PowerSchool & Excel

Contents

Introduction

Customization Basics

Refresh Report Queue

Student Registration Page

Alert Page with Custom Alerts

Parent/Student Icon Control

One Stop Attendance Screen

Weekly Attendance Review - Teacher

Teacher Charts

How to Manage Customizations

Introduction

PowerSchool is a fully integrated, web-based, cross-platform student information system used by thousands of school districts. Whether you are new to PowerSchool or have been using it years, there is always something new to be learned. One of the major things that separate PowerSchool from its competitors is itsability to be customized to meet you district’s specific needs. Many of these customizations become so popular that Pearson has actually incorporated some of them into subsequent releases. This course is designed to introduce you to some popular customizations that have not been incorporated into PowerSchool. Keep in mind that customizing PowerSchool requires additions to the server environment and will therefore need to be accomplished by you PowerSchool System Administrator.

We will cover the following customizations:

  • Refresh Report Queue
  • Student Registration Page
  • Alerts page with custom alerts
  • Parent/Student icon control
  • One Stop attendance screen
  • Weekly Attendance Review - Teacher
  • Teacher Dashboard

Customization Basics

This information applies to those who host their own server(s) and have non-sharepoint setups. If your PowerSchool is hosted by Pearson or another ASP that does not allow you access to your server, you will need to contact them to find out what the steps are to add custom pages to the server. With Premier 6.0 there will be an easier way to gain access to and upgrade your custom pages.

The PowerSchool pages you access via the web are stored in the system folder in a subfolder labeled web_root. If you try to customize those pages, your changes will be overwritten whenever the server resets.

Embeded into the application is the ability to create a duplicate folder structure where customized web pages can be placed. To do this select SystemSystem SettingsCustomization Synchronize Custom web_root. The new folder structure will exist under data/custom/web_root. The custom section also has an images folder, so any images you put in it that are named the same as those in the system section will be used. If you're using an image server, place your custom images in it's PowerSchool images folder. There is also a wildcard folder, so you can also copy over a wildcard file and customize it.

With customization enabled, anytime a page is accessed the system will 1st check the data/custom/web_root path to see if a custom page exists. If the page exists in the custom folders it will be loaded otherwise the system provided page will be displayed.

NOTE: This will make a complete duplicate of the entire PowerSchool folder structure. For maintenance purposes this may not be the best option.

You can make the custom folders yourself as you add customization then you will know which folders have pages you have changed. Any other folders don't have any customizations so you don't have to worry about them.

Make sure Customization Enabled is checked on the system, system settings, customization page for your customizations to work. If you ever uncheck Customization Enabled, none of your custom pages, images, or wildcards will be used. To quit using just one page, image, or wildcard, just delete it from the custom folder and PowerSchool will use the original instead. If you delete a custom wildcard file, you must reset wildcards. If you delete a custom student or faculty screen, you must run the Rebuild Custom Page Links.

Reset Wildcards - if you customize a wildcard file, the changes will not take effect until either the system resets or you go to System, System Settings, Customization, and click Submit.

Rebuild Custom Page Links - this command is mainly used to make custom screens appear but can be used at other times as well. Click on System, Special Operation, choose Rebuild Custom Page Links from the Operation drop down list and click on Submit (leave the Param and Code boxes blank - just choose Rebuild Custom Page Links and click on Submit)

The Reset Wildcards command resets customizations and can be used in place of the Rebuild Custom Page Links.

Refresh Report Queue

PowerSchool's report queue is nice but large reports can make using the queue tedious. Refreshing the queue is a manual process that requires the user to click a link over and over again waiting for the report to finish. Each time the user refreshes the system has to reproduce the entire page again for the user. There is a better way.

Refresh Report Queue is a customization that changes the page to make each individual line in the queue refresh on it's own as the reports finish. Users know the instant a report finishes without having to constantly reload the page. The customization also includes a refresh option to allow the user to re-run the report without having to go into the report details page.

Description:

This customization modifies the reportqueue/home.html pages for admin and teachers.

Features:

  • Auto-refresh report queue data asyncronously only while jobs are running or pending.
  • A rerun report link has been added next to the cancel/delete icon for each report.
  • Rerun, delete, and cancel actions use an AJAX method to reload the report queue data. This allows for browser back button to leave reportqueue screen easily.

Contributor / Pro / Premier - 5.1.x / Premier - 5.2.x
Brent Johnson / Y / Y / Y

Installation:

Copy included folders into the PowerSchool custom\web_root directory. If using an image server make sure to copy scripts and images folder to the image server.

Samples:

Link:

Student Registration Page

While the fields that exist in the new student page are a good start, they are not all the fields that are needed for some districts to fully enroll a student. With a central registrar sometimes information that is needed for all students is not entered. However if all of those fields are required from the new student page then student data is more likely to be complete.

