October 2009 - Posts
Here's your forum post roundup for October:
Your voice counts! Don't forget to vote on our
FAWeb Support Roundtable Topic Poll!
Sometimes the little things make the biggest difference. There are lots of shortcuts in The Education Edge, and after all, those fractions of seconds add up to minutes. Let us look at a few of them:
Export Preview: Use the preview button 
to review the first 15 records included in an export. You should be able to get a good idea if the correct data is going to export from this preview. The few seconds it takes to preview is betting than waiting for hundreds of records to export, opening the file in Excel only to find you forgot to include the last name field.
F3: Press F3 in any date field to automatically enter the current day's date.
Military Time: Enter military time in any time field and it will automatically convert to a.m. or p.m. Plus it's fun to enter 15 o'clock instead of 3:00 p.m.
F7: Press F7 to open a fields' table entry list. Use this to clean up table entries on the fly, and you no longer have to second guess the fields in the table.
Open Records from a Query: Query results aren't just a list of records; double-click the record in the results to open it. If you want to view the next record in the query results while that record is still open, click use the arrow buttons on that record's action bar to scroll through the records.
Selecting a default search field: You may search for a record by the Student ID, while others may search using the last name. Have each user select the default search field on the record screens and open records faster!
User Options: Never underestimate the time saving powers of your user options. Something as simple as setting the page the program opens to can make your day.
Do you have any other shortcuts? Share them by posting a comment!
We're having a Faculty Access for the Web Support Roundtable in early December and want you to help decide the content. We've set up some voting options such as posting to Grades, Supervisor and teacher setup, and comment approval, or you can simply reply to the poll with your own requests. Vote today!
Greetings faithful blog readers!
We recently held a customer round table regarding the fabulous topic of reconciling Student Billing to General Ledger. This was the first of many sessions we hope to hold discussing popular topics in Student Billing. Our support team is working hard to develop these sessions for all products, and to that end, I thought it would be a great idea to gather some feedback on what we developed for the Student Billing session I conducted. Below are links to our FAQ page with the Powerpoint slideshow and the recorded discussion with video screen capture directly from our live session. Check these out!
Student Billing FAQ and Reconciliation Roundtable
I will be adding more reconciliation tips and tricks to future blogs. Tell me what you think about what we have now for Student Billing and keep your ear to the ground on our forums to sign up for future sessions, they have been filling up quickly!
Cheers!
Charles
You don't have to be a graphic designer to create a spiffy report card that will impress your students and their parents. Your design dreams can come true within The Education Edge!
Before logging in, think about your report card's appearance. Do you want multiple columns on the same page? Do you want the school logo included? Should you include attendance and credits? For some inspiration, check out our shared sample report cards on the forums. Have an idea of what you want? Let's hop over to Mail, Forms, open a report card parameter, and get started!
On the General tab, select the basics, i.e., the year to run the report card, the school, the term, and the session. On the bottom of the screen, select the paper size, the orientation, and the text font style and size. Your selections won't override the font already entered in grade comments.
Now let's head to the Details tab to set up the meat of your report card. You select the sections to include such as Academic Summary, Attendance, and Activities.
Let's take a closer look at the Course section because everyone needs one on their report card.
- Highlight the Courses row and click Open to see the treasure chest of tabs!
- On the General tab, there are more formatting options. Select the options you think will look awesome on your report card.
- On the Columns tab, select the columns to display under the courses section. Some good choices are Course Name and Marking Column. After you add the Marking Column column, select the grade format and whether or not to show attempted and awarded credits.
- You can select to print skills, comments, and class notes on the respective tabs.
When you're done with the Courses section, click OK to return to the Details tab where you can add other sections. The available columns and details will depend on your selected section.
Look no further than the Summary Notes tab to include some of the same sections as the Details tab in other areas of the report card such as the right side or the bottom of the page. You can also add freeform notes here, which is great for grading scales or any other information that must be on your report cards. Keep in mind if you choose to print Summary Notes on the bottom: they will print on each page.
Use the Filters tab to select the students and courses to include, the Attributes tab to add, update, or delete student attributes, and the Addresses tab to select the address that will print on the report card.
On the Format tab, you can select the header layout and format the student and teacher names. In the Header section, you can add your school logo image and select the school and student information that displays within the header.
Ready to check out your work? To save time, go back to the Filters tab and select one student to test on. If your previewed report card isn't exactly what you wanted, don't fret; adjust the parameters until you've achieved your vision!
Need tamper resistant paper just in case Caroline tries to erase her F? Check out our selection of forms.
Happy voting everybody!
Lists of Posting from FAWeb barriers
- Overwrite Existing Entries was not marked when posting
- The class is not marked Ready to post
- The posting status can be globally changed (BB555812)
- The process was canceled during the post
- Only the preprocessing report was run instead of the actual post
- The course is marked as no longer offered
- The Student has withdrawn or transferred to a different class
As a side note, you can try creating a new parameter and posting again. A new parameter gives you the opportunity select options again and might bring to light what stopped the grades from posting.
The Student Billing Best Practices Guide has been a long time running and well worth the wait. It provides your with best practice recommendations to enhance tracking, reporting, and data-entry capabilities in Student Billing, and covers effective methods to manage:
- Recordkeeping
- Tuition Billing
- Incidental Billing
- Collections
- Reporting
- Reconciliation
- End-of-Year Processes
- Internal Controls
Keep this guide amongst your most valuable prizes, like the Hope Diamond, Stanley Cup, and Number One Dime.
You've learned how to create a Blackbaud Simple Word Merge. It's pretty simple, eh? Let us take it a step further and look at the Blackbaud Conditional Word Merge. The basic difference between a simple and conditional merge is that a conditional merge generates letters based on a specific field, such as current status, while a simple merge generates the same letter content for everybody. A conditional merge prevents you from having to set up multiple export parameters and create queries to go along with those exports.
For example, let's base a conditional mail merge on status. Applicants with an accepted status receive one letter, waitlisted applicants receive another, and denied applicants receive a third letter.
The conditional merge starts out like the Blackbaud Simple Word Merge, you use a query in an export and select Blackbaud Conditional Word Merge as the format. On the Output tab, you'll select all the merge fields you'll use in the letter, including your conditional field, even if it's not used as a merge field in the letters. In the example above, we'll select Current Status because our letters are dependent on applicants' current status.
To start create your letters, click Conditional merge wizard in the export. You'll see a list of your selected fields. Highlight your conditional field, click Next, and then click New Document. Here's where you set up your condition. In our example, applicants receive a different letter based on their status, so for the first letter, select the condition of equal to, and then select the Accepted status. Enter a description for the letter (hint: Accepted Letter beautifully describes it), and click Edit Merge Document. Enter your letter with the merge fields, click Save and Return to EE7, and then repeat the process until all your letters are entered.
The rest is identical to the Blackbaud Simple Word Merge magic we worked earlier! A la peanut butter sandwiches!