The Book Bag : Registrar's Office

Report Cards 101

Katie Infinger — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:36:00 GMT

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!

Tracking Changes in Student Schedules

Katie Infinger — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:18:00 GMT

It's the beginning of the school year, so you're probably dropping, withdrawing, and transferring lots of students from classes. You can easily track these schedule adjustments so you know what's going on around you.

You'll need to set up the Academic year dates to track changes. In Configuration, open the session in the academic year, and mark the Track schedule changes beginning on checkbox and enter a starting date, which will probably be a date after you've completed student schedules, otherwise your reports could get long. After the tracking start date arrives, a ninja in your database will record schedule changes.

If you want to see the changes, just run the Drop/Add Report and you'll have all the information you need.

Ensure Your Attendance Cycle Days are Correct After Labor Day

Katie Infinger — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:13:00 GMT

If school is out on Labor Day, ensure your attendance days will be correct when you return by skipping Labor Day on the Configuration scheduling calendar.

When you add a date on the Scheduling Calendar tab of the Academic Year, you are prompted to add the dates to the Session Scheduling Calendar. When you click Yes, you are prompted to mark those dates as in session or skip them. If you mark In Session, the cycle days will remain in order and you can enter attendance for those dates; an example would be Awards Day when classes are still meeting. If you mark the Skip? checkbox, the next date in session starts with the cycle day of the skipped date. If you do not mark either of those checkboxes, the schedule will resume as usual.

For example, if classes are out for Labor Day, enter September 7 on your scheduling calendar. If you want Tuesday's schedule to resume as usual, leave the Skip? checkbox unmarked. If you want the attendance cycle for Monday to meet on the Tuesday, mark the Skip? checkbox.

An easy way to double check your cycle is to click the Calendar icon in the session's Calendar. You'll see each cycle day listed beside the date.

If you return from Labor Day and your attendance dates are off, you can still reset the cycle days. In the Date column, enter the date to set as an exception to the cycle sequence. For example, if Labor Day was entered, enter the first day back to class as your exception date. Mark the In Session checkbox. In the Cycle Day column, select the new cycle day for the date. This resets the sequence of subsequent dates in the scheduling calendar.

Note: If attendance entries exist for the reset date or dates afterward, you will receive the message "Error: Attendance already exists on or after this date and Scheduling calendar entries cannot be created, changed, or deleted". Refer to Knowledgebase solution BB193070 for steps to resolve the message.

It's not too late to skip cycle days for your future holidays.

Stop, Drop, Withdraw, or Transfer

Katie Infinger — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:20:00 GMT

Do you have students who want to switch sections of the same class or move from one course to another course? Which option will keep grades and attendance with the students' records? Let's take a look at the differences in dropping, withdrawing, and transferring students:

Drop deletes the student's enrollment in the class, deletes the student's grading and attendance information for the class, and omits the class from report cards and transcripts.
Withdraw retains a record of the student's enrollment in the class, retains the student's grading and attendance information for the class, and includes the class on report cards and transcripts.
Transfer moves a student between sections of the same course.

You can drop, withdraw, or transfer students using Edit Student Schedules. On the Scheduling page, click Edit student schedules and open the student.

To Drop or Withdraw the student — In the Class column, select the blank. You'll get a prompt saying you can drop or withdraw the student. Click Drop or Withdraw. If you receive the prompt the student will be dropped, check the withdrawal date on the term (BB145859).
To Transfer the student — In the Class column, select a new section. If you transfer a student to a new section within a term, only the new class ID and teacher name appear in the row for the course on report cards. If you transfer a student to a new section across terms (for example, Madelyn is in section 2 of Earth Science in Fall and section 5 of Earth Science in Spring) and print report cards for both terms, both class IDs and teacher names appear in the row for the course on report cards.

Knowledgebase solution BB134926 contains even more information and steps. Not sure of what happens when you drop, withdraw, or transfer a student? Review How to determine whether to withdraw, drop, or transfer a student, which has an awesome reference chart.

Integration Insight: Oh Records Where Art Thou?

Allison Davis — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:06:00 GMT

You open the linking grid and particular records are missing. Perhaps no Students appear in the linking grid or only records you linked previously appear in the linking grid. Why does this happen? There are a few factors that determine which records appear in the linking grid:

1. Integration Setup

In Set up Integration, let’s say you selected to include students with a particular status and/or grade level. You may need to cross-reference the student’s Education Edge record with your selection in the Students section of Set up Integration with The Raiser's Edge to see if the Student meets the criteria to be included in the linking grid. The same is true for Individuals who are relationships to students.

