Index  

The Free account is a gradebook for teachers. It does not include email and web access for parents and students, report cards, administrative reports, or Spanish translation, although those features are enabled for a limited time when you first sign up. This is free forever, with no ads. To cancel your account, just stop logging in, and your data will be deleted after 90 days.

The Single License is for teachers to have a gradebook including email and web access for parents and students and Spanish translation. This does not include school-wide report cards or administrative features. You must sign up for a Free account before you can pay for a Single License. The rate is $49.95 per year. There is no additional charge or limit for students, parents, or TA's.

The Group License is for districts, schools, or any group. It includes all the above features plus school-wide report cards and administrative reports. This actually costs less per staff member than the Single License, even though it has more features. Contact us for a quote.

All accounts are upgradable and downgradable, so you can enter data in a Free account and upgrade it to a Single License or Group License anytime without re-entering anything.

The Teacher mode is where teachers enter grades, take attendance, make seating charts, send email, etc. Teachers may also allow Teacher Assistants (TA's) to have limited access to their gradebooks.

The Admin mode is where school administrators and counselors lookup student grades and generate report cards for the entire student body. This is also where system administrators set school-wide settings. To switch between Teacher and Admin mode, use the "Setup" menu — you do not need a separate login. Schools should restrict teachers from accessing the Admin mode, but individual subscribers use both modes.

The Student/Parent section is where students and parents login to check their grades and homework. Everyone has their own password so they cannot see anyone else's grades, and of course they cannot change any grades.

To add new staff for your school, you can load them in advance, or you can simply let staff sign up themselves. Either way, they choose their own usernames and passwords, so you do not need to assign them.

To let them sign up themselves, tell them to go to SnapGrades.net, click the "Sign Up" button, and follow the prompts to choose their own username, password, and other options. It recognizes your school, so everyone is automatically included on your account. Note: For security, you should restrict who can sign up by going to the page and selecting "Let anyone with email @ [example.k12.ca.us] sign up", and restrict the default permissions for new users — otherwise students and others might create fake teacher accounts.

Or, to load staff in advance, go to the page, click the "New Users" button, and enter your staff email addresses. (You can paste a whole document, like your staff directory, and it will find all the email addresses.) Select which permissions apply to them, and check the "Send links..." checkbox. This sends a personal link to each one, which they then click to select choose their own username, password, and other options. You can repeat this for admins, etc., to give them different permissions. Notes:

•  It's okay to list staff who've already signed up; it will just update their permissions if changed.
•  You can always resend the links later by clicking the "Send Links" button. This sends to just those who have not signed up yet. Even if they lose the email, they can still sign up themselves and it will automatically email them another link.
•  If any staff work at multiple schools, you'll need to add them to each school separately, but they can use the same username for all schools.
•  You'll notice the staff list shows just their email address when they have not signed up yet. Once they do sign up, it shows their username, name, and the last date they made any changes.

Alternatively, you can sign up for them, where you choose their username, password, and set all their settings, one at a time. This gives you more control to set all their gradebook options, but it is very time consuming. If you just want to make sure they have the right students loaded, you can do that from the Admin mode by importing all student rosters for them, then let them sign up themselves, which is a lot more efficient.

Tip: The best strategy to get your staff started is to give them half a day of training and have them all sign up together. Otherwise, some may procrastinate, especially if they resist change. Also be sure to import all student rosters and define your grading periods in advance.


Delete Staff

To delete a staff member's account, click their name on the page and select "Delete". This does not delete the account immediately; it just marks the account to be deleted on our next maintenance cycle at least 30 days after they last modified their account, so you have a chance to undo any mistakes. But if it's just an email address, it does delete immediately. Note: If a teacher is actively using SnapGrades for another school, this will not delete their entire account, just their gradebooks and affiliation with your school.

Archive Staff

When a staff account is deleted, so are their gradebooks and all their grades and comments on report cards. If you want to keep old report cards intact, but block the teacher from accessing their gradebooks, select "Archive" instead of "Delete". Note: This affects your school only, so teachers can still have active gradebooks at other schools.

Transferring Gradebooks

If a teacher is being replaced by a new teacher in the middle of the term, you can transfer their account to the new teacher. Go to the page in Admin Mode to access the teacher's account (you don't need their password or username), then go to the page in their account to change their username, password, name, email address, etc., for the new teacher.

Let anyone with email @ [example.k12.ca.us] sign up — Use this to require a district email address to sign up. It will send a coded link to their district email address, which they must click to prove that they are a staff member. This option is safe assuming students do not have access to district email accounts.

No one can sign up unless I click "New Users" — This prevents anyone from signing up unless you add their email address in advance.


These four permissions (labeled T, G, A, S) apply to each staff member individually, and as the default for new users:

Teacher — Teachers need this permission to have gradebooks. Uncheck this for others.

