Custom Reports Bundle Base

About:
The Custom Reports Bundle is a collection of custom html reports and dashboards for PowerSchool. The content in this bundle has been contributed by several members of the PowerSchool customization community.

What's New in Version 4.2.1
Version 4.2.1 fixes an issue with states where state reporting is using a tab called "State Reporting" that they own instead of the built in tab called "State" that they also fully controlled. The method of insertion was causing duplication of some items. 4.2.1 fixes that. This version also introduces the ability to localize report names and descriptions so you can change the name of reports without customizing them. This feature works but will not be rolled into the other reports today (8/25/2016) but will instead be rolled out over time. More on how to use this feature will be coming soon. A basic template for creating a new CRB report has been added to work with Blue Steel CPM (BSCPM). This template may be updated in the future but is meant as a starting point for now.

Directions

  1. Click on the System Reports link on the left side of the homepage
  2. A new tab for Custom Reports will show, click that.
  3. All reports that it has gone and "found" will show. if you've installed more click the "Refresh Reports" link at the bottom and it'll go find the new ones. After a period of time it will automatically go and find them anyways.
  4. If you delete a report (from CPM or custom/web_root) then click the "Refresh Reports" button again to have the system remove that report from the list.
  5. If you prefer the non-dynamic list click on the Static/Dynamic button at the bottom
  6. If you've already click on the static list and want to see the dynamic list then go to the PDS Setup page and change from static to dynamic.

What's Different in 4.0

  • Custom SQL Reports tab has been removed. We are working with Matt Freund who has taken over the SQL Reports project so that we will not overwrite each other. As such maintaining a built in version and a separate stand alone version seemed inefficient. Now if you have the CRB you can still install SQLReports without overwriting anything.
  • Each piece of the CRB is now its own plugin. For users who prefer the custom/web_root method of customizing there isn't anything different for you. But for schools who use Custom Page Management (CPM) you now can install the reports as plugins. This adds a huge benefit in that the plugin can be disabled at any time and completely removed. If you were to remove the old custom reports bundle you'd have to delete hundreds of files one at a time. Plugins adds the same ability to mass delete files that custom/web_root users have always had. If you don't like the reports in a particular tab simply delete the plugin and it's gone.
  • All reports are now in the /admin/reports/CRB folder. If you have the old reports bundle and are using CPM you might know that you'll have to delete all the files first in order to install the same files as a plugin. There were so many files that it was going to be a huge task for any CPM users. Matt Freund from www.sisresources.com had the great idea to put them all in a subfolder so that you didn't have to delete all those files in order to update. It's was a small task for us but hopefully will save you a lot of time.
  • CRB now looks more like PowerSchool. For the last few versions of PowerSchool users have struggled to fix the colors of the tabs. Other visual aspects made it clear to the user that they weren't in PowerSchool anymore. For many schools that's confusing so we've made it look just like PowerSchool. Tabs are now PowerSchool tabs, filters are now PowerSchool filters, popups are now PowerSchool popups. We hope this will help maintain a look that your users are used to and allow us to keep up with changes as Pearson updates the PowerSchool user interface.
  • Submit buttons are now pause. This might be strange to most of you but some of you have seen this already. The submit button allowed you to choose your filters and then submit them for processing. The pause checkbox does that as well, but with the checkbox "un-paused" you can make small changes and the report refreshes instantly. So if you are looking at a single student's information in one of the attendance reports you can switch students on the fly. If you have many changes to make in the filters simply check the box again and the report will hold off on processing until you are done. This is a change that was requested by a few schools for reports we built specifically for them. When testing with other schools they liked it so we through it into all of them.
  • Page fragments are now used instead of customizing a PowerSchool page. This means we can inject our changes into the page (like the reports tabs) without having to modify the file directly allowing you to see any changes that Pearson makes to PowerSchool without having to merge the old to the new. For an example think of the giant white space many of you saw on the home page after a powerschool update. Pearson made a change and now your custom home page looked strange. It was an easy fix but you had to search to find out why it happened. Now with page fragments you can customize that same home page without the worry that a Pearson update will cause your page to look strange. This is a very good thing and we are updating any customized PowerSchool page to a page fragment to make your lives easier.

Temporary Changes

  • Custom Dashboards has been temporarily removed. This will be added back when it can be updated to a more modern look and feel. At this point the only things published are the ones we've updated for the new look.
  • Incidents tab has been removed until those reports are updated
  • Logs tab has been removed until those reports are updated
  • Scheduling tab has been removed until those reports are updated
  • The export to csv, pdf, etc buttons have been removed temporarily. We hope to put them back in soon but to speed things up we left them off for this release.

