Wood Middle School

This quick guide is designed as a fast start set of instructions for setting up Easy Grade Pro to work in conjunction with the Schoolmaster PASS on line grading system. Done correctly, these instructions will allow you to substitute the Easy Grade Pro (EGP) generated web reports for the Schoolmaster (SM) generated web reports, allowing students and parents to view EGP through the PASS system.

Easy Grade Pro grading software (Orbis Software) is published in two ‘flavors’, Windows and Mac (OSX). Both versions are identical and grade book files created by one can be opened and used by the other version. The windows and dialog boxes created by one or the other may have a slightly different look, but contain the same features. For simplicity we will assume that the reader will be using the Windows version on a school computer. This guide assumes that you have already installed Easy Grade Pro on to your teacher computer and that you have already setup your classes, student names, and options. 

If you have questions on how to initially setup EGP, the Help menu is very useful. 

1. The first step needs to be done within your personal ‘H’ drive in the District web server. Go to My Computer and open your H drive. Once there create a new, empty folder named ‘EGP’ (without the quotes). [Techno geeks—your path should be H:\EPG]

If there already is an EGP folder, but it has a year attached to it, you still NEED to create one that ONLY is called EGP.

Done here. Back to the EGP program.

2. Open your first class and select the ‘Student’ tab. You will see a list of the current classes’ students.

(NOTE: It is EXTREMELY important to follow the rest of Step 2 word-for-word.  Most errors are caused by some misstep here.) 

You will need to fill in each student’s Password field with a six-figure password. Don’t worry about what the password is. It just needs to have something there. Six zeros will work just fine. Don’t miss any students. If you have two or more students with the same exact last name in any one class, those students MUST have different passwords in EGP.  So, for example, you can give Jane Smith 000000 as a password, and you can give Joe Smith 999999 as a password.

You will also need to enter each students Schoolmaster ID number in the “ID:” box. The Schoolmaster ID can be taken from your Schoolmaster class roster or program. EGP won’t create a web report for any student who doesn’t have a password and correct Schoolmaster ID.

When you finish, click Done.

Repeat for all classes.

3. The next step is to let the Schoolmaster system know what class you are working with by inserting the Schoolmaster course number into the EGP grade book.

(NOTE: Again, it is EXTREMELY important to follow the rest of Step 3 word-for-word.  Most of the other errors are caused by some misstep here.) 

In the Easy Grade Pro window, click on the "Student" tab.  The 9th column is called Custom 1.  (You may have to scroll over to find it.)

In the Custom 1 field, for the first student type in ‘Course ID: xxxx-Ixx’ where the x’s are replaced by the correct course number. [Note: the symbol after the hyphen is the letter I, not the numeral 1.] 

You can locate the courses’ ID by opening your copy of SM Grade book.  You MUST type it exactly as shown, with spaces and colons in the right spot.  That is Course<space>ID:<space>xxxx-Ixx

After you have typed it in for the first student, click on Tools -> Fill -> Down, and it should assign that Course ID number for all of your students. 

Repeat for all of your classes, with each of their course ID numbers.

See the next illustration for an example.

4. Either click on the Web Report icon (the little  @  in the toolbar), or go to File -> Email/Internet.

 This dialog box contains a number of other places to allow you to customize how your web report looks. When you get some time you may want to explore some of the options.

5. There are a couple of IMPORTANT areas to check before creating reports. 

 In the pull down menu at the top left of the screen, under “Action”, select “Create Website Reports”.

Below that you will see the following (if you see a list of students, click on the "Options" tab.

Toward the top, click the + [which is the Expand button] to the left of "Include Student Title Data".

Be sure that the check box is marked.  Then, be sure that the pull-down menu next to "Student Identifiers" says "ID only".  In the pull-down menu next to "Include", choose "Custom 1".

Both of these are EXTREMELY important.

Next, toward the bottom of the list, click the + [which is the Expand button] to the left of "General Options for all Reports".

Type in your name next to Teacher Name.

You will not need to do this again.  You should now be set for the rest of the year.

When you see the preview in the right-hand side, you should see something like the following:

You should see a student ID number on the left hand side, with the course ID number right below it.  As long as you see that, everything should be o.k.

6. You are now ready to click on the ‘Create’ button. After warning about something or another and asking you if you want to continue (say yes!) you are taken to a dialog page asking you where you would like to save the files. Do you remember the ‘EGP’ file you created on your ‘G’ drive a few minutes ago? Good. It’s

time to use it. In the save dialog navigate to the EGP folder that you created on your ‘H’ drive and tell EGP to save all your file into that

EGP folder. Done! (The next time you do this Windows will ask if you want to replace the old files with the new ones. Once again, say yes.)

Here is an example of the files and folders EGP creates during this process. If you want to see of you did it correctly, open the folder and take a look. (G:\EGP should be H:\EGP in the picture below.)

By the way, the web report files you just created will not be read or added to the PASS system until the middle of the coming night. Just think, while you sleep soundly, technology is at work for you!

That’s it. Everything should work.