2. Filters in the Linking Grid

The Filters Button in the Linking grid is the most common culprit. Sometimes users will select particular record types to show only Faculty or only Students in the Linking Grid. When a different user looks at the linking grid, he may wonder why certain records are missing.

3. Drop-downs in the Linking Grid

Add As - In the Add As field, you can filter by Constituent or Nonconstituent if The Education Edge is the record source. If The Raiser's Edge is the record source, you can filter by Individual or Organization.

Matches - In the Matches field, you can select to show records in the grid based on matching status:

<All> - Shows all records regardless of matching status.
Any Match - Shows only records that are matched to a record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
All Unmatched Records - Shows only records that are not matched to a record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
All Unlinked Records - Shows only records not linked to a record in the target database.
Linked - Shows only records that are linked to a record in the target database.
Match - Shows only records that are matched to a single record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
Multiple Match - Shows only records that are matched to multiple records in the target database based on your matching criteria.
Academy Manager Match - Shows only records with an Academy ID that matches an Academy ID on a record in the target database.

Conflicts- In the Conflicts field, you can select to show records in the grid based on conflicts:

<All> - Shows all records regardless of conflicts.
Data Conflict - Shows only records with different values in mapped fields.
Multiple EE Match - Shows only records with more than one matching record in the Education Edge database.
Multiple RE Match - Shows only records with more than one matching record in the Raiser’s Edge database.
Multiple Address Matches - Shows only matching records with multiple address matches.
<None> - Shows only records without conflicts

Tracking Student Activities

Katie Infinger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:22:00 GMT

School may be out, but that doesn't mean you aren't keeping up with your students' summer activities. If your students participate in community service programs such as camps and community cleanup, you may want to track this information and add it to their transcripts.

In Records, open a student and select the Activities tab. Notice the current academic year defaults in the upper right corner. You can change the default year display to either All Years, Current Year, or Next Year.

Enter the Category and the Activity. As an example, a category would be Community Service and an activity would be Key Club. You can also enter the date of the activity, comments, and ratings. To include the activity on report cards or transcripts, just mark the appropriate checkboxes. When you run the report card or transcript, you can include the activity with the Summary/Notes tab.

Run the Activities report to see the students who participated in specific activities or to get a listing of the activities on a student's record. You can also show activities on the Student Profile report.

What community programs do your students participate in over the summer? Leave a comment!

School's Out for Summer - What Do You Do?

Katie Infinger — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:50:00 GMT

Want to get a ahead on the 2009-2010 year? Take a moment to review this list. We’ll cover many of these in more detail down the road.

Take a good look at your Academic Year in Configuration. Ensure the correct marking column set is associated with your session, check the starting and ending dates on the terms, and enter your scheduling calendar so your attendance cycle days are correct for the whole year.
Ensure the first cycle day is correct on the academic year terms. If the starting cycle day is wrong, the cycle days in attendance will be off for the entire term.
Refresh yourself on drop, withdraw, and transfer (BB134926). Be sure to enter a withdraw date on the term so you can withdraw students from classes instead of dropping them.
Activate (BB386252) the new Academic Year and marking columns in Faculty Access for the Web. Your faculty can get started entering assignments.
Learn the Walk-In Scheduler (BB146715). Even if your students are scheduled, you may get some last-minute change requests or a few new students.

Do you have some other helpful tips that will help prepare for the new year? Leave a comment!

Printing GPAs on Report Cards

Katie Infinger — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:53:00 GMT

GPAs is a requirement on most schools' report cards. You can customize your report cards by printing GPAs in a variety of places. Please note although I'm referencing report cards in this post, everything is the same for transcripts.

The Details tab: When you add a GPA section to the Details tab, the GPAs print under students' grades. The marking columns selected in the Courses section determine the marking columns for the GPAs.
The Summary/Notes tab: When you add the GPA column to the Academic Summary section on the Summary/Notes tab, you can select to print GPAs on the right and bottom of the report card. The GPA is not dependent on the marking columns selected in the Course section on the Details tab.

The Header: The report card header is a good place to quickly spot students' overall progress. You can print only the cumulative GPA in the header.

Missing GPA Troubleshooting Tips:

Check the GPA in Grades, if it's not under the marking column selected in your report card parameter, run calculations for that marking column.
Check the report card parameters to see if you've selected the appropriate GPA type and calculation. For example, if you run only Unweighted GPAs and have selected Weighted GPAs on the report card, you can't expect the Unweighted GPA to display.
If you are printing the cumulative GPA in the header, try adjusting the header's label width in the Format section.
Delete the GPA section on the report card and re-add it

If the GPA is printing, but is incorrect, check the GPA in Grades. If the GPA isn't correct in Grades, troubleshoot it.

