PowerSchool Setup
Learn how to track student tardies and early dismissals automatically in Powerschool via the Writeback functionality.
Note: PowerSchool Writeback functionality and the Navigate360 Attendance Access Plugin requires a paid subscription. To learn more about this functionality and/or receive your Attendance Access Plugin download, please reach out to your Navigate360 Account Manager.
Functionality Overview
Visitor Management's PowerSchool Writeback functionality enables each school to transfer Student Check-in and Check-out events back to their PowerSchool instance. Once configured and enabled, any time a student event occurs in Visitor Management (VM), the event is instantly transferred to PowerSchool without any additional work needed from the school.
PowerSchool Setup Page
The PowerSchool Setup page allows Admin Users to form the connection between VM and PowerSchool, enable the functionality for all or individual schools in the district, and monitor the status of student events being transferred to PowerSchool.
Admin Users can access the PowerSchool Setup page by following the steps below:
- Log into Visitor Management as a District Admin or Building Admin
- Navigate to the Admin Settings by clicking the key icon on the side navigation menu
- Select the PowerSchool Setup tab under General Settings
Configuring Writebacks & Viewing Logs
The PowerSchool Setup page is split into the below three tabs. To learn how each tab is used to configure and monitor the PowerSchool Writeback functionality in Visitor Management, see below:
Settings
After installing the Navigate360 Attendance Access Plugin in your PowerSchool instance, District Admins can follow the below steps to connect VM to their district's PowerSchool instance before continuing to the School Building Setup tab:
- Enter the PowerSchool URL for the school district.
- This should match the base URL used to log into the PowerSchool Admin Portal.
- Please exclude any trailing forward-slashes from the end the URL.
- Example:
- Correct: "https://sample-district.powerschool.com"
- Incorrect: "https://sample-district.powerschool.com/"
- Incorrect: "https://sample-district.powerschool.com/admin"
- Enter the Client ID and Client Secret.
- These details can be found by opening the Navigate360 Attendance Access Plugin in PowerSchool and viewing the Data Provider Configuration section.
- Set the Visible Student ID that you would like to be displayed in Visitor Management:
- SIS ID
-
Student Number
- Note: This is a cosmetic setting for customers that are syncing their SIS data into Visitor Management via Clever. Allowing the preferred Student ID to be used for searching, scanning, etc.
- For more information on setting up the SIS Sync for PowerSchool Writebacks, click here.
- Click Save and Apply to All Schools.
Once the above settings have been saved, District Admins and Building Admins will have access to the School Building Setup and Writeback Logs tabs.
School Building Setup
The School Building Setup tab allows District Admins and Building Admins to quickly select the needed Attendance Mode for individual schools. As well as disable the writeback functionality for any schools that don't want to utilize this feature.
- District Admins will see a list of all schools from their district that have been added to VM and have the ability to view/edit the writeback settings for each school.
- Building Admins will only be able to view/edit the writeback settings for the school(s) assigned to them, based on the permissions applied to their User Profile.
Admins will be able to apply the below writeback settings for each school listed on the page:
- Status - (enabled by default)
- When enabled:
- An Attendance Mode must be selected in order to save the writeback settings.
- VM will attempt to transfer all Student Late Check-ins and Early Check-outs back to this school's PowerSchool instance.
- The school's PowerSchool Attendance Codes will need to be imported and mapped as Late Check-in and/or Early Check-out Reasons on the Student Tracking page.
- For more information on importing your PowerSchool Attendance Codes, click here.
- When disabled:
- VM will not attempt to transfer Student Late Check-ins and Early Check-outs back to this school's PowerSchool instance.
- The school will have access to VM's default Late Check-in and Early Check-out Reasons, as well as the ability to add Custom Reasons on the Student Tracking page.
- For more information on the Late Check-in and Early Check-out Reasons, click here.
- Users will need to manually enter any Student Late Check-ins and Early Check-outs in the school's PowerSchool instance.
- When enabled:
- Attendance Mode
- Daily
- Time
-
Meeting
- Note: The Attendance Mode selected on this page must match the Attendance Mode selected in the school's PowerSchool instance.
Admins can click the Save button to apply all updated writeback settings for the list of schools.
Prevent School Overrides
If all schools need to be enabled and have the Attendance mode set by the District Admin only, then the Prevent School Overrides setting needs to be toggled on. If individual schools either need to opt out or set their own Attendance mode, then the Prevent School Overrides setting needs to be toggled off. Toggling this setting off allows Building Admins to opt out the needed school building or set the needed Attendance mode specific to their building.
Writeback Logs
The Writeback Logs tab allows District Admins and Building Admins to quickly view the status of all Student Events that VM has attempted to transfer back to their PowerSchool instance.
Admins will see the logs listed in the Writeback Events table, with the below values for each event:
-
Type
- Late Check-in
- Early Check-out
-
Student Name
- Name of the student that was checked in or out.
-
Student PS ID
- The student's unique ID number returned from PowerSchool's STUDENTS table.
-
Date/Time
- The date and time that the event occurred in VM
- VM is set to instantly transfer Student Events immediately after the Check-in and Check-out process.
- The date and time that the event occurred in VM
-
Grade
- Grade of the student that was checked in or out.
-
Reason
- The Reason/Attendance Code that was selected during the Check-in or Check-out process.
-
Status
- Successful
- Failed
Admins will be able to filter the list of events using the below filters:
-
Status
- All
- Successful
- Failed
- Student Name Search
-
Building
- User will only see the buildings that they have access to.
- Date Range