This lesson will guide you through the process of creating and managing Secondary report cards in Illuminate.This is an Illuminate Student Information (ISI, SIS) tool only. This option, similar to Elementary report cards, requires that district / CMO start with a PDF of the report card to be uploaded into Illuminate. If your district / CMO does not have a template see the samples available below. For best practices do NOT hard code any grading period names onto the report card. The tools and steps listed below require specific permissions to move forward with building, typically included in the System Administrator role.
Since this tool provides you the ability to use a PDF template of your choice as the report card, it is helpful to have a paper copy available while creating it in Illuminate to use as reference.
Before You Start
Because Illuminate allows you to use or create your own customize report card document, you will need to have one completed and ready before you begin building it in Illuminate. Below are samples to assist you if you need a starting point, or to use as is with minor changes.
Where to Start
1. Click on Grades.
2. Under Secondary report cards, select Manage report cards.
This is the Secondary Report Card Overview page. If you have previously created Secondary report cards, you will have the following options:
1. You will find the Name of the report card and if selected, this will allow you to edit the basic information about the report card.
2. Select the Settings tool or Gear icon to direct you to editing the options of the report card.
3. To copy this report card to another site, select the Paper icon. Please note, when duplicating across sites some options such as GPA calculations and Custom Reports will not be copied over.
4. If provided when creating a report card, a description will display.
5. Any and all Sites using this report card will show here.
6. If Announcements are configured, a YES or NO will appear here.
7. If the report card is to be visible on the Parent and Student portal, you will manage such configurations in Manage Portal Report Cards.
8. If you need to create a Secondary report card, select New Report Card.
1. Title or provide a Name for the report card. Best practice would be to include the district or site (if specific to a site) and grading period. For example, District Q1 or Imperial High School S1.
2. Optional- Provide a Description of the report card which can be seen in the overview screen.
3. Click Create Report Card.
Once a report card has been created, you will see the report card's sub-navigation panel or tabs populate at the top of the page as your Toolbar. You can navigate your way through these from left to right.
1. Select the title of the report card to view details and basic information of the report card.
2. Options is where you will setup and choose how the report card layout will look and which elements the report card will include such as GPA Ranking, Attendance, Custom Reports, and more.
3. Sites allows you to assign the report card to specific sites or all sites within the district.
4. Add Template is where you will upload the report card PDF, layout the fields of data to where it should populate, and if applicable, create templates to support additional languages (if a PDF version of the selected language is already available).
5. At any point, visit Manage Report Cards to go back to the Overview page to see a complete list of all Secondary Report Cards available or created.
Options
When creating a Secondary Report Card, there are various options that must be configured. These options become data fields that will populate and print data as mapped on the layout of the report card.
Layout options assist in setting up the correct number of data fields needed in the Edit Layout screen, where you assign data to where it should print on the report card. Use the PDF template as a reference for what is needed.
1. and 2. Enter the maximum number of rows and columns on your report card.
Best practice is to enter more rows than actual periods. For example, if you have a 6-period day, you will be tempted to create six rows. However, a typical report card spans the entire year and if a student had a schedule change mid year for second period, then their second period section will take up multiple rows so that grades/teachers are displayed for each section they were scheduled to for each grading period.
If you intend on printing multiple grading periods, your report card should have 1 column per grading period.
For example, if you plan on including 4 grading periods (Quarter 1, Semester 1, Quarter 3, and Semester 2), then you will want 4 columns. Then, when you map your layout later, GP 1 = Quarter 1, GP 2 = Semester 1, GP 3 = Quarter 3, and GP 4 = Semester 2.
*Your secondary grading period numbers should also fall in sequential order to print correctly.
3. There is an option to Enable School Announcements to display on the report cards. Additional setup and permissions may able.
2. Select what you prefer to show for Attendance. Options will include and choose only one of the following:
- Disabled, not being applied to the report card
- By Term, such as Yearlong
- By Grading Period such as Semester 1, Quarter 1, Trimester 3, etc.
GPA can be readily available to be placed on the report card. You can have up to two GPA calculation data fields available for the report card. GPAs will have had to be created prior to this step. Visit GPA Calculation for setup information.
1. Select at least one GPA or GPA 1 from the list of previously created GPAs. Best practice or most common is only needing one GPA available on the report card, but in the event that an additional GPA is needed, you can also select a GPA 2.
2. For the chosen GPA 1, select how you want it calculated and available for the report card: by Grading Period, Term, Academic Year, and/or Cumulative. You can select more than one, depending on your PDF layout.
3. Does your report card include an area to display GPA Ranking? Select Yes or No to Enable GPA Ranking. This will only be available for GPA 1 as selected above. Once this option is selected or enabled, additional options will become available.
If Enable GPA Ranking is set to yes, Illuminate will automatically generate a new GPA ranking at the time the report card was printed.
Once you have chosen to enable GPA Ranking, the additional settings will apply to the ranking of GPA 1 only.
1. Ranking Strategy has two options available.
- Standard Competition is where GPA values that are equal are given equal rank and the next, lesser value is given the next highest rank. The rank would be 1,2,2,4 because the 4th person is ranked 4th.