Grades — Principals and counselors need this permission to lookup any student's grades. Also resource teachers and homeroom teachers need this to see grades of their own students in other teachers' classes (they cannot lookup any student, just the students who are already in their gradebooks). In addition to grades, they can see homework, assignments, comments, and report cards. Uncheck this to prevent teachers from seeing any grades but their own, and uncheck it for office clerks who should not see grades or report cards.

Admin — Principals, counselors, office clerks, and system administrators need this permission to use the features in Admin mode. This should be unchecked as the default for new users.

System setup — System administrators need this permission to change school settings. Uncheck this for others so they cannot accidentally change settings that would affect other teachers. This should be unchecked as the default for new users.


These two permissions apply to all teachers (i.e., staff with the "Create Teacher gradebooks" permission):

Create new students and edit student names & ID's — When checked, teachers can create and edit student records just like Admins can, but it is recommended to uncheck this to prevent them from accidentally changing student names and ID's and creating duplicate records. (Teachers can always edit parent/student contact information regardless of this setting.)

Let students add themselves to the database — When checked, teachers can optionally let students add themselves to their gradebooks (usually for colleges). Uncheck this to disable that option for all teachers. This helps prevent students from abusing the system or accidentally creating duplicate student records.

To check your students' grades and assignments in their regular classrooms, go to the "Info" tab and select "Students' Grades in Other Classes". You can then select each student, and click each of their subjects for more details.

Special Subject teachers (for elementary music, art, PE, etc.) need your own gradebook. The grades you enter will automatically appear on the students' report cards — you do not need to do anything to transfer the grades to the homeroom teacher.

Homeroom teachers can check their students' specials grades by going to the "Info" tab and selecting "Students' Grades in Other Classes". Admins may choose to restrict specials teachers from looking up students' homeroom grades.

Administrators and Counselors do not need a gradebook. See Accounts & Licenses

Login automatically on this computer — Lets you access your account without requiring a password the next time you go to SnapGrades.net. This is convenient for your home computer, but it is not recommended for any computer where students might have access. This option is reset if you change your password.

Logout if idle __ minutes — Requires you to enter your password each time you use SnapGrades, so it is more secure. This is the default setting.

Forgot Password/Username — Click this button on the login screen if you forget your password or username. It prompts you to enter your username or email. If the username is valid, or the email address matches your account, it sends you your username and a link to reset your password. (For security, your password is never emailed to you.) Once you login you can always change your password or username on the page.

Security Alerts — SnapGrades automatically sends you a security alert if it detects a suspicious login, such as entering the wrong password or using a computer that you've never used before. (If your computer always deletes cookies, it will send a false alert every time you login, so you may turn off this option on the page.)

Level 2: Attendance — Lets TA's enter attendance for the current day, in addition to updating homework, but they cannot see or change attendance on past dates.

Level 3: Scores & Assignments — Lets TA's enter and change scores, in addition to homework and attendance. They may also add and edit assignments, but cannot delete them. They cannot see students' grades.

Level 4: Print & See Grades — Lets TA's print reports and update seating charts, in addition to homework, scores, and assignments. They can see students' grades. They can also see and edit attendance on past dates.

Level 5: Email & Setup — Lets TA's send email, reset student passwords, open your other gradebooks, and have almost the same access you do. The only thing they cannot do is change your password, email address, or TA settings, or access Admin mode.

To enable TA access:

1. Go to the computer that the TA will use. (If they need access from multiple computers, you'll have to repeat these steps on each computer.)
2. Log into your account and go to the page.
3. Select the TA access level and password. (Each computer can have a different access level, but they all use the same password. You can leave the password blank, but that is a security risk.)
4. Logout.

Then your TA can go to the login screen, select the "TA" tab, enter your username, and enter the TA password you chose.

If you want to grant your TA just temporary access, or just temporarily raise their access level for one session only:
1. Go to the TA Login screen.
2. Enter your password, not the TA password.
3. Select the access level and Login.
When they Logout (or if it's idle for 10 minutes), the temporary access ends.

Note: Do not try to create all your gradebooks at the beginning of the year. Instead create them when each grading period starts, so it can copy the most recent student rosters and grading options for you.

Note: You cannot have more than one gradebook for the same grading period at the same school.

Delete Gradebook — You may keep your old gradebooks from previous years. If you ever need to delete a gradebook, go to the page and click the "Delete Gradebook" button.

Grading Periods — The page determines whether you have gradebooks for each semester, trimester, quarter, or six-week grading period, etc. For example, if 6-weeks is selected as your smallest grading period, all teachers will have separate gradebooks each six weeks; but if Semesters is selected as the smallest grading period, each teacher will have one gradebook for the whole semester. When it calculates cumulative grades, like 2nd Semester total, it automatically combines grades from all gradebooks it needs, like 3rd & 4th Quarters.

