Happy to Help - Tell Me My Options

Don't we just love the idea of knowing our options? I do. I like to know what I can and can't do when I customize a program, a website, or even my grocery list. I like to know what's available to me and then make my choices.

So when you find yourself working in The Education Edge, have you thought about your options? If you aren't personalizing EE, then you're missing out on some great opportunities to customize the program around your every day program needs.

Where do I access Options?
From any menu bar, select Tools, Options.

What can I do with Options?
With Options, you can customize the look of screens and establish a wide variety of default values. Select the settings that best suit your personal needs, whether you want to open records directly from the Home page or change the color of text appearing in certain grids. The program stores your options in the database, so any workstation you enter with your password uses your settings. Other users are unaffected by your settings in Options. Generally, options specify defaults that help increase the ease and speed of data entry.

Can you give me an example?

• You can choose to open EE in Registrar's Office or Admissions Office and then choose the start page to be Config, Admin, Records, Mail, Dashboards, and more.
• On the Color tab, you can choose the color of your required fields. Want a bright reminder to fill out a required field, try hot pink?!
• On the Records Tab, select Scheduling. For Scheduling options, you can choose to prompt yourself to save if you are changing views. No more accidentally leaving a view and losing data? Hurray!

Tell me more!
Certainly. On the Education Edge User Guides page, open the Program Basics Guide, and read the Options chapter.

If you have a story of how you're using Options to improve your work processes, we'd love for you to share it in the comments.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Fixing Fee Schedules

Tis the season for fixing fee schedules. Okay, so it is not like the holiday season (in many ways) or something that only happens once a year; I was trying to come up with something catchy. In reality, correcting fee schedules is not a barrel of laughs but something we all must do from time to time so I thought it would be a good topic to cover.

If the fee schedule is partially or fully generated and the new amount of the schedule is less than the generated activity, delete the generated charges until the generated amount is less than or equal to the new scheduled amount. Once this is done or if the schedule has not been generated:

1. Open the student's record and select the Activity tab.
2. Select Scheduled Activity from the view drop-down menu .
3. Highlight the appropriate schedule and click Open.
4. Select the Billing Schedule tab and enter the correct amount.
5. Select the Schedule tab and click Modify Schedule.
6. Enter the correct information for the scheduled amounts:
   1. Change the frequency and number, if needed.
   2. Change the dates and amounts.
   3. Click Distribute evenly to re-distribute the amounts evenly.
   4. Click Load Schedule to select a default schedule.
   5. Click OK when the remaining amount is 0.00 and you have finished editing the schedule.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Movin' on Up

Your students have worked hard this year and deserve to move to the next grade or graduate.  The process of promoting students varies based on whether or not Registrar’s Office is installed.  If you use RO, students are promoted using the End of Year Processing Wizard (BB140968) in RO Administration. If you do not have RO installed, students are promoted though SB Administration. Here's how:

1. In Administration, select Promote students.
2. On the General tab, select a Billing status to use for returning students.
3. On the General tab, mark the Update graduating students box to update the records of students who will graduate. In the fields below, select a billing status, enrollment status, graduation date, date enrolled to date, and reason left for the graduating students. To update the Grade left field to the grade of the student before graduating, mark Update grade left.
4. Mark the checkboxes to Create an exception query, an output query, and a control report if desired.
5. On the Filters tab and select any appropriate filters to filter the records included in the processing.
   Note: Bill codes selected must apply to the current date to be included.
6. Select the Attributes tab.
• In the Action column, you can select to add, update, or delete attributes for students when you promote them.
• In the Attribute Type column, select an attribute type.
• In the Description column, enter or select a description for the attribute type. If you selected a table type attribute that uses short descriptions, you select the attribute description in the Short Description column.
• In the Date column, enter the date you add the attribute or another date relevant to the attribute.
• If the attribute is required, the checkbox is marked in the Required column.
• In the Comments column, enter any additional information about the attribute.
7. On the Preview tab, verify that the students listed are correct and unmark the box for records that should not be included.
8. Click Preprocessing Report to review the changes in a report format before processing.
9. If the information is correct, click Process Now.

Note: If the Preprocessing Report is not correct, open the Promotion Schedule in Configuration and make sure it is set up correctly.
10. Click Close to close the Promote Students Complete form and the control report appears

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Add and Copy Bill Codes

As you prepare for the next school year, part of the process is to add or copy bill codes to records.  If you are new to SB 7, bill codes link billing fees with records. When transactions are automatically generated, the bill code is matched to the bill code defined on the billing item to determine which records receive the charges. When you use bill codes, only the bill code needs to be added to the record.

The first thing you want to do before globally changing or adding records is to make sure you have a valid backup of your database.  This is strongly recommended because the only way to reverse a global process is to either manually correct each record or restore to a backup.

Once you have your backup, you're ready to get started. In Administration, click Add, Copy, or Delete bill codes. In the Action field, select Add Bill Codes or Copy Bill Codes. You will notice the screen will change based on the action selected.