- Dense is where in the case of a tie within the ranking, of the top 4 the rank would be 1,2,2,3. It “compacts” them together giving the 4 person in the slot 3rd in the ranking because of the tie.
The following options are optional when a GPA Ranking is selected:
2. In this ranking, would you like to Exclude Special Education? Select Yes or No.
3. Select a minimum number of periods a student must be scheduled to be included in the GPA Ranking in Minimum Periods. For example, a student that is scheduled to only 3 periods a day may be excluded from the GPA Ranking if the number 3 was inputted.
4. Do you wish to Exclude Students with Grades from the ranking? If so, select or multi-select all grades of students to exclude.
Sometimes your report card has areas of unique data that you want to display or print on the report card. You can do this by using Custom Reports previously created in Illuminate. An example of a custom report that you may want to include on a secondary report cards would be number of major incident reports by grading period. By selecting Custom Reports here, it makes all the data within the selected reports available in the Edit Layout page.
1. Choose one or more custom reports to include in your report card.
2. Select Save to save any changes made.
Sites provides the ability to assign the report card to specific sites or the district. This is a multi-select tool.
1. Select sites from the drop down menu.
2. Click Add.
Once added, you will see the sites in the list at the bottom titled Report Card Available At.
3. To remove a site from utilizing this report card, click Remove.
Template is where you upload the PDF version of the report card and put all of the components previously selected together.
1. Select Add a Template to begin, choosing ENGLISH to get started. This should act as your default, especially if supporting additional languages found in the menu.
2. You will notice that once a language is selected and saved, it will become a its own menu with edit and layout options.
1. Provide a Name or title of the report card as appropriate.
2. A Description is optional but helpful if the report card is unique to specific students, grade levels, and/or sites.
3. Select the PDF document that will serve as your PDF Template.
4. Click Save to apply changes made.
Once a template is created for the selected language, a new tab will populate. Options will include:
- Edit, to change the report card details such as Name and Description.
- Layout, your next step in "telling the data where to print" on your PDF template.
- Download Template, to download or save a blank version of the PDF template.
- Copy to [Language], to use if supporting other languages to quickly copy the current layout onto another template created.
Select Layout to lay out the fields on the PDF template.
All of the options setup prior come together in the Layout. Edit Layout is where you configure how all of the data fields are to be printed on the PDF template.
1. These are the field you have available to populate your report card. Click on a block and drag it to the appropriate spot on your template. Once placed, you can adjust the block size using the corners and sides of the field.
2. Use this Tool Bar or Alignment Tools to adjust alignment of your fields such as center, left, or right justified.
3. The Inspector Tool provides additional features such as line alignment, font, size, etc.
4. If your template is more than one page, you can click the number to navigate to other pages.
5. Be sure to click Save when finished.
To learn more about how to use the various Layout Tools, visit Map and Layout the Report Card.
Manage Portal Report Cards
To provide a downloadable copy of the report card to become available on the Parent/Student portal, it must be configured or made available. This is completely optional to the district or LEA. By default the Secondary Report Card will not display on the portal, if it has not be setup to be seen.
**Important**
Before diving into this, please make sure the corresponding Grading Periods have been created both at the sites and at the District.
Additionally, the below outlined steps must be completed at the District level and also at each site for whom the Report Card should appear in Parent/Student Portal. For example, Portal Report Cards would be created while signed in at the Demo District level and then also while signed in at Demo High School
Select Manage Portal Report Cards, once at least one report card has been created.
Select New Portal Report Card to begin.
- Create a Name of the configuration you are setting up which typically can be the same as the grading period or report card name.
- Select the Report Card you are choosing to display on the portal - please keep in mind it is one report card at a time, not multiple.
- Choose the appropriate Session, since report cards are tied to session/academic year.
- Single or multi select the Grading Period IDs that the report card will include (ie. only final grading periods, or include progress periods?).
- Select a Portal Start Date, or date the report card is first available portal.
- Select a Portal End Date, or date the report card is last available on the portal.
- If Student Preferences have been applied to a report card, select whether the portal should respect those preferences or ignore them, making the report card possibly available to parents and students.
- Select Create to save the configuration.
9. Once saved, a green banner will state Portal Report Card Configuration were successfully saved.
10. To create additional configurations for other report cards, select Manage Portal Report Cards.
You will be returned to the Portal Report Card overview page, to add, manage, and remove configurations as needed.
Select Manage Report Cards to continue with your report card building.
In the Portal, parent and students see Report Cards within the Report Cards tab, found in the side navigation bar on the left hand side.
Once selected, they will come to a Report Card overview page, listing all available report cards to view or download.
Remember, Final Grades are considered Transcripts, which are also available for portal access.
Portal widgets are enabled by your Implementation Manager. Please contact them to discuss implementation considerations when enabled available modules in the portal.
Next Steps
Ready to move forward with Report Cards? Begin by granting permissions and visiting the Secondary Report Card Permission Setup lesson.
Need to check out additional setup features? Visit how to Add/Modify Predefine (Canned, Preselected, etc.) Comments and how to Add a School Announcement to Secondary Report Cards.