Additionally, you can update the student demographics page to include more information. This becomes an excellent screen for counselors and administrators to use when finding out information about a student. By combining multiple fields on one page it gives you one stop shoping for student demographic information.

Description:

Update to the New Student entry screen that allows users to enter more information. Copy and edit to your district's needs.

Contributor / Pro / Premier - 5.1.x / Premier - 5.2.x
Jason Treadwell
Dori Baldwin / N / Y / Y

Installation:

Open the zip file and add the pages to the same locations in your custom/web_root folder. If you have already updated one of these pages in yourserver then check for the differences and add them into your existingcustomization.

Pages affected:

  • admin/students/checkduplicatestudents.html
  • admin/students/newstudent.html
  • admin/students/demo.html

Pages added:

  • none

Samples:

Links:

Alert Page with Custom Alerts

Alerts are a great visual for giving quick information about a student. There are 2 problems with alerts: there aren’t always enough of them and I never know where to go to set them. This customization was used to create a page that contains all the alerts so you can easily set or view them. Additionally, it will teach you how to create new alerts.

Description:

Create an Alerts Page which can be used to set or view all alerts. Add your own custom alerts from either new or existing fields. Then add a report that will allow you to view students with their associated alerts.

Contributor / Pro / Premier - 5.1.x / Premier - 5.2.x
Jason Treadwell
Dori Baldwin / N / Y / Y

Installation:

Pages affected:

  • /admin/students/more2.html
  • /wildcards/title_student_end.txt
  • /wildcards/title_student_end_popup.txt

Pages added:

  • /admin/students/alerts.html
  • /images/ alert_age.gif
  • /images/ alert_driver.gif
  • /images/ alert_language.gif
  • /admin/alerts/agealert.html
  • /admin/alerts/driveralert.html
  • /admin/alerts/languagealert.html

Samples:

Links:

Parent/Student Icon Control

These pages allow a district to control which icons appear in the parent portal for each schoolwithin the district. Additionally, each school can control the icons for their specific building. Thisallows control on a building by building level of what the parents and students see from thepublic portal.

This version incorporates the ability to add or remove other pages not included in the parentportal originally. Most pages were taken from the Admin portal, and modified (write accessremoved). More pages could easily be added. The district panel has a list of each school, and abutton at the top to add / remove en masse for all schools with a single click. This version also includes pages not yet developed yet. The reason why they are there is I'mhoping somebody can figure out how to make the PHP Calendar work, and the "PrintTranscript" work. PowerSchool says there's no way to make a "Report Queue" for guardianusers, but I know we can figure out a way. I'm pretty sure those are the only two that don't work. Everything else is good.

When an icon is removed by the district/school the e-mail setup screen that parents see also isedited to remove the options for the associated automatic e-mails. Thus if you do not allowparents to see the attendance icon then they can't get the attendance e-mails either. If a parenthas already opted to receive attendance e-mails (for example) they will continue to do so. Thepages do not automatically clear that field. However, the next time the parent submits that emailscreen the checkboxes will not be shown and in fact will be cleared.

The guardian/home.html page has been edited to show a simple message if the school hasopted to not show the quicklookup screen to parents. Since this is the default screen somechanges needed to be made such that when the parent/student isn't allowed to see that screenthen the screen doesn't load that information.

This solution is actually a combination of a solution created by RogerSprik and a solution created by Matt Freund and merged and enhanced byJason Treadwell.

Description:

This is a new Parent Portal with more options for student screens. Allows a school or district to show or hide icons on the public portal. The solution now cleans up the automatic e-mail page options when those options are hiden from normal view and displays a message when the grade & attendance page is hidden. Incorporates Roger Sprik's customization that allows a student to submit course requests just one time

Contributor / Pro / Premier - 5.1.x / Premier - 5.2.x
Lorenzo Lopez
Jason Treadwell
Roger Sprik
Matt Freund / Y / Y / Y

Installation:

Open the zip file and add the pages to the same locations in your custom/web_root folder.

Pages affected:

  • admin/district/home.html
  • admin/district/portals.html
  • admin/schoolsetup/home.html
  • admin/schoolsetup/portals.html
  • admin/students/schedulesetup.html
  • guardian/autoemailsetup.html
  • guardian/changesrecorded.html
  • guardian/home.html
  • guardian/requestsapproved.html

Pages added:

  • guardian/accesslog.html
  • guardian/discipline.html
  • guardian/fees.html
  • guardian/graduation.html
  • guardian/password.html
  • guardian/schoolinfo.html
  • guardian/testscore.html
  • guardian/testscoredetail.html
  • guardian/transcript.html
  • guardian/phpcalendar.html
  • guardian/honorrol.html

To Set Up:

  • Log into PowerSchool
  • If you are in district click the "district" link. If you are in a school click the "School" link.
  • Check the box(es) for the icons you wish to NOT show on from the public portal.
  • Submit
  • The next time parents or students log into the public portal the icons you chose will not show up.