Select the appropriate options and click Preprocessing Report. This report lists the records that the bill codes will be added or copied to. Review the report to ensure the correct records and bill codes are listed. If the report is correct, click Add Now or Copy Now.

For step by step instructions, take a look at Knowledgebase solutions BB246842 (How to add bill codes) and BB230264 (How to copy bill codes).

 Happy billing.  Talk to you soon!

Scooby Doo! Where Are My Grades and Comments?

After printing Johnny’s report card, you realize his grades and comments from Geometry are missing. Before you call the Mystery Machine crew to investigate, grab a Scooby Snack and search your database for these clues: 

• Make sure your grades and comments are posted from Faculty Access for the Web. If you can’t see the grades and comments in Enter Grades by Student, they won’t be on the report card.
  
• In Grades, make sure the Print Grade on Report Cards and Print Comments on Report Cards checkboxes are marked. These checkboxes are available for each marking column, so look through all of them.
  
• If the entire course is missing from the report card, mark the Print this course on Report cards checkbox on the Grading tab of the Course record.
  
• In the Report Card Parameters, select the Comments tab within the Courses section and mark the marking columns. While you’re at it, stop by the Columns tab and ensure you’ve included the appropriate columns.

Jinkies!  I think you’ve solved the mystery! Johnny would have gotten away with a failing Geometry grade if it weren’t for your sleuthing! Need more step-by-step information? Refer to Knowledgebase solution BB189896.

Happy to Help - Top 5 Places to Use F1

5. Dashboard. Because, I just love them to little pieces. We all want to create pretty little charts to see our data don't we?

4. Configuration > Registrar Setup > Patterns > New Pattern screen. Wow, I don't know how educators do it. I remember as a kid being amazed at how schools magically created schedules that had us rotating around the building in perfect synchronization. Now I learn you can actually do things like Patterns to help you schedule classes. So magic is involved but it's not such a mystery to me now.

3. Mail > Report Cards > New Report Card. Something about getting a report card at the end of the semester brings back some happy memories for me. And, if you're not creating them and sending them out on time, you get a lot of cranky parents and students, don't you? That's why I love F1 here. You can learn more about report cards and the many ways you can tailor it to your schools needs. I highly recommend the Report Card Sections because it can help you decide what to include.

2. Attendance > Globally add attendance. Of the many ways to globally do things in the program why did I choose attendance? Well because all I could think about is high school and our Senior Skip Day. Not that any of your students would do that. But, if they did, you could globally add an unexcused absence to all your seniors. Just when you thought you'd be spending all day adding attendance information, now you're thinking of creative ways to punish them for skipping.

1. Any Records screen. I was sorely tempted to put something here that went directly to documentation I had written or to say everywhere else in the program. But, that'd be a little biased of me and I'm nothing if not fair . However, I do have to say that any of the screens in Records are a great opportunity to hit F1. With so many ways to capture information about your students, faculty, staff, parents, rooms, and more it's important to make sure you're using the software to make your life easier. F1 can help you identify what every field is for and how your organization can use it.

Is your curiosity piqued yet? I dare you to go hit F1 on your keyboard for any of my top five. Better yet, what are your favorite places to get a little help from your friends at the Documentation team?

Why are the Homeroom Teacher, Homeroom, and Advisor Fields Grayed Out?

1. In Configuration, click Business Rules and highlight Students.
2. Look at the business rule, When displaying and updating advisor, homeroom teacher, and homeroom, and the current date is not within an academic year, display and update...
   
   
   • If you selected the next year's student progression entry, the advisor, homeroom, and homeroom teacher from the upcoming year's student progression entry displays on the student's record. If this option is selected and the fields are still grayed out, add a student progression entry (BB136344) for the upcoming academic year.
     
     
   • If you selected no student progression entry, the advisor, homeroom teacher, or homeroom grays out until the first day of the upcoming academic year, whether or not the student has a progression entry.

Regardless of your business rule setting, you can always update a student's progression entry by clicking the stairs icon on the record, or selecting Student, Student Progression from the record's action bar.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Top Questions for May

Each month we keep track of the top Student Billing questions you ask.  Here are the Student Billing questions you asked in May and April.

May

• No invoices show as available to apply to a payment: BB111867
• How to generate transactions automatically: BB203516
• How to use advance deposits: BB210506
• How to reconcile subsidiary ledgers to the General Ledger: BB3358
• Queries including Record Balance process slowly: BB460197
• How to troubleshoot Automatic Transaction Generation: BB257912
• How to void a posted payment: BB113811

April

• How to generate transactions automatically: BB203516
• No invoices show as available to apply to a payment: BB111867
• How to void a posted payment: BB113811
• How to add transactions to a group: BB203392
• How to reconcile subsidiary ledgers to the General Ledger: BB3358
• Payments and credits applied, then unapplied to advance deposits do not reverse their posted application: BB349172

Talk to you soon!