Choose Single Subject Classes if you teach mostly different students in different classes, such as 7-12th grade and specials subjects. This treats each tab as a class, so students may have different Student Comments for each class, and roll is taken as period attendance.

Choose Adult Education for college or professional training. This is just like Single Subject Classes, but without features for parents.

Aside from that, all formats provide the same features. You may switch the format anytime to see which is best for you.


Admins have a similar option on the page. "Elementary only" and "Secondary or K-12" affect slight changes in wording only. "College or Adult Education" hides all the parent features.

System administrators (those with the "S" privilege on the page) can make any changes, which is useful for correcting teachers' settings and troubleshooting. They can also change the password, username, email address, and name to reassign an account to someone else.

Principals and counselors (those without the "S" privilege) can only look at gradebooks, but not make changes. This is useful to see the class averages, ensure the teacher is keeping their grades up to date, ensure the teacher has a sufficient number of assessments, and print reports in the teacher's absence.

For security, there are several restrictions and safe-guards:

• You must purchase a group license. This is disabled for free trials and individual subscribers.

• This is disabled if your security settings are not strict enough on the Setup Staff page.

• You can look at only teachers covered by your group license. If they paid for their own individual subscription, you cannot view their gradebook. (If the teacher gives us consent, we can transfer their individual license to your group license.)

• You can look at gradebooks only at your own school or district (whatever your group license covers). If the teacher has other gradebooks at other schools, you cannot view them.

• Two people cannot make changes to an account at the same time, so when a system admin logs in to make changes, it forces the teacher to logout, and vice versa. But for read-only access the admin can be logged in at the same time as the teacher.

Internet Explorer* 5.0+ for Windows or Mac (OS 9 or X)
Safari 1.2+ for Mac (OS X 10.3+) or Windows
Firefox 1.0+ for Windows or Mac
Netscape 7.0+ for Windows or Mac

Other browsers may work, but some functions are limited. SnapGrades has not been tested on mobile browsers.

* Note that Internet Explorer for Windows is an unstable browser. It works fine 99% of time, but sometimes it produces mysterious problems that can be fixed only by deleting its cache. These bugs are not specific to SnapGrades, but they are more noticable when you use a web application as intensively as SnapGrades. Firefox and Safari do not have these problems, plus they are faster and have a built-in spell-check.

No plug-ins are required.

A high-speed internet connection is recommended, but some teachers do use dial-up.

• Load student names, contact info, demographic data, etc.
• Load student rosters into teachers' gradebooks
• Input grades for report cards and progress reports into your SIS
• Input attendance data (Custom Integration only)

There are two ways to do this:

Import/Export Data Files — Manually export data files from SnapGrades and import them into your SIS, and vice versa. It can import a wide variety of tabular data formats from your SIS. It exports a general tabular data format, not specific to any particular SIS, so you may need to open the file in Excel to reformat the data as needed. See Import and Export for technical details.

Custom Integration — For an additional fee, we can custom integrate SnapGrades with your SIS. This automates most of the data exchange on the back end so you don't need to manually handle files. Please contact us to discuss your requirements and request a quote.


SIS Codes

You can edit various codes in SnapGrades to match the data in your SIS:

Course & Section codes are on the page for the entire school. You can edit these manually, but it is easier to import them from your SIS when you import student rosters.

Teacher numbers (or any identifier) are on the page.

School numbers (to identify each school in your district) are on the page.

Grade codes identify what each grade is for, like 1st semester grade, 1st semester exam, 2nd quarter effort, etc. See the page.

As the system administrator and trainer, familiarize yourself with SnapGrades as much as possible and watch these video tutorials:

Then set your school settings and import all your students before new staff sign up. The more preparation you do, the easier it will be for everyone else to get started.

Also it will be helpful to create an extra school with fake students so you have a safe place for other staff to experiment during training. To do this, go to Admin Mode and change the school pop-up menu to "Other School...". Give it a name like "(your district name) Training". (If you just add "Training" to a school name, it thinks you mean the same school, so nothing will happen. If you don't see your training school in the pop-up menu, try again with a more distinct name.)


Teachers

To train your teachers, it is recommended you offer two training sessions a few weeks apart if possible: one at the start of the year, and another before your first progress reports. In the first session, they will set up their gradebooks (at their real school). Show the following videos and have them complete these tasks:

In the second session, they will experiment with other settings at the fake school. Show the following videos and have them try these tasks:

To train your principals, counselors, and office clerks, offer a training session at the start of the year. Prepare some sample student grades in your fake school for them to experiment with. Show the following video tutorials and have them try these tasks:

The first step is to export the data from your Student Information System (SIS). Each system is different, but they all generally have a feature to "Export" a "Query". See the Data Format below. An example query for SASIxp looks like this:

ASTU ACLS AMST TchNum BegPeriod CrsTitle PermNum LastName FirstName NickName PrntEmail

