EDUADMIN FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (MODULES)

Admissions: Can the mail merges be saved?

Yes. When printing the mail merges EduAdmin will ask you if you would like to save the individual merge letters to disk. Select Yes.

Admissions: How should the Telephone Description field be used?

This is not a duplicate of the telephone type. It should be used for personal names or any other description which will meaningfully identify the person.

Archives: Who should the Archives Module be used by?

Public relations, development officer, alumni and physical archive material departments.

Assessment: How do I exclude a subject from the aggregate?

When editing the marks you have the option to specifically exclude the subject under the 'Included' column. Simply navigate to this column and type in an 'N'.

Assessment: How many marks may be allocated per student?

No limit.

Assessment: If we have made corrections to the student grades and/or marks do we have to rebuild or reprocess anything after the corrections have been made?

You do not have to rebuild grades, marks or comments. In fact you should specifically not rebuild these after making corrections. However, before printing mark reports it will be necessary to regenerate the student reports.

Assessment: We changed a specific teacher against a student's mark but the teacher did not change in grades or comments!

EduAdmin does not cascade changes between data files, only between the housekeep files and the data files. If it did it would no longer be flexible. EduAdmin allows a student to have a different teacher during a single term. It also allows one teacher to load the marks and another to make the comment. In some instances this is the more practical way of entering the data. Some schools also want to know which teacher taught the student in the previous term(s). This assists when the new teacher is adding a comment as the previous teacher's comment is available for scrutiny without any implication that they have recorded the comment. If you change a student's grade (academic), time table line or teacher EduAdmin will therefore not unilaterally change all instances of these. It is up to the user to decide where the change will be applied. In order to reduce the possibility of having to correct errors it is in the best interests of the user to ensure that these variables are acceptable before building marks and comments.

Assessment: We edited the raw marks but the student report still shows the old mark!

Once you have edited and posted the raw marks, the raw marks would have changed but to have any effect on a student report you need to regenerate the report.

Assessment: What is the unlock used for?

When a student general comment is loaded it is locked so that all other workstations cannot use it until the Accept button has been pressed. It is possible that the record remains locked on account of the workstation that opened it failed to complete the operation. This could be caused by network or power failure. This function is designed to allow the supervisor to unlock the record manually. Publicize this function so that users at workstations are not confused when they get a message that the record is in use. Staff must be trained to accept the record changes and not leave the record open as this will exclude others from working on it.

Assessment: When and why should we ever have to purge marks?

You should generally never have to purge marks. Purging is only done in exceptional circumstances. Examples would be where you have built the marks incorrectly or where you are running semesterisation courses and you want to exclude certain marks from the report.

Assessment: Why does the batch total and average not show even after entering all the marks in a batch?

When you have put your last mark in press the Escape key to exit the edit mode. The batch total and average will be refreshed. You may do this at any point while entering marks.

Assessment: Why, when I call up a batch for entering marks, do the pupil names appear twice?

You have either built the marks twice or you have failed to specify the term in your query (assuming you are using the Query Wizard). If your query is incorrect and that is causing the duplication, simply correct the query. If you have built the marks twice you will need to purge them using the Query Wizard or delete them individually.

Assessment: Which is the best report to give each teacher a list of pupils that they teach in a particular grade (form, standard, level) for a particular subject, so that they can write the marks on it?

Use the standard Subject Marks report in conjunction with the Query Wizard.

Attendance: When entering student attendance, the default date is not correct!

EduAdmin uses the current date on the computer running the Attendance Module. Set your computer date correctly.

Boarding: Boarders have been allocated to dormitories in the boarding module but this is not visible in the student module!

The Boarding Module has been designed to deal with boarding detail. If you require an elementary list of boarders or day scholars use the Residence Housekeep file in the Student Module. Many schools require this information but do not use the boarding module. EduAdmin has no idea what is meant by the residence status in the Admissions and Student Modules. This is only meaningful to the user who has set up these codes.

Boarding: Who should use the Boarding Module?

The matrons and management of the boarding establishment.

Counseling: Is the Counseling Module accessible to all?

Absolutely not. As with all EduAdmin modules the Counseling module has its own security area.

ECA: How does one amend the Age Group settings?

Edit the Age Group Housekeep file and then run the Refresh Age Group function.

ECA: When adding or editing an ECA Contact record, the Student button does not work!

This button will only work if the student's administration number is placed in the Admno field.

