EduTech's PowerSchool Success Blog

Changing Historical Grades

Joshua Ternes — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:27:34 +0000

We get quite a few questions about changing a grade after it is stored. Here is how you do just that!

To change any historical grades for a student
Select the student
Click the Historical grades link on the left menu
Click on the grade letter or “-”
Make necessary changes and click Submit

Simple, but used often.

Improve your PowerTeacher Gradebook Performance!

Janet O'Hara — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:50:49 +0000

As a teacher uses PowerTeacher and PowerTeacher Gradebook, data related to the PowerTeacher session builds up in the browser’s cache. When browsing the internet or using other web applications, data is saved in the browser’s cache. After awhile this buildup of data may cause a slowdown in the GradeBook.

Clear your cache to restore the gradebook to it’s best performance:

Internet Explorer 7

Once your browser is open, press ALT on keyboard (If your Menu Bar is not already visble), click theTools menu and select Internet Options.
Make sure the General tab is selected.
Under “Browsing History” click “Delete”
In the new window, click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section. If you want, you can also opt to delete cookies and browsing history.
Alternatively, clear your cache for just the current page you’re visiting. Press and hold [Ctrl] on your keyboard, then Press [F5] or click on the Refresh button (square button on the toolbar with opposite-facing arrows).

Internet Explorer 6

Once your browser is open, click the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
Make sure the General tab is selected.
Click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section and click OK.
If you want the browser to automatically clear the cache whenever you close it, click the Advanced tab. Click to check the box next to the “Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed” option (in the section labeled “Security”). Click OK. This will delete everything except cookies.

Firefox 3.5

   1. After the browser opens, click on “Tools”.
   2. Now click on Clear Recent History. Alternatively, you can access this menu directly by pressing
   Ctrl+Shift+Delete
   3.   Now, beside “Time range to clear”, click “Everything”.
   4.   Click on Details and select only Cache.
   5.   Select Clear Now.

Safari 1.0 for Macintosh OS X

Open Safari.
Click on Safari in the upper toolbar and Select Empty Cache.
Click Empty on the Are you sure message box.
Exit and re-launch the browser.

CASE MaTtErS!!!

Melissa Bitz — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:37:42 +0000

We keep preaching about case mattering in this new version of PS….We have found another case where CASE matters! Be sure to enter the correct final grade name when storing grades. This final grade name HAS TO MATCH what you have set up in the final grade setup. So for example…if you have Q1 has a final grade in final grade setup, you cannot enter in q1 in the final grade box on the storing grades screen or the grades will not store!!! Just one more thing to keep us on our toes!!

Still not seeing standards in the Gradebook

Melissa Bitz — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:26:04 +0000

It’s your lucky week…2 blog posts in one week! I just wanted to add another post to Josh’s previous post. This was sent out to the listserv a couple of weeks ago from Janet and we are seeing alot of schools having issues with the uppercase/lowercase alpha characters used in course numbers tied to standards so I thought I would post here as well.

In the past we’ve told you that many things are not case sensitive in PowerSchool, but in this recent version – we’ve discovered many things are case sensitive. Here’s some examples:

If a school’s standards are tied to a class that is in uppercase or lowercase letters – they have to match exactly or they won’t show in the gradebook.

One School had standards tied to these courses… am1,am2,am3

They wouldn’t show in the gradebook until they matched the course information like such …. AM1,AM2,AM3 – once we changed the course numbers to match the case that was used when the course was created, they showed up fine.

Along the same lines today… Another School and I discovered that case sensitivity comes into place in the sort order of assignments in the scoresheet, which many teachers have asked about this fall!

If you enter Test Chapter 3… It will actually come before review sheet in the gradebook – as soon as we switched it to lowercase like this: test chapter 3 – it switched the order???

The moral of the story is this… Be “case sensitive” when entering information into PowerSchool, and if assistance is needed – call the helpdesk.

Janet
EduTech

Standards… Standards… Standards…

Joshua Ternes — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:04:21 +0000

With the new version of the Web Gradebook comes a new way to enter standards. In the Gradebook from the Scoresheet tab there is a button called Final Grades. When you click the button you will see the Standards related to that Section. As you move through the Sections on the left you may see different Standards tied to them. The advantage to entering standards in the Gradebook is that you can “fill scores” like you can with other grades.