Have any other tips for missing GPAs on report cards? Add a comment!

The Masters of the Scheduling Universe: Part 2 - Scheduling Students

Katie Infinger — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Back at the Royal Palace Academy Registrar's Office, the master schedule is complete. Prince Adam is working on scheduling students based on the course requests entered online. The next step, according to the Scheduling Checklist, is to generate student schedules. Once again, Prince Adam shoves his desk chair aside, raises his sword aloft, and shouts, "By the power of Greyskull!" He-Man is ready to enroll students in classes.

It's a good thing He-Man uses Generate Student Schedules to automatically schedule students because Skeletor is up to his antics again. He clicks Scheduling to set up the Generate Student Schedule parameter. On the General 1 tab, he marks to save a copy of the scheduling scenario before and after processing and creates an output query of students with incomplete schedules. On the General 2 and Advanced tabs, he selects the restrictions to override and uses alternate course requests so that Generate Student Schedules will produce the best scheduling results. He filters on the Upper School so he can complete each school's schedule. After clicking Schedule Now, he know processing can take a while, so he leaves to defend Castle Greyskull.

After returning from battle, he realizes there are students with incomplete schedules, so he tweaks the Generate Student Schedule parameter and runs it again. On the General 2 tab, he marks the reschedule current enrollments checkbox, which changes scheduled enrollments to different sections in order to complete more student schedules. Once all the requests are filled, he can fill free periods with Study Hall or another course.

Just as student schedules complete, Man-E-Faces bursts in his office and wants to un-enroll from Shop class and take Ballet. He-Man sighs and opens Edit Student Schedules to adjust Man-E's courses. Saving Man-E's new schedule, he chuckles knowing he'll be changing more student schedules throughout the summer and at the beginning of next year.

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Student Billing 7 vs. Student Billing 6

Sean Long — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:45:00 GMT

Chapter 2: Integrated? What's that?

Possibly the largest difference between version 6 and version 7 is that the software uses one database for all of your education and accounting solutions. So what does this mean to you?

Think of The Education Edge and Student Billing as filing cabinets. In version 6, each department maintained their own filing cabinets with student, parent, and staff files. During the conversion to version 7, an intern reorganizes these files and merges them into one cabinet. You now have one file that every department can open and reference.

In essence, one filing cabinet is what having an integrated database system is about. A unified database cuts down the chance for data corruption, fosters improved communication between departments, and allows for more complex seamless processes. Let's look at some specific examples.

Grade Level - In Student Billing 6, you promoted students independently. In 7, you promote students through the Mark for Reenrollment wizard and End of Year Processing wizard in Registrar's Office.
Financial Aid - In Student Billing 7, Registrar's Office, and to an extent, the Admissions Office, all play roles gathering information to help you award financial aid. This is handled on the record's Financial Aid Applications tab.
Biographical Information - All biographical information is shared, so if you enter a parent's new contact number on a Student record in Student Billing, the number is updated on the student's record in Registrar's Office.
Student Progression Entries - In version 6, there was no way to easily tell the grade a student was in during a specific year (and it might have been different in Registrar's Office anyway!). In version 7, the same student progression entry is available in Student Billing and Registrar's Office.
Enrollment information - The student's enrollment status in Student Billing matches up with the student's current status in Registrar's Office.

Have other examples? Leave a comment!

Integration Insight: New Features Part 3

Allison Davis — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:12:00 GMT

You are working in the linking grid and see a record that does not belong, such as a withdrawn student. You right-click on the student’s row and open his Education Edge record, change his status to Withdrawn, and save and close the record. This ineligible record no longer meets the criteria based on your Integration setup, but he remains in the linking grid.

In version 7.78, you can click the Remove Ineligible Records button on the linking grid toolbar to remove these records. The Remove Ineligible Records option only refreshes the grid to remove previously eligible but no longer eligible records that are not matched. Clicking this button will not refresh the data displayed in each column and will not add rows to the grid.

If data changes on matched records to make the matches no longer valid based on the matching criteria, the user will need to manually remove the matches or click Match All Records to recalculate the matches.

Admissions and Registrar's Office Distance Learning Classes

Katie Infinger — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:05:00 GMT

Our courseware developers have been hard at work creating and revamping instructor led distance learning classes for The Education Edge. Head over to the No Travel Required blog to see the list of available classes.

