eschoolplus Feature Release Notes

Transcription

1 eschoolplus Feature Release Notes Software Version: 3.0 Service Pack 1 Release Date: Q Copyright 2013 by SunGard K-12 Education, 3 W. Broad Street, Suite 1, Bethlehem, PA All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission of SunGard K-12 Education, with the exception of copies made for your internal use. SunGard, the SunGard logo, PLUS 360, eschoolplus, IEPPLUS, PerformancePLUS, efinanceplus, and BusinessPLUS are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

2 Contents eschoolplus 3.0 System Requirements... 3 Home Access Center (HAC) Features... 4 Improved Home Access Center Features... 4 Modified eschoolplus Configurations... 5 Added Color Options to Improve School Branding... 5 Added Authentication Options... 7 Modified for Changes to Help... 8 Removed Enable Help from HAC District Configuration... 9 Added Help URL to HAC Building Configuration... 9 Modified Translations to Support Changes... 9 Added Ability to Translate Text for New Options... 9 Added Ability to Define New Menu Translations... 9 Removed Daily Summary Page Option Added Options to Existing Translation Pages Improved Spanish Translations Added Default Translations for More Languages Reorganized Guardians / Students Tab Fields Added Options for New HAC Features Modified the Starting Page Options Added Show Calendar Option Added Configuration Options for Discipline Provided Ability to Select IEPPLUS Integration Options Added Option to Hide Alternate Request Added Week View Configuration Options Modified to Not Insert PerformancePLUS Dynamic Links Mark Reporting Features Added Option to Create PDF Report Cards for HAC Teacher Access Center (TAC) Features Improved TAC Features Modified User Interface for TAC Provided Read-Only Access for Impersonation Changed Dynamic Link Options in TAC Configuration eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 2

3 eschoolplus 3.0 System Requirements For information on the requirements for eschoolplus 3.0, refer to the Customer Services website. From the Home page, click the Important Announcements Regarding eschoolplus 3.0 link. Then, refer to the eschoolplus 3.0 System Requirements section for links to additional resources: The eschoolplus V 3.0 System Requirements document explains the new system requirements associated with the installation and use of eschoolplus 3.0. This impacts both the server environment and the desktop browser environment, so please read this carefully and consider its implications before you upgrade. The eschoolplus 3.0 Engineering Consultation Request Form is also available. Please use this form to engage our engineering team in an evaluation of your environment prior to upgrade. This consultation is a required step in the 3.0 upgrade process. Please send your consultation request as an attachment to espupgrades@sungardps.com to schedule a consultation. It is not required that you use our engineering services to accomplish any tasks identified by the engineering consultation, but we do need to verify that you have all system prerequisites in place. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 3

4 Home Access Center (HAC) Features Improved Home Access Center Features... 4 Modified eschoolplus Configurations... 5 Improved Home Access Center Features With version 3.0, Home Access Center's graphic interface has been completely revised to enhance the ability of guardians and students to access and update student information. In addition, several new features have been introduced, while many existing features have been improved. This topic lists the features added in the eschoolplus 3.0 Service Pack 1 release. Introduced a new graphic user interface to improve navigation, making Home Access Center easier for guardians and students to learn and use. Improved the ability of guardians of multiple students to change the student being viewed. Added the ability to define coordinating color and text for headings and title bars, thereby improving district or building branding of Home Access Center. Added a Calendar view for assignments and events. Events are defined by class and activity teachers in Teacher Access Center. Included the ability to filter the calendar view to allow students/guardians to select the information they want to see. Added a weekly summary to provide an at-a-glance view of the classes, assignments, attendance, and discipline for the week. Enabled students/guardians to navigate the weekly summary to display previous and upcoming weeks. Provided the ability to see student fee balances on the weekly summary. Added the ability for a building to select the discipline incident codes to display on the Discipline option in Home Access Center. Provided the ability to limit Discipline to show only incidents that occurred in the current school year. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 4