For the admins reading this it is important to know what standards are tied to what sections. If a standard isn’t showing up on the report cards, or in the teacher’s gradebook, the first thing to check is the sections that the standard is tied to. To check this you would go to District at the top of the admin screen, then District on the left menu. Then click Standards, Followed by List Standards and Expand All. Once you find the standard in question click that. You will see a field on the screen named Course Number. This is the field that tells PowerSchool where that standard belongs in the gradebooks and the standard Identifier defines where it will be on the report card. Useful troubleshooting information!

Remember to contact the Help Desk if you are having troubles with your end of year processes.

Did you know…

Janet O'Hara — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:42:06 +0000

There’s a new feature in PS version 6.0 that will make searching easier. This new feature is called “Smart Search”. Once you turn this feature on, as you enter your search in the browse students field, PowerSchool will automatically list a drop-down list of suggestions that you may choose from, including students, staff, stored searches, fields, and PowerSchool page names.

How to enable Smart Search:
1. On the start page, choose Personalize from the main menu.
2. Click Interface.
3. Select the Enable Smart Search checkbox.
4. Select the Include Page Results checkbox to make those PowerSchool pages that are accessible to you searchable. Otherwise, leave the checkbox blank.
5. Select the Include Inactive Student/Staff Results checkbox to make inactive students and staff searchable. Otherwise, leave the checkbox blank.
6. Click Submit to save your changes.

Error Running Report Cards?? Get Rid of the Dashes—–

Melissa Bitz — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:51:52 +0000

Quarter 1 is coming to an end and soon many of you will be printing report cards! I would highly recommend printing them prior to needing them to make sure they look correct! There is an issue with the report name containing consecutive dashes. We have had several help desk tickets coming in with the following error.

Alert: Error encountered while accessing database

The system encountered an error while accessing the database. Please contact your system administrator.

Show - Alert Message Details

——————————————————————————–

Report Not Queued: The report was not found
I searched on PowerSource and found the following information.

Reports With Two Consecutive Dashes in Title Return “Error encountered while accessing database”
Issue:

Two consecutive dashes in the name of any user defined report (Object report, Report Card, Mailing Label or Form Letter) causes the report to fail and the following alert to display in the browser:

Workaround:

Remove the two consecutive dashes.
To change the name click on reports, setup, object reports, the report name and choose edit main report paramaters!

What is the source of your report?

Joshua Ternes — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:47:37 +0000

A question that came up this week that seemed interesting enough to write about is transcripts and other reports coming up without grades for this or that…

The common result is that the report settings were for terms other than the first reporting term. (Y1, or S1 instead of Q1) Depending on the way the class is setup or the grade book even, you might miss some grades on that report if your reporting term is set for a term with a hole in it. S1 for instance at this point is still missing Q2.

Just something to keep in mind. Go look at the setup for the report you are trying to run and see what you are actually grabbing.

josh

Overlapping Enrollments…

Janet O'Hara — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:47:54 +0000

With the rush of a new school year, we often quickly enroll students into classes without verifying their entry date into school, which often leads to Overlapping enrollments. These often don’t catch up to us until the end of year workshop when we run an audit report to verify our dates. Well… I think there’s no better time to run the report than once your fall rush has settled down and you have a little time to peek at the report.

How do you run the report?

From the start page, select reports
Scroll down the screen to Membership and Enrollment
Click on Section Enrollment Audit

Did you have any students show up on the report? If the results said no students match the selection, give yourself a pat on the back!! If a student or two show up - you simply need to verify the entry date into school on the “Transfer Info” screen with the entry dates into classes on the all enrollments screen. The entry date into classes on the all enrollments screen can NOT be prior to the first entry date of school. How do you fix them… Click on the edit link of each enrollment and modify the entry date into class, or set the entry date on the transfer info screen to match the students entry dates into their classes.

Final Grades Not Showing????

Melissa Bitz — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:22:21 +0000

Along with updates come new cool stuff….but goofy things too come along with the good! So here we are on PowerSchool 6 and here is my “goofy” issue for the week! With this version it is known that the final grade may not to show in the teacher’s gradebook. This may be because there is no gradescale associated with their course,therefor, the final grade will not show on the quick lookup either! To fix this, log into the admin side and click on school and courses. Choose the course experiencing the problem. Choose the gradescale and submit. Have the teacher open their gradebook and go to tools and recalculate final grades. If this does not fix the problem, the gradescale may need to be re-submitted in the section as well. To do this click on school and sections.