1. Go to or and click the "Import" button.
2. Select "Import data file...", select your file, and click OK.
3. Select which columns to import.
4. Select which classes/subjects to import. (Teachers only, not Admins)


Copy Spreadsheet or Table

Alternatively you can copy data from a spreadsheet or text table, or even just a simple list of names or student ID's:

1. Copy the cells or text from your spreadsheet or text table.
2. Go to or and click the "Import" button.
3. Select "Copy & paste students...", paste the text, and click OK.
4. Select which columns to import.
5. Select which classes/subjects to import. (Teachers only, not Admins)


Data Format

SnapGrades can import almost any tabular data format:

•  .txt, .csv, or any text file
•  Tab or Comma delimited
•  Windows, Mac, or Unix format
•  UTF-8 character set (needed only if accented characters like in "Renée")
•  Header row is preferred, but not required. Exact column names are not important.
•  Columns and rows can be in any order.
•  It should be a continuous data list without any page breaks.
•  Each school must be in a separate file.

Name — First, last, and nicknames can be in different columns, or in a single column like 'Joe "Joey" Doe' or 'Doe, Joe (Joey)'. It does not import middle initials.

ID — This may be the student's ID number or any username you choose for them to login. It is required if you want students and parents to be able to login, plus it's necessary to distinguish students with very similar names.

Student/Parent Email — Email is not required, but recommended so students and parents can reset their own passwords if needed. Parents and students may each have multiple email addresses in the same or separate columns. Any format is accepted.

Student/Parent Phone, Parent Names, Parent Relation (mother/father/etc.) — Contact information is imported for the student and two parent/guardians. Parents and students may each have multiple phone numbers in the same or separate columns. Any format is accepted.

Address — Addresses are optional, for mailing report cards and login instructions. If you have separate columns for the street address, apartment number, etc., import them all as "Street Address" and they will be joined.

Grade Level — Grade level can be a variety of formats, like 5, 5th, K, Kindergarten, P, Pre-K, Freshman, Frosh, Junior, Sr, etc., or their graduating class, like 2014.

Gender — Gender should be M/F, male/female, B/G, or boy/girl.

Birthdate — Most date formats are accepted for birthdate, including yyyy-mm-dd, dd-mm-yyyy, and mm/dd/yy.

Ethnicity — Ethnicity should be typed exactly the way you have it listed on the page. If more than one ethnicity applies, they should be in the same column separated by a comma, e.g., "White,Hispanic".

Custom — You can import custom columns like Special Ed, English Learner, Gifted/Talented, etc., as you have defined on the page. Blanks, N, F, and 0 mean no; Y, T, and anything else means yes.

Other — Other information is appended to the Staff Notes.

Period, Subject, Teacher — Any of these columns may be used to separate students into separate classes.

Course & Section Codes — These are used to export grades back into your SIS. Import these codes in addition to Subject and Period.

School/Building — Each school/building must be imported from a separate file; it is not imported as a data column.

Other columns are ignored.


Here is a simplified example of student data without any class information:

ID    LastName  FirstName  ...
9024  Doe       John
9711  Austin    Laura
9147  Laney     Mary
9610  Farley    Mike
9249  Grant     Sherry
9122  Cho       Shoyi
...

ID    LastName  FirstName  Teacher  ...
9024  Doe       John       Breyer
9711  Austin    Laura      Breyer
9147  Laney     Mary       Breyer
9610  Farley    Mike       Raney
9249  Grant     Sherry     Raney
9122  Cho       Shoyi      Raney
...

ID    LastName  FirstName  Per  Subject  Teacher  ...
9024  Doe       John       1    Algebra  Breyer
9024  Doe       John       2    PE       Smithers
9024  Doe       John       3    Biology  Graham
9711  Austin    Laura      1    History  Bauers
9711  Austin    Laura      2    Art      Raney
9711  Austin    Laura      3    Biology  Graham
...

ID    LastName  FirstName  ...
9024  Doe       John
9711  Austin    Laura
9147  Laney     Mary
9610  Farley    Mike
9249  Grant     Sherry
9122  Cho       Shoyi
...

ID    Per  Subject  Teacher  ...
9024  1    Algebra  Breyer
9024  2    PE       Smithers
9024  3    Biology  Graham
9711  1    History  Bauers
9711  2    Art      Raney
9711  3    Biology  Graham
...

As Admin, when you include the teacher column in your import, and optionally the subject or period, this creates rosters for teachers so they can easily load their classes. Note that this roster information is not imported directly into their gradebooks. Instead it is saved in a holding area, where they can then load their classes when they are ready. That means it is okay to import rosters before the grading period starts, and even before the teacher has signed up.