5 Included access to IEP invitation and evaluation letters, as well as plans for districts that have IEPPLUS integrated with eschoolplus. Provided an option allowing buildings to limit access to IEPPLUS letters and plans to the guardians living with students. Provided the ability to specify the user assistance content to display when Help is clicked for a student in a building. Included support for LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) authentication for logins. Allowed the district to select the login authentication method to use. Supports both standard eschoolplus authentication and LDAP. Added the ability to print a PDF of a student s report card. Included a Quick View for classwork to simplify the view of basic assignment information. Provided the ability to hide alternate request fields on the Course Request and Career Planner pages. Added the address for students and contacts to the student demographic information. Removed the Residency field from the student demographic information. Improved access to PerformancePLUS by implementing single sign-on access from Home Access Center to PerformancePLUS. To use this feature, your district needs to use the single sign-on feature of the PLUS360 integration between eschoolplus and PerformancePLUS. Students and Guardians also need to have accounts in PerformancePLUS. Provided support for Unicode characters for translations. Characters will be read left-to-right. Added default translation text for Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Tagalog languages. Revised the default translation text for Spanish to improve translations for US/Mexician Style Spanish. Modified eschoolplus Configurations The Home Access Center District Configuration and Home Access Center Building Configuration pages have been modified to support the new Home Access Center Features. Added coordinating color options to improve school branding Added options to allow district to select authentication method Modified to support changes to the help for Home Access Center Modified Translations to Support Changes to Home Access Center Reorganized the fields on the Guardians and Students tabs for the Home Access Center Building Configuration Added fields to set up the new options added to Home Access Center Modified so dynamic links are no longer created for PerformancePLUS Added Color Options to Improve School Branding In addition to selecting a logo to display, you can now select coordinating colors for the logo to improve school branding for HAC. Fields have been added to enable you to select the background and text colors for the headings that display in HAC. A preview is available to help you select an appropriate text color for a background. Colors can be selected at the district-level and building-level. If colors are defined for the building, those colors will be used for students in that building. If no colors are defined for the student's building, the district colors will be used. If no color is selected for the district, a blue background with white text will be used for headings. The following options have been modified for this change: eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 5

6 Administration > System Setup > District > Home Access Center Administration > System Setup > Building > Home Access Center Guardians / Students Tab Home Access Center has been modified to improve how logos display. The maximum banner image size is 125 pixels by 1024 pixels. If you enter a location for a district logo, you will be able to access the Coordinating Banner Color and Coordinating Text Color fields. Use the Coordinating Banner Color field to select the color for the background to use for headings in HAC. Blue is the default color. Use the Coordinating Text Color field to select the color for the text to use for headings in HAC. White is the default color. Selecting a color Click the color box to display the Color Picker window. Select the color and click OK. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 6

7 Previewing the colors As you change the banner and text colors, this sample will show you a preview. Added Authentication Options Added a field to select authentication method and added an LDAP Setup tab where you can specify the settings for LDAP authentication. Path: Administration > System Setup > District > Home Access Center Guardians / Students Tabs The Login Authentication options have been added to the Guardians and Students tabs. Use the Login Authentication field to select to use the standard eschoolplus authentication or LDAP authentication or a combination of the two methods. If you select to use a method that includes LDAP, you must also define values on the LDAP Setup tab. The LDAP Setup tab has been added. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 7

8 LDAP Setup Tab Added fields to specify the Distinguished Name and Domain Name for LDAP authentication. Additionally, provided the ability to use sub-folders for authentication. Modified for Changes to Help As part of the 3.0 release, you can now define the help file to open in Home Access Center. This feature allows you to provide user assistance that is specific to the options that your district uses and to provide additional instructions that may be needed for guardians and students. The Help button in Home Access Center will display only if you specify a help file URL on the Home Access Center Building Configuration page. SunGard K-12 has provided a Word document on the Customer Services website that you can download and edit as a source for your user assistance documentation for HAC. To download the document, navigate to the SunGard K-12 Customer Services website. Display the user guides for your version of eschoolplus. Then, select the esphac_user_assistance.doc. The following image shows a sample of that document saved as a PDF file. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 8

