May 2022

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

  • Confirming the quarter dates in ‘Grades’ then ‘Report Card Input Controls’
  • Changing input for the mid-quarter report from ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’
  • Changing input for the 4th quarter report cards from ‘Not Yet’ to ‘Allow Input’
  • Having teachers go through the quarter report card input process
  • Closing the input process by changing ‘Allow Input’ to ‘Input Complete’
  • Some schools also have a ‘Semester 2’ and/or a ‘Final’ column on their report cards. If this has been set-up at your school, then you will need to open up input for those grading periods as well.

Summer Transition!

We will be turning on the Summer Transition steps later this month to help get your system wrapped up for the current year and ready for next year. 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

HelpDesk is dedicated to helping make the Summer Transition an easy process and allow you more time to enjoy your summer break.  Please contact HelpDesk if you have any questions about getting started.  Once these steps have been completed, please notify HelpDesk so that they can move your school forward to the new school year. On the Summer Transition steps, there are a few details to note:

  • After each step is a blue question mark, which are links. When you click one, the system will pull up an FAQ which will provide more information about that step.
  • After some of the steps are links to a video tutorial. When you click one, the system will pull up an FAQ/video tutorial which will provide more information about that step.
  • There is a button underneath the Summer Transition title, which will allow you to ‘hide’ these steps.  This is helpful if you have already completed the steps or will not start on the steps until later this summer.
  • The last and final step to ensure that your system is ready to operate for the 2021-2022 school year  is to have HelpDesk move your forward.  This requires you to contact HelpDesk so that we can verify everything has been completed and confirm with you that your school is ready to move forward.

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

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

Summer Transition!

We will be turning on the Summer Transition steps later this month to help get your system wrapped up for the current year and ready for next year. 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

HelpDesk is dedicated to helping make the Summer Transition an easy process and allow you more time to enjoy your summer break.  Please contact HelpDesk if you have any questions about getting started.  Once these steps have been completed, please notify HelpDesk so that they can move your school forward to the new school year. On the Summer Transition steps, there are a few details to note:

  • After each step is a blue question mark, which are links. When you click one, the system will pull up an FAQ which will provide more information about that step.
  • After some of the steps are links to a video tutorial. When you click one, the system will pull up an FAQ/video tutorial which will provide more information about that step.
  • There is a button underneath the Summer Transition title, which will allow you to ‘hide’ these steps.  This is helpful if you have already completed the steps or will not start on the steps until later this summer.
  • The last and final step to ensure that your system is ready to operate for the 2021-2022 school year  is to have HelpDesk move your forward.  This requires you to contact HelpDesk so that we can verify everything has been completed and confirm with you that your school is ready to move forward.

For schools that are using the eCommerce component FDpay, there is a new report to help you view all of the scheduled payments set up by parents. This report will help you see which families have schedule payments and the specific details of those scheduled payments.

To download this CSV report, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Finance
  2. Click on ‘Schedule payments CSV download’ *

*= To the right of this button is a check box option which will include in the report any previous scheduled payments that have already ended. Check mark this option if you would like these included in the report before clicking the ‘Schedule payments CSV download’ button.

For students that have transferred out of the current school year, administrators are able to access their attendance reports, as well as grade book and report card grades without having to move them back into their homeroom.

Here is how administrators can access information for Transfer students:Here is how administrators can access information for Transfer students:

  • Go to Grades
  • In the Select Instructor drop down (the one next to ‘View Instructor’s GB/RC Input’), select the last option for Transfers (with current school year)
  • Click ‘View Instructor’s GB/RC Input’
  • To view Grade Book grades, select the student’s name, the grading period and the type of grade book report
  • To view Report Card grades, click the ‘View Report Cards’ button

To view Attendance, go to Calendar, then select ‘Individual Attendance Record’.  There will be a drop down to View/Edit all Transfer students from the current year.

The students’ names in your GradeBook rosters are clickable links. Click on a student’s name to see an isolated report of that specific student’s grades for that course. When working in your GradeBook, it might be helpful to view a student’s grades in an isolated report. This report will give you a breakdown of the grades that student has earned for a specific course. To get this report, you will open up a GradeBook for one of your courses.  Once the roster appears, you can click on any name in the roster.  Here are some of the advantages to this report:

  • The report will be in a new internet window which can be printed
  • The report will not contain grades for any other student, which makes it an ideal screen to show parents during conferences
  • The button to the left of the student’s name allows you to toggle to the next student in the class

When viewing your finance account balances in FastDirect, each balance is a clickable link. When you click on a specific balance, you will see a list of all the transactions (deposits & charges) made to that account. Once clicked, the list of transactions will give you the following information:

  • Finance account name
  • Date of transaction (when added to FastDirect)
  • Charge or Deposit label
  • Amount of money in transaction
  • Description/note of transaction (for example, check number)

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!