November 2020

As the end of the quarter approaches, your teachers will need to go through the ReportCard input process.  This means an administrator will allow input, the teachers will enter grades into the ReportCards and then the administrator will close input.  From there, you can either print the ReportCards or permission them to be viewed by parents online. Opening up teacher input for 1st Quarter ReportCards will require:

  • Changing input for 1st mid-quarter from ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’
  • Changing input for 1st quarter ReportCards from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’
  • Having teachers go through the 1st quarter ReportCard input process
  • Closing the input process by changing ‘allow input’ to ‘input complete’

If your school is printing report cards, keep in mind that you can allow your parents to view them online.  This option will save your school time, money and the environment.  If a parent signature is needed to verify that they have seen the report cards, then you can create a WildCard field where parents can enter in their initials and the date electronically, letting you know they have viewed the report card. Here are the steps to allow viewing online:

  1. Go to ‘Grades’ then ‘Parent View Controls’
  2. In the ReportCard column, choose which grade levels will need their ReportCards viewable online and change those grade levels from ‘NO’ to ‘YES’.
  3. Click ‘Submit’

You will need to make sure that input has been set to ‘Input Complete’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’.  Click here to read more about setting up a WildCard field for a virtual signature!

Review Your ReportCards! One very important step in creating report cards is to make sure everything has been set up correctly. This requires looking over a report card to double check:

  • Course names
  • Subcategories
  • Grade scales/marking codes
  • Formatting
  • Printing

As the end of the trimester approaches, your teachers will need to go through the ReportCard input process.  This means an administrator will allow input, the teachers will enter grades into the ReportCards and then the administrator will close input.  From there, you can either print the ReportCards or permission them to be viewed by parents online. Opening up teacher input for 1st Trimester ReportCards will require:

  • Changing input for 1st mid-trimester from ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’
  • Changing input for 1st trimester ReportCards from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’
  • Having teachers go through the 1st trimester ReportCard input process
  • Closing the input process by changing ‘allow input’ to ‘input complete’

If your school is printing report cards, keep in mind that you can allow your parents to view them online.  This option will save your school time, money, and the environment.  If a parent signature is needed to verify that they have seen the report cards, then you can create a WildCard field where parents can enter in their initials and the date electronically, letting you know they have viewed the report card. Here are the steps to allow viewing online:

  1. Go to ‘Grades’ then ‘Parent View Controls’
  2. In the ReportCard column, choose which grade levels will need their ReportCards viewable online and change those grade levels from ‘NO’ to ‘YES’.
  3. Click ‘Submit’

You will need to make sure that input has been set to ‘Input Complete’ in ‘ReportCard Input Controls’.   Click here to read more about setting up a WildCard field for a virtual signature!

Review Your ReportCards! One very important step in creating report cards is to make sure everything has been set up correctly. This requires looking over a report card to double check:

  • Course names
  • Subcategories
  • Grade scales/marking codes
  • Formatting
  • Printing

The FDpay component, which allows parents to make online payments, has a small yet helpful addition! When a parent goes to add a bank account to their wallet for ACH payments, there is now an image of a check that helps illustrate which number is an account number and which number is a routing number. To see this image, follow these steps:

  1. Log into a parent account
  2. Click in the Finance icon
  3. In the left hand menu, click on Your Wallet
  4. Click ‘Add a New Bank Account’

In the FDpay component, schools can choose which finance accounts they want to be available for parents to make online payments and which ones to be hidden.

Here are the steps for how to review which accounts will be available for FDpay and how to mark those that won’t be available:

  1. Go to Settings
  2. In the left hand menu, select Integrations
  3. In the far right column under the heading for Account Settings, there will be a column allowing you to remove the account from the parent’s Make a Payment screen. Check mark the account that parents should not be able to online payments
  4. Click Save Changes

While FDmail and Bulletin Boards are an effective tool for keeping the school community connected, they may not be necessary for everyone. For the staff accounts that do not need to receive FDmail or have a Bulletin Board, administrators have the option to hide these accounts from displaying in the list of staff.

For an administrator, here are the steps to hiding a staff person’s name in the list of recipients in FDmail:

  1. Go to People, then Staff
  2. Click on the name of the staff person who should be hidden from displaying the recipient list of staff names
  3. In the staff person’s account information, towards the bottom, check mark the box following the line that reads ‘Exclude {name} from FDmail to “All Teachers/Staff”
  4. A few lines below that, check mark the box  following the line that reads ‘Exclude {name} from appearing in any recipient lists for FDmail messaging:’
  5. Click the change button for that staff person

For an administrator, here are the steps to hiding a staff person’s name in the list of staff in Planner:

  1. Go to People, then Staff
  2. Click on the name of the staff person who should be hidden from displaying in Planner
  3. In the staff person’s account information, check mark the box following the line ‘Hide Bulletin Board:’
  4. Click the change button for that staff person

Parents can schedule automatic online payments in FDpay! If your school has activated FDpay, our payments processing feature, then parents can set up and schedule automatic payments from either a credit/debit card or a bank account (ACH).

Click here to learn how to schedule automatic or recurring payments (for parents)

Monthly Mentions Newsletter

Free Training and Tech Support

New to FastDirect Communications? Our newsletter is just one small way we help our schools. Our free training and tech support is a large part of what we offer. Read more!