9 Removed Enable Help from HAC District Configuration In previous versions of HAC, you could choose to enable Home Access Center Help in the Home Access Center District Configuration. If help was enabled, HAC would include a Help button that guardians and students could click to view context-sensitive help provided by SunGard K-12. The Enable Help field has been removed. Path: Administration > System Setup > District > Home Access Center Added Help URL to HAC Building Configuration The HAC Building Configuration has been modified to include a Help URL field on the Guardians and Students tab. If you leave this field blank, then no Help button will display in HAC. To provide help from the Help button to your guardians and students, enter the location where your content is stored. Path: Administration > System Setup > Building > Home Access Center Modified Translations to Support Changes Several changes have been made for Home Access Center translations. Path: Administration > System Setup > District > Home Access Center > click Translations tab > click Language's link Added Ability to Translate Text for New Options New pages and items have been added to the HAC translations that are defined on the Home Access Center District Configuration. The Home Access Center Page Translation Checklist page now includes new pages. The following pages have been added: Banner Calendar Calendar - Events Calendar - Filter Side Panel Error Error Index Footer Frame Error Integration Login Integration Login Prompt Integration Response Report Cards - Assignment Pop-up Schedule - Class Notes Pop-up School Links Session Time Out Special Needs Student Picker Success Plan - Goal Detail View File Error Week View To load the default English translations for one of these pages, display the Home Access Center Page Translation Checklist. Click the link for the page to display the Home Access Center Page Translation Detail page. In the Load Text From field, select English (System Defaults) and click Copy. Added Ability to Define New Menu Translations The menu in Home Access Center has changed to include additional items and organize options. As a result, the following changes have been made to the Home Access Center Page Translation Detail page: eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 9

10 Removed the Main Menu option. Added a Menu option. Removed Daily Summary Page Option The Daily Summary has been replaced with a weekly summary. The Daily Summary option has been removed from the Home Access Center Page Translation Detail page. Added Options to Existing Translation Pages To accommodate new fields and messages in HAC, some pages have new text to translate. Review the translations for the following pages. Attendance Attendance Alert Classwork Class Pop-Up Course Request Discipline - Parent Alerts My Profile Report Cards Registration Student Fees Improved Spanish Translations In addition to adding translations for the new options for Home Access Center, we've also updated the default Spanish translations to improve the text for US/Mexician Style Spanish. We have provided a document that lists the default Spanish translation text so you can review the revised translations and determine if you want to replace your current translations. Refer to the eschoolplus_3_0_service_pack_1_hacspanishtranslation.pdf available on the Customer Services website. Added Default Translations for More Languages Default translation text is now available for the Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Tagalog languages. You can copy the default translation text into your district translations and make changes as needed. Reorganized Guardians / Students Tab Fields The Home Access Center Building Configuration has many fields to enable you to control the options that are available for guardians and students. The fields have been reorganized to make it easier for you to manage your settings. Options have been grouped together by package and packages are listed in alphabetical order. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 10

11 Added Options for New HAC Features Many fields have been added to the Home Access Center Building Configuration to enable you to select to use the new features of Home Access Center. The following section describes the changes in the order that fields display on the configuration. Modified the Starting Page Options Previously the options for the starting page were single-character codes. Now that more options have been introduced, two-character codes are used. The install will convert your current option to the new code. If the Daily Summary page was selected, then the conversion will update the configuration to select the Week View page. Added Show Calendar Option Added Configuration Options for Discipline Provided Ability to Select IEPPLUS Integration Options eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 11

12 Added Option to Hide Alternate Request Added Week View Configuration Options Modified to Not Insert PerformancePLUS Dynamic Links When you enter a check in the Show PerformancePLUS Links box and then save the Home Access Center Building Configuration, the software will no longer create dynamic links for PerformancePLUS. Home Access Center no longer requires a dynamic link to allow students and guardians to access PerformancePLUS. If the Show PerformancePLUS box is checked, the Grades option in Home Access Center includes a PerformancePLUS tab. This feature now uses the single sign-on functionality of the PLUS360 eschoolplus to PerformancePLUS integration. To use this feature, student/guardian accounts must be defined in PerformancePLUS. If the student/guardian clicks the PerformancePLUS tab in HAC and the eschoolplus login matches the PerformancePLUS login, then PerformancePLUS will open. If the logins do not match, the student/guardian will be prompted to enter the PerformancePLUS login information. Once the PerformancePLUS login is stored, the student/guardian will be able to log in with a single sign-on. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 12

13 Mark Reporting Features The following feature has been added for the Mark Reporting package: Added Option to Create PDF Report Cards for HAC Added Option to Create PDF Report Cards for HAC Home Access Center includes the ability to print a PDF of the student's report card as generated by the Print Report Cards option. The Print Report Cards option has a new field to allow you to select to create the PDF files for Home Access Center. If you select to create the PDF files, a separate file is created for each student and the file will be stored in the Attachments database. When a guardian or student displays the HAC Report Card page, the software checks for a PDF file for the student for the report card run selected. If a PDF exists, then the page displays a Print button. This feature is available from the base Print Report Cards option. If your district uses a custom option to print report cards, this feature will not be available. Path: Mark Reporting Center > Reports > Report Cards > Print Report Cards Added Home Access Center Upload field. Check this box to create a PDF file in the Attachments database so a student's report card can be printed from Home Access Center. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 13