Financial: Does EduAdmin handle stock?

Stock (inventory) is often confused with fixed assets. Fixed assets are things such as chairs, tables, overhead projectors and so on. These are either written off for accounting purposes or are capitalised in the balance and depreciated. EduAdmin supports the recording of fixed assets. Stock or inventory are items which a business buys so that it can sell again at a profit. In the school context this would possibly apply to the tuck shop and thrift shop (second hand clothes and books). EduAdmin supports the holding of stock in the Financial Module.

Financial: Is it possible to delete an AR Master Record?

The EduAdmin Financial Management module is a full accounting system which conforms to generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP). This means that the double entry principle is protected at all times. An AR Master Record with movement attached to it can consequently only be removed after two year ends have been performed AND there is a nil balance on the account.

Institution: Does the Institution Module integrate with any other module?

Yes. It integrates with the Admissions and Student modules directly, and indirectly with the Assessment Module to include Institutions on Top Ten lists. Think of the Institution Module as a specialised Housekeep module.

Library: How can an item be classified if it has both black and white and colour illustrations?

Create an Illustration Code that represents both black and white and colour illustrations and assign that Illustration Code to the item.

Library: How does one accept a message box on the Desk without using a mouse?

Press the spacebar. Pressing the Enter key will have the same effect as pressing the Windows default Tab key. Pressing the spacebar will accept the button that is receiving focus.

Library: How does one block an item from being issued?

Mark the For Loan status as being 'N'.

Library: How does one find the borrower if an issued item is found lying around?

Use Item Status function. The gives you the borrower and the reservations.

Library: How does one return an item without using the borrower's code?

Press the Global Return button and scan the item.

Library: How does the Catalogue Assistant work?

The Catalogue Assistant is a comprehensive list of Authorities, See Words and See Also words, based on the popular Sears reference. The function is invoked by simply running it from the Menu Item Maintain and then Catalogue Assistant.

Library: which bar code labels are recommended?

EduAdmin does not recommend any specific brand of labels. As all experienced computer users know, printers can be very troublesome. We have tested the following bar code labels and have found them to be affordable and to work adequately : Brand = Auto; Name = Laser and Copier Labels; Size = A4 70x35mm; Sheets = 200; Number = 4,800 labels. When using these ensure that the label definition reads Label Type = Laser, Paper Type = A4, Label Width = 2.650, Label Height = 1.380, Top Margin = 0.500 and Left Margin = 0.270.

Library: Why is it that when a borrower is scanned at the desk the cursor does not move to the item field?

The barcode scanner has not had the Carriage Return programmed into it. Perform this using the scanner documentation.

Ministry: Who should make use of the Ministry Module?

Management and those needing to prepare Departmental returns.

Staff: Is it necessary to use the Staff Module?

Without records in the Staff Module, is it not possible to use the Assessment or Timetabler Modules, nor is it possible to allocate "homeroom" teachers to classes.

Statistics: Why is it that graphs will not display on my computer screen?

The OCXs have not been registered on your machine.

Student: How does one include student photographs?

Use a scanner or digital camera to reduce the photograph to a JPG image. The name of the image must take on the form "admno.jpg" where "admno" represents the student administration number.

Student: How does one rename a student photograph?

Navigate to the EduAdmin data directory through Windows or DOS and rename the JPG file for that student (eg. 00009.jpg to 00010.jpg).

Student: How does one remove a student?

In the Archives Module. Before removing you should import the student into the Alumni records and print all that is known about the student. Removing the student deletes all records related to that student.

Student: How does one use the telephone description field?

This is not a duplicate of the telephone type. It should be used for personal names or any other description which will meaningfully identify the person.

Timetabler: How are clashes handled?

When a clash is encountered EduAdmin will provide you with who was most responsible for the clash and all the lines and subjects taught by the group of teachers in the clash. EduAdmin does not prescribe your action. It simply presents you with the information. You are always in control.

Utilities: How does one go about backing up EduAdmin data files?

EduAdmin does not prescribe how the files are backed up. This is up to the network or system administrator. If you are concerned that regular backups of the EduAdmin data files are not being done it is suggested that you bring these to management's attention. There are many ways to back up including onto tape streamers, jazz drives or compact disks.

Utilities: When an attempt is made to convert a file, EduAdmin reports that there are no records to process!

The import file name is either incorrect or does not contain any records.