Because there are always last-minute schedule changes, you can re-import the rosters frequently (it's best to reimport all the rosters for all teachers, not just incremental changes). When you update rosters, it updates only the data in the holding area; it does not update the teacher's gradebook, so teachers must manually add and remove students who change schedules in the middle of the grading period. (This is necessary so the teacher can decide exactly how the grades should be transferred from one class to another. Also this protects you from disaster in case you accidentally import bad data.) When a new grading period starts, they'll create a new gradebook with the new rosters from the holding area.

The rosters remain in the holding area until you replace them with new rosters. If a teacher does not have their own rosters, such as an elementary PE teacher, they can just load each homeroom teacher's rosters into their gradebooks one class at a time.

Alternatively, Admins can import students without any class or teacher information. Although this doesn't create rosters for teachers, it does pre-load the database so teachers only need to type or import student ID's or names, without having to fill all the fields.


Re-Importing Data

It is okay to re-import students who are already in the database. If fact, typically you'll do so every grading period. It automatically reconciles any discrepancies, so for example if a student's imported email address is different from the one already in the database, or one is blank, it merges them. And if the names are slightly different, like "Joe" vs. "Joseph", it generally keeps the name that's already in the database. If any duplicate is ambiguous, it asks you how you want it handled.

Importing data does not delete any students, so it is okay to import just a partial list of students. The only way to delete students is to click the Purge button on the . This is useful if you accidentally import bad data.

Student data, like contact information, is updated immediately when you import it. But rosters (the data identifying who is in which class) is saved in a holding area, so it does not directly update teacher's gradebooks. See above.



See also 4.6 Integrate with your SIS

Use the List menu to list all students in a grade level or by gender, ethnicity, special ed, English learners, at risk, athletes, etc. (You can customize this criteria on the page.)

Click any class to see all the student's assignments and grades for that class.

Note: The student classes shown are based on which students teachers actually have in their gradebooks, not what you import. Any duplicates means the teacher accidentally has the same student in two different periods of the same class — this causes problems, so please tell the teacher to correct their rosters.

•  Transfer student data to another school
•  (e.g. export graduating 8th graders for the high school to import)
•  Import report card grades & comments into your SIS
•  Import into another system
•  Open in Excel for more graphs and analysis

Also teachers can export a data file to:

•  Import students into another SnapGrades gradebook
•  (e.g. for team teachers who have all the same students)

The other type of export is a PDF or HTML file, which teachers use to:

•  Turn in an electronic copy of your gradebook to your school

Export Data File

As an Admin, go to the page to export your entire student body or any selected group (e.g., all 8th graders). You can select which grades and comments to export, or select none to export student data only.

As a Teacher, click the "Import/Export" button on the page. This exports all your students and their total grades and comments for the selected grading period.

Exports include students' names, ID's, graduating class, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and parent info. They also include comment codes corresponding to the 12 customizable comment boxes in your gradebook (e.g., "1,3,12" means you've selected the 1st, 3rd, and 12th comment boxes for that student), as well as the full comment text. It may also include SIS codes for course, section, teacher, and grading period. If needed, you may view and edit this data file in Excel before importing it into your SIS or other system.

You can export the file as .txt, .csv, or .xls (which is actually just a text file with an .xls extension, which opens well on some systems, but causes a warning in new versions of Excel). It uses UTF-8 character set (but that matters only if your data has accented characters like in "Renée").

Alternatively, your school can integrate SnapGrades with your SIS to automatically import report card grades & comments without having to export files.

Export PDF or HTML

Many schools require teachers to turn in an electronic copy of their gradebook at the end of the year. A data file is not useful for this because it doesn't include details on assignments, and it's not very readable to the human eye. So instead you want to create a PDF or HTML copy of the Gradebook reports:

Load all your classes prepared by your Admin. This is the quickest and easiest way, but it requires your Admin to import all students in advance.

Import a Data File from your school's Student Information System (SIS). You can import students into your own gradebook, or your Admin can import all students for all teachers from one file.

Copy a Spreadsheet or Word document, then paste the text into SnapGrades. This can be faster than typing students one at a time, especially if you already have your students listed in a file.

Self-Enroll lets students add themselves to your gradebook. This is the easiest method since you don't need to do much, but only if your students are reliable and trustworthy.

Tip: Press the Enter or Return key as a shortcut to rapidly add new students.

Alternatively you may import students or let them add themselves online.

Remove erases the student from your class. Note: Students' grades and information are never deleted, so if you accidentally remove a student, you can restore them by clicking Add/Undelete and entering their name or ID.

Withdraw is like Remove, but you still have the option to print reports for the student, e.g., in case you need to print grades for withdrawn students at the end of the term.

To transfer a student to a different period just Add them to the new period and Remove them from the old one. Their grades will transfer automatically. See details.

