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MBA Fees Plugin Tips & Tricks

Here’s a tip for easily and quickly finding students who have a credit on their account.

Let’s say it’s the end of the year, and we need to close out finances. One of the tasks is to refund any student who has a credit on their account. How do I find these students to begin the process? This can be done in seconds with one of our reports.

By going to the MBA plugins and selecting “Student Fees,” you will find the “Fee Totals by Student” report. Select this report and filter by available funds greater than zero. In just a few seconds, you’ll have a list of students with a credit on their account.

You can export these results, make these students your current selection, and start your next steps, like sending home a refund check.

MBA Outlook Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for our new Outlook integration.

First, you can sort your emails by ‘From.’ This will list the name of the sender and group all their emails underneath. You can also sort by ‘Subject’ or ‘Received.’ I prefer ‘Received’ because it shows what I’ve received today, this week, in 2023, 2022, and so on.

Another feature I like is pinning emails. Instead of flagging, which keeps the email red but floating, pinning keeps the email at the top until you unpin it. This is great for ongoing projects, as it reminds me that I still have tasks to complete. Note that pinning only works when viewing by ‘Received.’

The ‘Sweep’ feature is also handy. Unlike rules that apply only to incoming emails, Sweep can be used on both incoming and existing emails. For example, you can move all emails from a specific sender to a folder, keep the latest email, or move messages older than 10 days. You can even create new folders for these rules.

The ‘My Day’ icon is another useful addition. It brings up your calendar on the side of your emails, allowing you to see your schedule without switching tabs. You can easily check today’s or tomorrow’s meetings and close it with a click.

Quick Steps are another feature I love. You can create a Quick Step to reply to an email with a meeting request, sending both the email and the meeting link simultaneously. This saves time by avoiding the need to switch between your calendar and email.

Finally, attaching files is much easier now. Instead of clicking ‘Attach File’ and searching for the document, you can use a forward slash and start typing the name of the folder or document. It will automatically attach the file, saving you a lot of time.

MBA Excel Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for using Excel.

First, let’s talk about the Split feature. This allows you to split your data into two separate screens. If you have data on the left you want to compare to data on the right, you can do this by splitting your screen. Click on cell B2, go to the ‘View’ tab, and click ‘Freeze Panes’ because we need to freeze our pane before using the split. Then, click the ‘Split’ icon. You’ll see two solid gray lines, horizontal and vertical.

We don’t need both, so we’ll remove one and move the other between ‘Locker’ and ‘Grade Level’ to compare locker numbers with locker combinations on the right. You’ll see two scroll bars at the bottom, one for each screen. Scroll until you find the locker combination, make any necessary changes, and then format it as needed. When done, go back to ‘View’ and click the ‘Split’ icon again to remove the split.

Next, let’s find students without home phone numbers. Highlight the cells, right-click, and select ‘Filter by Color’ to get your list.

Another tip: if you have data where names aren’t filled down, you can fill them quickly. Select the data, press ‘Ctrl + A,’ then ‘Ctrl + G,’ and select ‘Blanks.’ Type ‘=’ and select the cell above, then press ‘Ctrl + Enter’ to fill in the blanks.

Lastly, if you want to highlight headers across multiple tabs, group your tabs by holding the ‘Shift’ key and selecting them. Go to ‘Home,’ choose your formatting options like color, bold, font size, and alignment. Double-click the lines to adjust column widths and add borders. Only the grouped tabs will be formatted.

MBA Customization Reference Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for using our MBA Customization Reference plugin.

Whether you’re just getting started with customizing PowerSchool or you’re a pro, the MBA Customization Reference plugin is a great tool for your database. The plugin is only accessible at the district office and requires no configuration. To access it, go to System Management, then Customizations, and select MBA Customization Reference.

This comprehensive and informative reference plugin provides detailed information on topics including SQL, HTML, CSS, Power Queries, and more. Each tab contains thorough explanations and real-life examples. For instance, if you’ve ever wondered where data is stored in PowerSchool and which table it resides in, the SQL tab is the perfect place to start. It helps you find your data from commonly used PowerSchool tables to all PowerSchool tables, broken down into groups.

Clicking on any table name will link you directly to the PowerSchool system help page where you can find the table you’re looking for. For example, clicking on the CC table will show you every field and data point within that table.

MBA Cafe Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for reimbursing students who have transferred out of PowerSchool but still have a balance on their MBA Cafe lunch account.

With the end of the school year approaching, your accounting department may ask you to reconcile any lunch account balances before rolling into the next school year. MBA Cafe has a simple way to find these students and process the reimbursements on their accounts.

To begin, we need to find the students who have a balance. Navigate to the MBA Cafe plugin and run the balances report from the student selection area. Choose only your inactive students with a lunch balance greater than or equal to one penny and click submit. The balances report will indicate students who have transferred out and have a balance on their account.

You can print this page, make the students your current selection, or export it as a CSV. Next, ensure you have access to these inactive students through the plugin. Navigate back to the plugin screen and look at the general Cafe settings. At the bottom, check the box that says “allow inactive students and staff to display in the autocomplete dropdowns throughout Cafe.” This box allows users to view inactive staff and students when doing reimbursements. Check it and click save.

