Monthly Mentions Newsletter – April 2022

If your school is approaching the 3rd quarter report, then these functions in FastDirect might need to be addressed.

Opening up teacher input for 4th Mid-Quarter Report will require:

• Confirming the mid-quarter dates in ‘Grades’ then ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Changing input for mid-quarter from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’ in ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Having teachers go through the mid-quarter report card input process
• Closing the input process by changing ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’

Opening up teacher input for 3rd Mid-Trimester Report will require:

• Confirming the mid-trimester dates in ‘Grades’ then ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Changing input for mid-trimester from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’ in ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Having teachers go through the mid-trimester report card input process
• Closing the input process by changing ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’

Tax season is approaching and FastDirect has a tax report for parents. This report can be found when parents click on the Finance icon in the top menu bar.  In the left hand menu will be a Tax Report option.  Once you click on Tax Report, you will select the tax year and then click ‘Tax Year Printout’.  A new window will open with the report for easy printing! The tax report will have the following information:

• The Federal Tax ID Number
• The tax year
• A breakdown of deposit transactions for each account
• A total deposit amount for each account
• A total deposit amount for all accounts

For administrators, here are the steps for viewing a specific family’s tax report:

1. Go to Finance
2. Select the family’s name in the top drop down
3. Click the button for ‘Deposits only for Selected Family in Tax Year’ (if you need to view a different year, change the year first before clicking this button)

If your school’s report cards have columns for Semester grades or Final grades, then it will be important to know how the system calculates those grades. Here is a breakdown:

• MidTerm/Semester 1 grades are the average score of the 1st and 2nd quarter Report Card grades.
• MidTerm/Semester 2 grades are the average score of the 3rd and 4th quarter Report Card grades.
• Final grades are the average score of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarter Report Card grades.

If any quarterly grades are missing on a report card or if the system does not recognize the report card grade, the Semester/Final grade is computed with the average of the remaining quarterly report card grades.

Note: Semester or Final grades do not automatically import to the ReportCard! Each teacher will need to go through the ReportCard Import Process, just as they have done with each quarter’s report card grades. An administrator will need to allow input for semester or final report card grade input. If your school does not have a column for MidTerm, Semester or Final grades on their report card, please contact HelpDesk to have those added.

If you have set up Scheduled Payments for your Tuition account, you’ll want to make sure you have chosen an end date or a total number of payments. Otherwise your tuition payments will continue even after school has stopped for the summer! Here is how you can view/edit your schedule payments:

1. Log into your parent account
2. Click on the Finance icon
3. In the left hand menu, click on ‘Schedule a Payment’
4. At the top of the page will be the schedule payments you have already created; click the arrow to the right of the payment you want to view/edit
5. Look for the line the reads ‘Original Payment Duration:’ and double check that the future payment dates will be ending on the correct date
6. If the future payments are incorrect, then go to the next heading ‘New Payment Duration’ and make the necessary changes there

Click here to read the FAQ on editing a Schedule Payment.

• How do I create a link to an uploaded file?
• What should I do at the end of the year in relation to keeping records of the student’s history in Nurse?
• How do I edit data fields using the Make Your Own Report?

Helpful FAQs from April 2021:

• How can an administrator view and/or print a tax report for a specific family?
• How do I set up Tuition account for next year?
• How do I print labels in the Reports section?

Helpful FAQs from April 2020:

• When creating a new event in GradeBook, what are the ‘Status’ Options?
• How do I add access to FastDirect Communications to the home screen of my smart phone?
• How do I delete a link from the ‘Links’ section?

Watch this video tutorial to find out more about how to remove a course in Grades>Show Who Teaches What:

• Click here to watch the video tutorial as an MP4!
• Click here to watch the video tutorial in YouTube!