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Favorite Tools

Sean Long — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:11:00 GMT

Three parts of the software are invaluable to me: Query, Export, and Reports.

Query - I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you master queries, you will master the system. There's a great Query Guide you can use to help learn about queries, but here's the short version: A query is used to group records, such as people, charges, credits, courses, classes, applicants, rooms, advance deposits, payments, deposits, or a combination! You can group records by any field you can find on a record (and some fields you won't find easily, like Record Added On date). You can use saved queries in reports, global changes, report cards/transcripts, and in your default searches.
Export - Many of you know how to use export, I'm sure. But do you know that you can perform mail merges directly from Education Edge? And did you know you can export any field, and control for duplication with far more accuracy by using a query to filter records in export? Do you need a list of every student with a second cousin who has missed more than 3 days, their name, shoe size, and nationality? Create a query to find those students, and use it in export to pull that information (you'd have to track Shoe Size as an attribute, though).
Reports - There are over 50 reports in Registrar's Office and 35 in Student Billing. Each report fulfills a specific need. Do you need a list of all the immunizations your 5^th graders have received? Run the Medical Report. Do you need a tally of how many D's and F's Mr. Triangle (the math teacher) gave compared to Mr. Square, who teaches the same course? Run the Grade Analysis Report. What about when you need a list of the Products and Billing Items you're using this year, because you can't remember what 0010 means? Print out a Product and Billing Item List. If you see a report that you aren't familiar with, open it and press F1 to pull up the help file that describes the report!

That was a really high-level review of my three favorite and useful parts of The Education Edge. Have any questions about these? Check out Knowledgebase, the user guides, or post a comment below!

The Masters of the Scheduling Universe

Katie Infinger — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:10:00 GMT

In the Royal Palace Academy Registrar's Office, Prince Adam is working on the schedule. He's already copied course restictions for next academic year, and students have entered their course requests online. The next step, according to the Scheduling Checklist, is to create classes and the master schedule. Prince Adam shoves his desk chair aside, raises his sword aloft, and shouts, "By the power of Grayskull!" He-Man is now ready to conquer scheduling.

If the Master Schedule doesn't change from year to year, He-Man can copy the master schedule to save time (and potentially Castle Grayskull). For each class, he can select to copy meetings, teachers, and rooms. This plan works only if the years being copied from and to have the same session defined, and for each session, the same timetable and terms selected.

In this episode, Royal Palace Academy changed their sessions and timetable for next year, so He-Man must create classes before he can schedule meeting times, rooms, and teachers. If the course restrictions are entered correctly, he can automatically create classes according to those restrictions. Before clicking Create Now in Create Classes, he ensures he has a valid backup and a saved copy of the scheduling scenario.

After creating classes, He-Man automatically schedules meeting times, teachers, and rooms using Generate Master Schedule.

Orko says:
Schedule in layers. Schedule the most important classes, such as senior classes and specialty classes, before scheduling remaining classes. You can manually schedule those classes and then run Generate Master Schedule. Don't mark the Clear checkboxes on the General 2 tab in the Generate Master Schedule parameter or your existing scheduled classes will be deleted. You can also run several rounds of the same Generate Master Schedule parameter to build the schedule by selecting each round's classes in the Filters tab.

Receiving exceptions? Don't worry, it's not Skeletor's attack, it's probably just a setting within your course, room, or teacher record that can be easily adjusted. Check out How to troubleshoot Generate Master Schedule exceptions for details on each exception.

You now have what it takes to defend Castle Grayskull and become the Master of the Scheduling Universe! In our next episode, He-Man conquers scheduling students.

Integration Insight: New Features Part 2

Allison Davis — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:37:00 GMT

Linking records through Integration can be a time-consuming task. It can be difficult to determine if matches are correct in the linking grid because sometimes students and parents happen to have the same names (i.e., Jr. and Sr.). Without opening their respective records, it is difficult to know which record is which. You may even see Multiple EE matches or Multiple RE matches in the Matching Records field because records have similar names.

In version 7.78, you can open and even edit records from the linking grid. In the linking grid in The Raiser's Edge, right-click on a match and open The Education Edge or The Raiser's Edge record.

Here's the open record lowdown:

Once you open the record, you can also edit information on the records such as addresses, relationships, biographical information, applications, enrollments, and history of changes.
If a particular row has multiple matches, the Open option displays the Multiple Matches so you can select the record to open.
You can only open Education Edge records from the linking grid in The Education Edge. We're working on adding functionality to open both Education Edge and Raiser's Edge records from The Education Edge linking grid in a future version.