14 Teacher Access Center (TAC) Features Improved TAC Features Modified User Interface for TAC Provided Read-Only Access for Impersonation Changed Dynamic Link Options in TAC Configuration Improved TAC Features The following features have been added in the eschoolplus 3.0 Service Pack 1 release: Provided a list option for competency entry to allow editing of a single student s competency information. Teachers can toggle between working in a grid or list. Improved the competency entry list so teachers do not need to return to the list of students to select another student for entry. Provided student navigation buttons for the competency entry list so teachers can more easily move to the first, previous, next, and last student. Included ability to load from Gradebook for multiple student competency groups from the competency list page. Added ability to easily import assignment scores from PerformancePLUS assessments for a class. Provided a walk-in grade import to allow teachers to set a percentage score value to enter for the assignments that were due before the student enrolled in the class. Provided an option to import scores from another class for a student who transfers between course-sections taught by the teacher. Added a calendar view for assignments. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 14

15 Provided the ability to define events in Teacher Access Center which can be displayed on the teacher s calendar and, if published, on student calendars in Home Access Center. Added a Copy option to the Assignment Detail drawer so a teacher can copy an assignment to other course-sections. Included the ability to control if and how withdrawn students display on several pages. Combined the seating chart and photo attendance functionality into a single option to provide the ability to store student seating layouts one time per course-section. Provided the ability to support seating charts in a grid or a free form layout. Improved the seating chart grid to avoid overlapping student photos. If the teacher tries to place a student photo over a seat that already has a student in it, the student who was previously seated will be moved to the holding pane so you can easily see that the student now needs a seat. Included a Randomize option so teachers can have students placed randomly within a grid seating chart. Provided support for multiple classes in the seating chart. If the teacher views a single coursesection, the seats used for other course-sections meeting at the same time will still display, but will be gray to indicate that these seats are used for another course-section. Modified the Performance option to allow teachers to select the course-sections they would like to see included when viewing student test score trends. Included the ability for teachers to control whether assignments are sorted oldest to most recent or most recent to oldest. Added a blue bar to Gradebook Entry to help teachers see where today s date is within the assignments. Improved how options are selected for the Attendance Bulletin to help teachers select what data to display. Redesigned the Gradebook Printable so prompts are no longer displayed at the top of the page and so it is generated as a report file or Excel file to improve the ability to see more score data. Added a District Links option to Student drawer to support dynamic links that have been defined for the Student drawer. Added a PerformancePLUS icon to Home page to launch PerformancePLUS. Added the ability to access PerformancePLUS Lesson Plans as a dynamic link from TAC. Added the ability to access PerformancePLUS for a student in the Student Detail drawer. Added the Attendance Year View option to the Student Details drawer. eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 15

16 Provided the ability for a user with the appropriate security to access TAC in read-only mode when impersonating a teacher. Modified User Interface for TAC The following changes affected the user interface of Teacher Access Center: Redesigned the following options to improve and simplify the user interface: SSP Interventions SSP Goals Conduct Referrals Morning Bulletin Performance Redesigned the following views within the Student drawer: RC/IPR/TRN Success Plan Changed the buttons to select Multiple or Single mode to allow more options to display on toolbars. Multiple is now M and Single is now S. Added the menu options to allow teachers to set up the seating chart and use the chart to take photo attendance: Attendance > Photo and Class Management > Seating Chart. Added ability to spell check free text comments for Student Competencies Modified how student alerts are loaded to improve performance of page loading. Made various style changes to improve the consistency between pages. Provided Read-Only Access for Impersonation Teacher Access Center will display information as read-only when a user with read-only access for teacher impersonation logs into TAC and impersonates a teacher. Read-only access is used for impersonation for a user with the following security: SYSTEM - MAINT - IMPTEACH set to Read-Only. SYSTEM - ALL - ALL set to Read-Only or not granted. SYSTEM - MAINT - ALL set to Read-Only or not granted. User Profile's May Impersonate box is unchecked. Changed Dynamic Link Options in TAC Configuration The eschoolplus Teacher Access Center Configuration Update option was updated based on changes for dynamic links. Page options available for dynamic links previously included Student Summary and individual options you could open from the summary. Those options have been replaced by a single Student Drawer option. Path: Administration > System Setup > Building > Teacher Access Center > Dynamic Links tab eschoolplus Q Features Release Notes 16

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