Students' First and Last names are for official records. Their Preferred name is usually a variation of their first name, like "Mike" instead of "Michael"; this is the name that appears in gradebooks and informal reports. Changing a student's name affects all teachers. For this reason, your Admin may restrict you from changing names. If you want to give nicknames to your students (such as a Spanish teacher naming a student "Pablo") use the Custom field below.

ID # is a unique identifier for each student. Typically this is numbers, but it may include letters. This is important to distinguish students who have the same name. If you leave this blank, it will auto-generate an ID number for new students. If you allow the Self-Enroll feature, students can choose their own ID.

Passwords are generated automatically when you add a new student, so you don't actually edit it on this page. You can see these on the page.

Custom is an optional column for your gradebook. Typically this is to assign each student a roster number and sort them in a non-alphabetic order, but you can also use it for nicknames (such as a Spanish teacher naming a student "Pablo"), or any custom notation, such as reading groups, special needs, etc. Unlike the ID, this can be different for each class, it doesn't affect other teachers, and you can hide it on student reports.

Email addresses are required for emailing reports, and they allow students and parents to retrieve their own password if they forget, but otherwise it is optional. You may list more than one email address for each student and parent. Students and parents may update their own email addresses when they login (but students cannot change or remove their parents' email addresses). The Staff email is useful for sending reports to a student's counselor, special ed. teacher, coach, etc. See Email

Phone numbers, Parent names and relations (mother/father/etc.) are displayed as contact information on the and pages. You may type multiple phone numbers (e.g., work, home, mobile) in any format. Students and parents may update their own contact information when they login. (Parent info is not available for Adult Education)

Grade Level appears on Report Cards. It also lets Admins select students by grade, e.g. to print all 3rd grade report cards. (Not available for Adult Education)

Language is used to automatically translate reports and emails to Spanish. See details

If you make a mistake, you can repeat this process.



See also 5.2 Import File

Note: Your Admin may disable this option.

Setup

1. Go to the page to prepare your classes. Aside from this, your gradebook should be empty, with no students.

2. Click the checkbox for "Let students add themselves to this gradebook".

3. Optionally you may choose an Authorization Code to prevent non-students from adding your class. This is like a password you give to all your students, then they enter it when they add your class (this is not their password). If you do not require an Authorization Code, any student can add themselves, which is more convenient if the students at your school can be trusted.

4. Give your students the instructions below.

5. Afterward you should check your page to verify that all your students have added themselves to the correct classes. You should probably also verify that your students have given you their parents' correct email addresses.

6. You may want to turn off this feature once everyone is added to avoid any prank additions. Otherwise students may add themselves throughout the term.

Instructions for Students

To transfer a student from one period to another, go to the page, add them to the new period, and remove them from the old period. Their grades will transfer automatically wherever it finds the same assignment on the same date, so if different periods have different assignments or different assignment dates, you'll need to manually transfer those scores.

If students change periods each grading period, it will still find the cumulative total (e.g., the Semester total of two Quarters) as long as it's with the same teacher. But if they are changing teachers, see below.


Changing Teachers

To transfer a student from one teacher to another, both teachers need to make adjustments. The old teacher needs to:

If a student enters your class from another school in the middle of the grading period, use the same procedure as above.

To transfer data for all students graduating from one school to another, e.g., all 8th graders entering high school, see Export Students.

Click "Student" to sort students by name.

Click "ID" to sort students by ID.

Click the # column to sort students by a custom roster number (see ).

Click the Grade or Score column to sort from highest to lowest.

Comments for Student/Parent are displayed to students and parents online and in reports. They are also shown on Report Cards for each grading period.

Notes for You Only are just for yourself; they are never displayed to anyone else. This is useful for book numbers, logging discussions with parents, etc.

Notes for Staff Only are shared with all the student's teachers and your Admins. They are never displayed to students or parents. This is useful for special needs, discipline logs, etc. Admins can edit these on the page.

Comments on the page are for each student on specific assignments (commonly to indicate late work). Students and parents can see their comments in reports and online.

Homework & Announcements for the whole class are typed on page.

Click the "Show List" link on the page to select from 12 customizable comments. When exporting grades, it includes comment codes 1-6 and 7-12 corresponding to your two columns, so your school may want everyone to use a standard set of comments for report cards.

Text Formatting

Web and email addresses are hyperlinked automatically when notes are displayed online. To make bold text, type double **asterisks**, and double //slashes// for italic, or use HTML <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i> tags. Any other HTML is not accepted.

Note: Your Admin may disable this feature for some or all teachers.

Teachers view this information on the Info tab and select "".

Admins view this on the page and click any class.

To actually login as a student, click the "Login as Student" button. You don't need to type their ID or password — this is a shortcut just for you. (This does not count as a real login when viewing student/parent login activity.

Rubric is a type of grade scale, like 3+ or S-. Standards often use rubrics, but you can also use letter grades.

Standards is a set of objectives for a specific subject and grade level, such as 3rd grade Math.

