then it has been published. And parents will continue to have access to the unlocked report cards, while you edit them.

Activating and Deactivating Report Cards

If for some reason, you want to disallow a parent from viewing a report card, regardless of whether the report card session is locked / unlocked, you can click on the “Deactivate” button for a particular report card. Deactivated report cards can still be edited and worked on. Once you’re ready to enable the report card again, simply click on the “Activate” link.

Activating / Deactivating Report Cards

IMPORTANT: Creating a new Report Card session LOCKS previous report cards

One final note, when you create a new report card session, the system assumes that previous report card sessions are completed. And so previous report card sessions will be locked / published. It is for this reason that we recommend you only create new report card sessions after you have completed any existing report card sessions.

Locking/publishing a report card prematurely not only means that parents can view the report cards before they are technically done, but if you’re using the gradebook, the report cards will take a snapshot of them for display right away.

If you do need to create report sessions in advance, or if you’d like to clear the locked values in a report card (grab the latest gradebook data), come chat with us, and we’ll see what we can do for you.

The new website project pretty much came out of the blue. We had commissioned our designer to have a go at coming up with some new designs. The early mock-ups struck a cord with everyone and the rest, as they say, was history. Below are images of our previous website and the 2 initial designs that we considered.

After getting feedback from some 40 people, the final design came out as a blend between the 2 versions. We hope you like the new look. Tell us what you think in the comments below – we’d love to hear your views.

I thought I’d mention some new features available on the new HTML5 interface available on QuickSchools. If you’re using the old Flash version, you’ll need to upgrade to HTML5 to get these new features. Here is a screenshot of what the new Gradebook looks like in HTML5 (click to enlarge):

QuickSchools Gradebook on HTML5

New features include:

1. You can now edit grades from previous academic terms
2. You can sort the columns by dragging and dropping the column headers to the appropriate place
3. For those with large screens, there is now a Full Screen View
4. Add public or private comments for specific cells
5. New short cuts to quickly save and add columns (CTRL-S and CTRL-A)
6. Students who have left/graduated will appear in grey at the bottom of the Gradebook

For those of you still getting acquainted with the Gradebook in general, here are some common features that you can already use:

• You can set up your own weights for calculating a final grade (including Extra Credit)
• You can select an existing school-wide grading scale, or set up your own custom scale
• Final Grades automatically transfer to the Report Cards module

Let us know what you think!

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.

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)”).

Gradebook with Extra Credit

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

Formula with Extra Credit

If the “Extra Credit” category is not available to you, you’ll need your school administrator to create it for you. Also, if your gradebook shows an “I” for incomplete, you’ll either need to explicitly assign a zero for Extra Credit, or, you’ll need to get your administrator to turn on Gradebook Normalization for missing categories. If you need help with this, just come chat with us.

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

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:

Parent Portal Module for Administrators

We hope you enjoy this new module. For right now, communication to parents is one-way, and is intended for all parents. In the future, we may be able to post messages to specific groups of parents (perhaps based on the student’s class). Let us know what other improvements you think might be a good additional to this.

New HTML5 Login Page

If not, have your school administrator contact us via chat or email, and we’ll upgrade your account. If you’re a student/parent/teacher who’d like to access the HTML5 version while the school is still on the Flash version, come chat with us, and we’ll give you a special link that will take you to the  HTML5 version of your account.

Here are some advantages of the new HTML5 version over the previous Flash version:

• Runs on the iPad, and other mobile devices
• Updated Gradebook
• Parent Message Board
• Updated Transcripts

New features will be built on the new HTML5 framework, and the previous Flash version will be phased out. Here are some other new features in the pipeline for HTML5

• Parent-Teacher Communication
• Online Payments

We should mention here that the HTML5 version currently does not support Internet Explorer (IE) 8 and below. So you will need at least IE9. But we highly recommend that you try out Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, as these are excellent browsers.

As always, let us know what you think of the new design. More improvements are on the way!

UPDATE: January 31, 2013

We’ve upgraded all remaining schools who were still using the Flash version to the new HTML5 interface. For more information, read here.

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

Here are some highlights:

• Fields can be hidden or renamed (just like the Report Cards). If you need a new field, let us know, and we may be able to add it for you.
• Transcript automatically displays subjects and grades from your gradebooks. These subjects can be hidden or sorted as required.
• Transcripts also support calculated values like Earned Credits and Grade Point Average (GPA).
• You can manually add additional semesters, subjects and grades.
• Additional non-grade sections can be added, hidden or customized. This includes shared (templatized) sections (like Graduation Requirements), as well as student specific sections (like Awards and Accomplishments).

There are a few key differences between the Transcripts and the Report Cards which I’d like to mention:

That’s about it! We have a few templates to choose from. But if you don’t quite see the template you’re looking for, please get in touch with our fine technical support staff, and we’ll see what we can do for you. We look forward to your feedback.

Last week, we posted this amazing infographic on our Facebook page (like us for more cool links and resources, if you haven’t already!). The wonderful team at Teach.com compiled 101 books for the high school level and organized it into a handy, visually appealing graphic. Now this is what I call a summer reading list! Let’s hope they make similar flowcharts for other reading levels too. These could easily attract eyeballs and attention sitting on classroom walls throughout the year.

So here’s to a wonderful summer break. I hope it is both relaxing and productive for everyone. Leave a comment and let us know what you plan on accomplishing during your vacation.

Congratulations on another successful year!

Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online