Now that we know who the students are and have access to them, we can apply reimbursements. Go back to the plugin and select “Deposits and Reimbursements.” At the top, check “Give Reimbursement.” You can type in the student’s lunch ID or last name and hit enter. The student and their current account balance will show up below.

For example, if Judy has $33.50, we want her account to be at zero, so we will give her a reimbursement of $33.50. Her new balance will show as zero. Make any notes or reasons for the reimbursement, such as “Judy has transferred out,” and submit the reimbursement. You will get a green success message. If you go through a series of students, you can check the show history button to see any reimbursements that have been made and how much the student has received. You can also view this note in the student’s lunch transactions.

MBA Adaptive Scheduler Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips on how to troubleshoot when a student is not able to self-schedule in the Adaptive Scheduler plugin.

First, on the student adaptive scheduler screen in the PowerSchool admin portal, make sure the student has the “Allow Self Scheduling” box checked. If the student is attempting to use the mobile app, check to make sure the box is selected next to “Mobile App Access.” Ensure the current date is within the student portal availability self-scheduling timeframe.

If a student is able to self-schedule but not able to see certain courses, check the course to see if there are restrictions set up for grade level or if “Low Grade Restriction” is enabled. If the low grade restriction is enabled, verify if the student qualifies for the course based on their current term grades on the student’s quick lookup screen. If the student does not qualify based on their grades or grade level, they will not see any sessions for that course on their select student screen.

Another reason a student might not see a particular session is if the session is already at max capacity. For example, if the Robotics Club session for Monday is not visible to students, it could be because it has reached max capacity.

Manage Admin User Profile Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for managing your profile in PowerSchool.

First, navigate to your initials in the upper right-hand corner where you sign out. Click there and select “Manage Profile.” A new feature that PowerSchool added is the initial student screen, offering more options than before. If you handle attendance, you might want your initial student screen to be the attendance page. If you work in enrollment, you might prefer to see the student’s enrollment history. Or, if you frequently need to contact students’ parents, you might set the student contact management page as your default.

Another useful feature is enabling the alphabet search for students by their last name’s first letter. This can be enabled to appear right under the student search bar. Additionally, you can include inactive students and staff in your searches by checking the appropriate box. This will display inactive students as grayed out instead of blue.

In the new PowerSchool UI, you might have the option for a quick search in the blue navigation bar. If it’s missing, you can enable it in your profile settings. Note that there are four groups you can enable: students, staff, contacts, and pages. However, if “Display Staff Results” is not an option, it might be because your district has not enabled it. You can still enable students and contacts, which are usually the most important.

After submitting your changes, you’ll see the search bar right away. On the start page, you’ll see the alphabet under the search bar. When searching, active students will appear in blue, and inactive students will be grayed out. Clicking on a student will take you to your chosen initial student screen, such as contact management.

To make further changes, simply go back to “Manage Profile.”

Incident Action Association – Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for using Incident Management, specifically for creating quick incidents.

If you’re in the district office, navigate to District Management, then Behavior Incident Action Association. This is the setting I want to talk about: the Quick Incident Action Association.

Essentially, this setting determines whether the action resulting from an incident is tied to the participant or the behavior. This can be very impactful, especially if your state requires a certain hierarchy in Incident Management, where the action must be tied to the behavior and then the behavior is tied to the student. It’s a little setting that’s somewhat hidden, but it’s important to check and ensure it aligns with your district’s requirements.

This setting only impacts those who create an incident using Quick Incident. If you change it to behavior, make sure to hit submit on the page so your changes take effect. Now, any quick incidents created in this environment will have the action associated with the behavior.

Check this setting to make sure it’s working for your district.

MBA Chart-It Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for using the Chart-It Dashboard in MBA Chart-It.

Have you ever needed to use an existing chart in a presentation or report without including the dataset? You can easily copy and save images directly from the Chart-It Dashboard.

From the dashboard, right-click on the chart you want to use and select “Save Image As” to save it to your computer. Once saved, you can insert the image into a document or presentation.

To copy the image, right-click on it and select “Copy Image.” Then, proceed to your document or presentation, right-click, and paste the image.

These simple steps make it easy to incorporate charts into your reports or presentations without the hassle of dealing with the underlying data.

MBA Data Reference and Resource Plugin – Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for using MBA Report Creator, MBA Data Reference and Resources, and PowerSchool Data Access Tags.

While MBA plug-in support does not assist with the creation of data access tags, MBA offers a phenomenal free plugin called Data Reference and Resource that includes an entire section devoted to data access tags.

Additionally, a PowerSchool Data Access Tag resource can be found by navigating to System Help. Click the question mark icon in the blue bar on the start page in the upper right-hand corner of PowerSchool. Once in PowerSchool System Help, search for data access tags.

I also want to mention MBA Academy, our Core PowerSchool Training Division. MBA Academy offers a course on data access tags called Data Access Tags and Codes.

To organize the data access tags I use, I created an MBA Data Access Tags report using Report Creator. I added the tags and formatting examples that I frequently use, copying and modifying examples to work with the information in my PowerSchool for different school setups. This report provides a data access tags reference with working examples. As PowerSchool modifies or adds data access tags, I continue to update the report.