Objective is a single graded item in a set of Standards, such as "Factors numbers up to 50".

Strand is a group of objectives within a subject, such as Number Sense. Math and Language Arts are usually subdivided into strands, with other subjects are not.

State Standards vs. Report Cards

Most states have many more objectives than can fit practically on a report card, so most districts create a condensed version of the state standards to show on report cards. For SnapGrades, you only need to enter the standards as they appear on your report cards, not the full-length state standards.

Free Full-Service Help

The easiest way to get started is for you to send us a sample report card for your school. We will then create a report card for one grade level for you, which you can then modify and replicate for other grade levels as needed. This service is included with your school free trial. Please contact us for further instructions.

Entering Standards

The easiest way to enter standards is to copy them from your school/district's report card source document (spreadsheet, Word doc, etc.):

Be sure to create a set of standards for personal/study skills too if students are graded on multiple objectives. But for subjects where just a single grade is given, like PE or Music, you do not need to create any standards.

Order of Subjects

By default the order of subjects is: English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science, Arts, PE, Technology, Personal/Study Skills. To customize that order go to the page, edit each standard and select a number from 1 to 100, where 1 is first and 100 is last. (It's okay to have gaps in your sequence or for different standards to have the same number.)

For subjects that do not use standards, like PE or Music, go to the page and enter a number from 1 to 100. (Note: On this page it is not necessary to enter a number for subjects that do use standards, like Math, because it uses the number you select on the Setup Standards page.)

Note: Report Cards automatically hide any subjects that are not graded yet. You may also optionally set it to hide any objectives that are not graded yet.

Updating Standards

You may edit and delete standards anytime. When you edit or delete standards that were already published, it may ask you how you want teachers' gradebooks updated to the new version (i.e., which old objective should be transferred to which new objective). Standards are copied for each school year, so anything you edit or delete in one year does not affect gradebooks or report cards from other years.

Rubrics & Grades

The standards do not define which grade scale to use. Instead, teachers select the appropriate grade scale in their gradebooks on the page. Each subject tab in their gradebook can use a different grade scale, such as 4321± on core subjects and ESN± on personal/study skills.

Note: The objectives and the strand average are calculated using the same grade scale. If you want to use different grade scales within a subject, such as ABCDF for the average but 4321 or ✓± for the objectives, teachers need to manually override the grades.

To select which standards to use in your gradebook:

Each assignment can be aligned with one or more objectives, so whenever you enter grades, it automatically tracks students progress toward the standards, and no extra steps are required for report cards. To align assignments with objectives:

To monitor your students' progress on each objective, go to the page. Click a student to see their grades for each objective in each grading period, alongside a "Class" column for the class average. Click "Show Class Average" to see the class average in detail. Click any objective to see all assignments aligned with that objective, and a distribution graph of grades.

Grade Calculations

The report shows the number and percent of students earning each rubric or letter grade (e.g., 1/2/3/4, F/D/C/B/A, N/S/E, etc.) and average grade in each standard. You can print different grading periods to monitor progress over time, and print different groups for comparison, such as ethnicity, gender, special ed, and other groups customized on the page. Each grade level prints on a separate page.

Note: This report is designed to be used with standards-based grading; the results for traditional grades may not be particularly useful.


Troubleshooting:

"No students or grades found" or total number of students is too small

This report counts students by grade level, so students are ignored if their grade level is blank. Go to the page, list all students and click any student where the "Yr" column is blank, then click the "Edit Student" button and set the "Grade Level" menu.

Also check that you've selected the correct students and grading periods when generating this report.

Average grade missing/inaccurate

The Average grade is displayed as a decimal for numeric rubrics, or as a 4-point GPA for ABCDF letter grades. Other grades like E/S/N or I are not counted in the Average. (This is a problem if your school uses E for Fail instead of E for Excellent.)

Same standards listed more than once

That means that different teachers have selected different versions of the same standards. Make sure all teachers select the same standards on the page.

Note: In this documentation a "Progress Report" is the same thing as a "Report Card", just with a different grading period and title. To print a report of students' grades and assignments for one class, see Grade Reports.

Print & Email — Admins can print or email report cards for the whole student body or an entire grade level from the tab. Teachers can or complete report cards for their own students (unless your Admin restricts this feature).

Available Online — Students and parents can login anytime to see a report card of all current and past grades (unless you take the gradebooks offline — see ).

Traditional vs. Standards — SnapGrades can generate traditional report cards, where each subject gets just one grade, or standards-based, where grades are shown for multiple objectives within a subject. See details

Citizenship, Effort, Exams — Report cards may include separate grades for Citizenship, Effort, Final Exams, etc. See details

Grading Periods — Admins define the grading columns available for report cards.

When generating report cards, you select which grades to show and hide — e.g., your 2nd six weeks progress report might show subtotal grades for the 1st and 2nd six weeks, with a cumulative total so far for 1st semester; while your report card at the end of the year might show just the semester grades.

Weighted Cumulative Grades — Grading periods and exams, etc., may be weighted, e.g., to set each quarter as 20% and each semester exam as 10% of the year-end grade. See details

Overriding Grades — You may manually change grades on report cards. See details

+/- Signs on Grades — You can allow or remove plus/minus signs on grades, e.g., to allow "B+" on the six-week progress reports, but round it to a "B" for the semester report card. (Note: This option affects Report Cards only, not your gradebook.)

Percents — Report Cards can show either grades/rubrics or percents, or both. Percents may optionally be rounded to the nearest whole percent. (Note that rubric grade scales do not have percents.)

GPA — You may optionally include Grade Point Averages. Note: GPA's are for each grading period, not cumulative across multiple years like what transcripts show. See details

Comments — The Student Comments in teachers' gradebooks are automatically transferred to report cards as comments for each grading period. See details

Title, Intro, Footnotes, Grade Key — You can set the title on report cards to anything, like "1st Progress Report" or "2nd Semester Report Card". You may also type introductory text at the top, and a footnote and grade key at the bottom with optional signature lines. The student's homeroom teacher is shown at the top (unless none is specified on or ).

To format the text, type double **asterisks** for bold, and //slashes// for italic, or use HTML tags for <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>. To type your grade key as a table, just type three or more spaces to automatically form aligned columns, e.g.:
   A···90%-100%
   B···80%-89%
   etc.

Bilingual — Report cards can be translated automatically to Spanish. See details

Logo — Admins may upload your school or district logo to print on report cards. See . For better print quality, use a high-resolution graphic. (It may not look good on your browser, but it will print nicely. Logos don't appear on emailed report cards.)

Mailing Addresses — Admins may print report cards with addresses for easy mailing. Just fold the paper like a Z and the address will appear through most windowed envelopes. (Teachers do not have this option.) The parent addresses are imported or entered on the page. The return address is entered on the page.

Order of Subjects — Traditional report cards by default show classes in the order of periods, or for elementary schools it shows homeroom subjects before special subjects. Admins can customize that order on the page. For each class enter a number from 1 to 100, where 1 is first and 100 is last in order. (It's okay to have gaps in your sequence, or for several classes to have the same number.)

Standards-based report cards by default show this order: English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science, Arts, PE, Technology, Personal/Study Skills. Admins can customize that order on the page. Edit each standard and select a number from 1 to 100. For subjects that do not use standards (i.e., where it shows just a single grade instead of several objectives), enter a number from 1 to 100 on the page. (Note: On this page it is not necessary to enter a number for subjects that do use standards, like Math, because it uses the number you select on the Setup Standards page.)

Customization — SnapGrades lets you change your own report card options and standards anytime, even mid-year, so you don't have to pay for professional services. The trade-off is that you cannot change the overall page layout, just the content and logo.

Exporting into SIS — Admins can export report card grades and comments into a single data file to import into your Student Information System. Or, if your school purchases the integration option, the data is transferred directly to your SIS.

Archives — Report cards are saved for your school as long as you don't delete your gradebooks.

•  Changing the grading periods may reorganize all teachers gradebooks, so when you change the grading periods, everyone at your school will be forcibly logged out, losing any changes on the page they are currently viewing. For this reason you should announce to your staff in advance before you edit the Setup Grading Periods page.
•  If you remove any grading periods, that will cause changes to teachers' gradebooks that cannot be undone. For example, if you change from a Quarters & Semesters schedule to just Semesters, their 1st & 2nd Quarter gradebooks will be merged into a single gradebook for the Semester and cannot be unmerged. (But if you just change dates, descriptions, abbreviations, etc., without removing grading periods, that is harmless.)
•  Please feel free to contact us for advice. A good setup at the beginning of the year will make things much easier when it is time for report cards.


Multiple Schedules

You may define up to four different schedules, in case different students at your school have different grading periods — e.g., for a multi-track year, or a K-8 school where K-5 is on quarters and 6-8 is on cumulative semesters, etc. Teachers can choose which schedule to use when they create a gradebook (so if they teach on more than one schedule, they must have separate gradebooks for each).


School Years

Whenever you start a new year or summer school, it automatically copies your schedule from the previous year. It also promotes all students one grade level, so you only need to adjust those students who are held back.

Note: If your school is on a year-round schedule, simply ignore the "Summer" options and use the regular school year instead.

Admin: To setup custom grade columns, go to the page. These are defined the same way you define grading periods. (You don't need to define a grade scale.)

Teacher: Go to the page to enter grades. You can type any grade; you don't have to use the grade marks on your Setup Grading Options page.

Alternatively you can create a new gradebook just for Citizenship, Effort, or whatever it's called. Then defin