Monthly Mentions Newsletter March 2025

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

Opening up teacher input for 3rd Quarter Report Cards will require:

• Confirming the 3rd quarter dates in ‘Grades’ then ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Changing input for 3rd quarter Report Cards from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’ in ‘Report Card Input Controls’
• Having teachers go through the 3rd quarter report card input process
• Closing the input process by changing ‘allow input’ to ‘input complete’

Registration is an important part of the school year and FastDirect can help make the process easier.  In FastDirect, you can track new student applications, re-registrations of returning students, as well as the charging and depositing of registration fees. Here is some of the information that is tracked in the Registration report:

• The number of students for each grade level
• The number of students returning in each grade level
• The number of new student applications in each grade level
• An estimated number of spots available in each grade level
• A breakdown of each existing family and their re-registration status

Here are some other features involved in registration through FastDirect:

• The ability to allow your parents to re-register their child online
• Time stamps for when parents re-registered their child
• The finance account for Registration 2025-2026
• A report showing all families and if they have been charged their registration fees
• A report showing all families and if they have paid their registration fees

Click here to watch the Registration video tutorial in MP4 format

Click here to watch the Registration video tutorial in Youtube

Registering students for next year often means forms and paperwork.  With the file upload function, you can add these forms to the Links page, send them as attachments or create links to them on the login screen.  Making these forms available online means you won’t be spending your time making copies and mailing them out. Additionally, by allowing your parents to upload files, you can have a paperless process!  After you have uploaded the forms and made them available online, your parents can fill the forms out and send them back to you through our secure FDmail eMessaging. Here is how to turn on file upload for your parents and ways to help get your parents started:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on FDmail in the left hand navigation menu
3. Check mark the option to Allow Parent File Upload
4. Click ‘Save Changes’

To allow students, repeat these steps and check mark the option for Allow Student File Upload.  To learn more about file upload, click on your FAQ Icon (the blue question mark), click on the “Look in: All categories” drop-down menu, select File Upload/File Attachment and click “View FAQ”. To help teach you parents and/or students how to use the file upload tool, you can point them to the FAQ section under the heading of ‘File Upload/File Attachment’. HelpDesk would like to help you get your Registration processes set up in FastDirect. Please send an FDmail message or give HelpDesk a call when you are ready to get started.

If your school is on trimesters, March may be too soon to be preparing for mid-trimester reports.

Registration is an important part of the school year and FastDirect can help make the process easier.  In FastDirect, you can track new student applications, re-registrations of returning students, as well as the charging and depositing of registration fees. Here is some of the information that is tracked in the Registration report:

• The number of students for each grade level
• The number of students returning in each grade level
• The number of new student applications in each grade level
• An estimated number of spots available in each grade level
• A breakdown of each existing family and their re-registration status

Here are some other features involved in registration through FastDirect:

• The ability to allow your parents to re-register their child online
• Time stamps for when parents re-registered their child
• The finance account for Registration 2025-2026
• A report showing all families and if they have been charged their registration fees
• A report showing all families and if they have paid their registration fees

Click here to watch the Registration video tutorial in MP4 format

Click here to watch the Registration video tutorial in Youtube

Registering students for next year often means forms and paperwork.  With the file upload function, you can add these forms to the Links page, send them as attachments or create links to them on the login screen.  Making these forms available online means you won’t be spending your time making copies and mailing them out. Additionally, by allowing your parents to upload files, you can have a paperless process!  After you have uploaded the forms and made them available online, your parents can fill the forms out and send them back to you through our secure FDmail eMessaging. Here is how to turn on file upload for your parents and ways to help get your parents started:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on FDmail in the left hand navigation menu
3. Check mark the option to Allow Parent File Upload
4. Click ‘Save Changes’

To allow students, repeat these steps and check mark the option for Allow Student File Upload.  To learn more about file upload, click on your FAQ Icon (the blue question mark), click on the “Look in: All categories” drop-down menu, select File Upload/File Attachment and click “View FAQ”. To help teach you parents and/or students how to use the file upload tool, you can point them to the FAQ section under the heading of ‘File Upload/File Attachment’. HelpDesk would like to help you get your Registration processes set up in FastDirect. Please send an FDmail message or give HelpDesk a call when you are ready to get started.

All present-day finance transactions can be edited and/or deleted by the original author. Furthermore, you can edit the account and the description for any previous-day transactions.  Here are the steps to deleting a present-day transaction:

1. Go to ‘Finance’
2. Click on the ‘Deposits and Charges Report’ button
3. When the report filters appear at the top of your page, set the parameters you need
4. Check mark the option for ‘Edit Mode’
5. Click ‘View Report’
6. For any present-day transactions you would like to delete (found near the bottom of the report) , click ‘Delete’ next to the specific transaction

Here are the steps to editing a present-day transaction:

1. Go to ‘Finance’
2. Click on the ‘Deposits and Charges Report’ button
3. When the report filters appear at the top of your page, set the parameters you need
4. Check mark the option for ‘Edit Mode’
5. Click ‘View Report’
6. For any present-day transactions you would like to change (found near the bottom of the report), select the field(s) you would like to change, then click ‘Change’

Here are the fields that can be edited on a present-day transaction:

• Family
• Description
• Amount
• Account

Here are the fields that can be edited on a previous-day transaction:

• Description
• Account

To learn more about editing a finance transaction, watch the video tutorial!

• Click here to watch the video tutorial as an MP4!  or watch it in Youtube!

After the start of the 3rd quarter, principals have the ability to allow individual teachers to edit report card grades for the entire year without having to ‘allow input’ for a specific grading period or without having to ‘allow input’ for the whole school. Once a principal has given permission to a specific teacher to edit report card grades for the entire year, then that teacher will need to follow these steps:

1. Go to ‘Grades’
2. In the first drop down inside the gray box at the top, choose the course that has report card grades that need to be edited
3. Click the large yellow button that reads ‘You are temporarily allowed to edit Report Card grades for the whole year’
4. You will now see the list of students in that course and their report card grades
5. Click ‘Edit’ next to the student whose grade you would like to change
6. Enter in a grade or change an existing grade for that student, then click ‘Update’
7. Repeat these steps for any additional student grades or courses

Click here to read the FAQ on Principal’s Only report card editing.

Tax season is here 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

• How to print a report card.
• How can I reset a student’s attendance to Present in Monitor?
• How do the ‘new self-registrants’ get access to their account?

Helpful FAQs from March 2024:

• How do I input semester grades on the report card?
• How do I edit the max score of an event?
• How can a teacher edit report card grades through the ‘Principal Only’ feature?

Helpful FAQs from March 2023:

• What are the grade book preferences?
• When I send a message to a Parents of Grade/Class group, will applicants be included?
• How can I view old or archived transactions?

Watch this video tutorial to find out how to inactivate a Staff account:

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