To allow a student to enter course requests:

  • Navigate to that student
  • Select the "Scheduling Setup" option from the left side menu
  • Check the box to allow a student to enter course requests
  • Once the student successfully submits the course requests the checkbox will automatically be unchecked

To mass allow students to enter course requests:

  • Select the group of students who will be allowed to submit requests
  • On the Student Selection screen select "Student Field Value"
  • Set the Field to Change box to "Sched_AllowRequests", Set the Value box to "1"
  • Submit

**This will not work if you have not checked the box manually at least 1 time already to initializethe field.

Samples:

Links:

One Stop Attendance Screen

The process of searching for attendance records, creating a call list, then actually calling that parent/guardian is very time consuming. It has always seemed like it took too many steps to perform basic attendance tasks. Not to mention changing from one student to the next just to update each attendance record. This package attempts to make this whole process easier. The quick attendance pages allow for quick search and update of attendance by the school office. They use tlist_sql functions so they are not available for Pro users. These pages will look up all the attendance (by code or all) for the current date or the entire current term. If you would like all the data for a different term please change the your term (at the top of the screen) and select all attendance for this code for this term. This will retrieve previous year’s data by school.

Some of the features include:

  • Ability to view attendance for any single code for the current date or all dates of the current term
  • Ability to view attendance for all codes that are ‘Absent’ or all codes that are ‘Present’
  • Click on the student's name to jump to that students record in a new window
  • Click on the attendance code to open a pop up window to edit that attendance for daily or meeting
  • Meeting attendance: Select a name and click the link to open a pop up to edit that student's attendance even if the teacher's have not recorded any yet today
  • Daily attendance: Click the link to launch a pop up window to choose a student and edit his/her daily attendance today even if the daily attendance has not yet been taken.
  • Ability to not view meeting attendance or daily attendance or both. Turning them off doesn’t just hide them, it keeps that search from running so it will be faster.
  • Ability to select which period you wish to view (default is all periods) for meeting attendance.
  • Time in/out has been added to the daily attendance modification pop-up. Each time the user opens that daily attendance the time fields will be blank, but they have the ability to see old time entries at the bottom.

NEW FEATURE:

With the update to Oracle a new feature has been added, the ability to select any in session

date within the term selected! Now the user can select any date within the currently selected

term to view.

Description:

Create an Alerts Page which can be used to set or view all alerts. Add your own custom alerts from either new or existing fields. Then add a report that will allow you to view students with their associated alerts.

Contributor / Pro / Premier - 5.1.x / Premier - 5.2.x
Jason Treadwell / N / N / Y

Pages affected:

  • wildcards/admin_nav_menu_left.txt

Pages added:

  • admin/attendance/attendancetoday.html
  • admin/attendance/att_change_close.html
  • admin/attendance/att_change_daily.html
  • admin/attendance/att_change_meeting.html
  • admin/attendance/att_new_daily.html

Installation:

  1. Open the zip file and add the pages to the same locations in your custom/web_root folder. If you are not familiar with customizing PowerSchool please visit
  2. Create a link wherever your school would like it (I suggest the home.html page in the navigation bar, you’d have to edit the wildcard) to get to the attendancetoday.html. It should look like:
    <a href=”/admin/attendance/attendancetoday.html”>Attendance Today</a>
    Or, if you would like to have a default you can code that right into the link like so…
    <a href=”/admin/attendance/attendancetoday.html? att_code=A&pid=-1&alldays=~[eaodate]”> Attendance Today</a>
    In the above example I have it set to show me all ‘A’ codes (att_code=A) and all periods (pid=-1) for today only (alldays=0) displaying both meeting attendance (m=0) and daily attendance (d=0)
    OR
    I have included a sample wildcard with that link added in. You may want to change the default attendance code to suit your school. The link has to work for all schools on your server. To get it to work:
  3. Go to System
  4. Select System Settings
  5. Select Customizations
  6. Click “submit”

To Run the Report:

  1. Click the link you created
  2. Enter the requirements you'd like to see.

Special Thanks:

  • Jay Raymond for getting so excited and coming up with new challenges to make this better
  • John Dunleavy and Roger Sprik for pushing me to get some extra options in there
  • Shane Thompson for the idea of declaring variables in the tlist
  • Ken Torgerson for the code checking to get version 1 up and running

Sample: