Monthly Mentions Newsletter April 2019

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’

The end of the school year is right around the corner!  By early May, we will post the steps to complete the Summer Transition process on the Home screen. Here are explanations of what your school will need to complete before the end of the summer:

• Creating a statement to appear on report cards declaring that the student will be moving forward to the next grade level
• Marking any students who will not be moving forward as ‘Not Promoted’
• Creating any new Homeroom teacher accounts
• Establishing the Homeroom teacher changes for next year
• Moving the students forward to their new homerooms and grade levels
• Assigning courses to teachers and filling those courses with students

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’

The end of the school year is right around the corner!  By early May, we will post the steps to complete the Summer Transition process on the Home screen. Here are explanations of what your school will need to complete before the end of the summer:

• Creating a statement to appear on report cards declaring that the student will be moving forward to the next grade level
• Marking any students who will not be moving forward as ‘Not Promoted’
• Creating any new Homeroom teacher accounts
• Establishing the Homeroom teacher changes for next year
• Moving the students forward to their new homerooms and grade levels
• Assigning courses to teachers and filling those courses with students

Re-registration just keeps getting better! When your parents re-register, we can add a note letting them know their next steps or other important information. This note will appear directly above the re-registration box.  Here are some examples of information you can have in your school’s registration note:

• Links to uploaded registration forms
• A list of steps to be followed to complete the registration process
• Reminders to check their parent account information
• Contact names and numbers for any registration questions

Contact HelpDesk if you are interested in adding re-registration notes/instructions for your school.

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)

Towards the end of the year, many of our schools need a way to view a student’s overall GPA.  We have created a report that calculates a cumulative GPA based on report card grades and grade book grades, especially for when the school year isn’t over yet. Here are the steps to view a report:

1. Go to Reports
2. In the left hand menu, click on Grades
3. In the options under Grades, click on Cumulative GPA report
4. In the drop box options at the top of the page, select the school year, grade level, and the minimum percentage to show
5. Click View Report

If a quarter or trimester report card input has not been completed, the system will show grade book averages.  Once the report card input has been set to ‘Input Complete’, then the system will only use the report card grades.

We have partnered with Pace Payment Systems to make it easy for your school to accept credit card and debit card payments from parents for anything from tuition to yearbooks! Parents are able to pay for a variety of school-related fees without having to leave their FastDirect parent account and all major credit cards and debit cards are accepted!

Here are some of the great features of FDpay:

• Convenience for Parents – making online payments is fast and easy
• Credit & Debit Card payments updated immediately in FastDirect
• Electronic receipts for parents sent immediately in their FDmail

If this is something your school could benefit from, let the school’s administrators know you’re interested in using FDpay!

• 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 2018:

• 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?

Watch this video tutorial to

learn how to set up a default rate for students in Timer!

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