 |
|
|
First Class Newsletter Issue 9/2004
|
We at Human Edge would like to extend to you our best wishes for the coming festive season. We hope you have a very restful and invigorating Christmas and New Year period to get you ready for the challenges of the coming year. We shall continue to develop and add to our suite of timetabling and peripheral products to ensure that you always have the best available tools to make your task easier. |
By now, most schools will have received notification of release 640 of First Class. This incorporates the changes to the First Class SQL Server database that First Class Web and A+ link with. See the release notes for the exciting developments included in the release.
As this will likely be the last newsletter for the year, I'll go through the steps that you will need to go through to prepare your 2005 database for use with Extras. Note that this also has implications for schools using A+.
How do I set up the Extras dates?
| 1. | Open the 2005 database as usual. |
| 2. | Open Extras. |
| You will probably get a message that the date is outside the current year. This is because the database was probably created using the 2004 database, including the 2004 year dates. Now, as you will probably be doing this first day back 2005, or a short time before this, then the message is accurate. | |
| 3. | Click "OK". |
| 4. | In "edit" mode, click "Calendar". |
| 5. | Click Year Start/End. |
| 6. | If the 2004 Extras History hasn't been cleared, the "Start of Year" and the "Start Day" will be greyed out. If this is the case, click "Clear All Extras" and then "Yes". |
| 7. | To set the start and end of the year, pass the mouse over that field and click on the "calendar button" that appears. Select the appropriate year and month, if necessary, and then the date for those two events. |
| 8. | Click on the "drop-arrow" next to the "Start Day" field and select whatever day of the school cycle the "Start of Year" is in order to synchronize those two. |
| 9. | Click "OK". |
| 10. | To make sure that Saturdays and Sundays don't count as part of the school cycle, in the "Extras Calendar" screen, locate the day header (in blue font) for Saturday (Sat), right-click on it, and select "Set all to Non-Day". Repeat this for Sundays. |
| 11. | Click "Close". |
The other "dates" to be set are those for resetting Underalloted teachers and for Extras. To do this
| 1. | Click "Setup" on the "Extras" screen. |
| 2. | Set both the "Backdate underalloted" and "Backdate standard extras" to the same date as the "Start of Year". |
| 3. | It is most likely that you will wish to reset the underalloted teachers on some cyclic basis. Check the box next to "Auto-reset underalloted dates" and set the "Start date" to the start of the next cycle. With a 5, 10, 15 etc day cycle, you would set the "Days before reset" to 7, 14 or 21 as appropriate (Saturdays and Sundays are counted, even though you have indicated they are not part of the cycle). |
| 4. | Whether or not you treat the "Auto reset extras date" in the same manner will depend on whether you wish extras to reset regularly (in which case you would), or, over the process of the whole year, in which case you would not check that box. |
| 5. | Click "OK". |
From time-to-time, it may be necessary for you to send us your database for viewing or fixing. Here are some hints to make the process run smoothly.
 | If possible, run a "Save As" of your database in order to compact it. Then, if you have the facility, compress it with a program such as "WinZip" before sending. This reduces the size of the file |
| Give detailed instructions as to what needs to be done. This can be the body of the email |
| If the database has security, tell us the entry username and password, otherwise, there will be delays as I try to contact you to find out these details |
First Class training has finished for 2004. It has been a hectic year, trying to get all our new schools, and, some of our established schools that may have new timetablers, up to speed. I am still getting requests for more training, so I shall be scheduling more soon. Keep an eye out on our website for dates.
A+, the new attendance & roll marking system within First Class is gaining momentum. The user base of A+ plus continues to grow with users of some of the older legacy systems (often sold as an adjunct to selling expensive bar coding & scanning equipment or early hand held devices) are now moving to the very affordable A+.
New users coming off manual paper based systems have also been pleased with the low entry costs for A+. One time software license fee to use A+ is $1 per student with an annual service and support charge of $1 per student year.
Easy to deploy and easy to use, First Class users can have A+ up and running very quickly. Readily accepted by teaching staff, rolls can be marked on PDA's, Laptops or a combination of both.
For additional information please contact our Sales & Marketing Manager:
Gary Stoneham
gary@humanedge.biz
TEL: 1300 550 765
As some of you are probably aware, we have just released the new version of First Class Web. Written in ASP.NET, this allows for much better development, and improved response times and accessibility. It still has the Timetable Viewer and the Finder, but with more options available, and also allows users who have purchased A+ to do their roll marking via a browser.
For more information please contact:
Robert Bakker
First Class Support, Implementation and Training team
Phone: 1300 301 931
E-mail: firstclass@humanedge.biz
Human Edge adheres to a policy of not sending unsolicited (SPAM) e-mail. You are receiving this e-mail because you are listed as a contact for a product or service that our organisation provides or have requested that this service be activated for you. If you are receiving this message in error or wish to have our records changed please advise us via return e-mail or call us on +61 3 9690 5044