Upgrade instructions
If you have the old custom reports bundle you will need to do a few things to get ready to update. 1st, and most important, is to delete the /admin/reports/reporttabs.html. If you've added your own custom tabs there then simply remove the ones from the bundle as we will inject them using page fragments now and no longer need to customize that page directly. Those tabs include Custom Reports, Custom Dashboards, Custom SQL Reports. Custom SQL Reports will now be handled by SQLReports plugin and not the reports bundle. Matt currently has the update ready for you to import.
If you created your own reports for the reports bundle to have you will need to move them to the /admin/reports/CRB folder. A custom grading report would be moved from the /admin/reports/grading folder to the /admin/reports/CRB/grading folder. This was done so that those with the old version didn't have to delete all those extra files.

Why are there two versions of the base?
PowerSchool 7.9 and 7.10 allow us to insert the tabs via page fragment. We came up with a way to insert it that wasn't efficient but worked. 7.11 gives us the efficient way to insert the tabs. If you are on 7.11 or higher use the regular base. However we've provided a version for 7.9 and 7.10 users as well so you can still update now even if you aren't ready to update to 7.11 just yet. Thank the Pearson team for adding in the necessary code in 7.11 to allow for this more efficient page fragment. We told them how we were doing it and why and they made the necessary change to allow for the easier method.

If I install the 7_10 version will I have to delete a ton of files after updating to 7.11?
No. That's the beauty of the plugins. Simply delete the old base plugin and then install the newer base plugin. You don't need to update any of your report files as they will work for both versions of the base. If you are using custom/web_root you will simply go to your wildcards folder and delete the admin_footer_css.crb.content.footer.txt file and add in the /admin/reports/reporttabs.crb.report.tabs.txt file from the new base. All other files are identical.

What comes in the base?
The base is just the setup files. It's the least common denominator that you would need to run any of the reports. It includes the page fragment for the tabs, the setup files for the dynamic tabs, and any images or stylesheets needed throughout the bundle. If you only install the base you will only have 1 tab, the setup tab. Other tabs can be added with other plugins.

Do I need the base?
YES! Without the base you won't see the new reports you're adding with the other plugins.

Should I delete the old files from a previous version?
You can if you want. Leaving them there does create confusion over which you should be looking at. But you can delete them at your own pace since the new bundle files are not located in the same place.

The old bundle had files I had to install by hand. What files do I need to install by hand now?
None so far. We aim to keep it as clean as possible without any files that don't install with the plugin. This wasn't a problem for custom/web_root users but it was for CPM users and we listened and are trying to make it as easy as possible for you.

I use CPM but have never installed a plugin. What do I need to do?
Pearson has made this really easy. Note these directions will only work if your account has permissions to run them.

  1. Click on System from the left menu
  2. Click on System Settings from the center menu
  3. Click on Plugin Management Configuration
  4. Click Install
  5. Click Choose File and navigate to where you downloaded the plugin
  6. Click Install
  7. Now your plugin is installed but not active. Click the empty checkbox next to the plugin you just installed.
  8. Click yes from the popup.

More instruction can be found here

What is the Sponsor all about?
Many times someone will pay to build a customization and then donate it back to the community. Several of the reports in the reports bundle were donated by schools who originally paid to have them built. It was their way of giving back. The update from the old bundle to the new took A LOT of time and is still taking a lot of time. Some of this time was done off hours but some was done on hours. As a result we are listing Computer Logic Group as a sponsor of the upgrade as they donated hours towards this update project.

Enough already, where are the other plugins?
Yes, this was a lot of information. Here are links to the other reports. Note that you can also search for them using keywords such as Attendance or Enrollment from the search box on the left

Change History
V 4.2.1 - Released 2016-08-25

  • Fixed issue introduced by PowerSchool state reporting that duplicates the tabs
  • Added functionality to localize report name/descriptions. Actual localization tags not added yet.
  • Added template for use with BSCPM

Change History
V 4.1.4 - Released 2015-07-27

  • Added files to use with export buttons
  • Moved common files from /scripts and /images to /pds/crb

V 4.0.1 - Released 2014-04-02

  • Removed 4 unused files from /admin/javascript folder. This should help people updating from the old CRB
  • Updated the customreports_static.html file to use the new css file rather than the old one
Sponsor: 
Computer Logic Group

Customization:

Contributor: 
Jason Treadwell
Brent Johnson
Brian Andle
Tim Scoff
Matt Freund
Roger Sprik
Michael Moore
Dean Dahlvang
Report Type: 
Web Based Report
Images: 
Custom Reports Bundle Setup tab
Plugin: 
Y
CPM Import Friendly: 
Y

Comments

That is the exact behavior we are experiencing. It is more of a nuisance than anything.

I am getting an error when trying to install the CRB Base (hosted site....7.11) I have the correct file but this is the error message

Plugin file contains a file that already exists: web_root/images/greendot_images/sombrero2.gif

Do I need to delete the greendot image folder first from the web_root?

The tabs with excel, csv, print, etc options are grayed out so I have no access to them. What do I need to do? To add to this post...This is with the Custom Reports Bundle Base imported through the Plugin Management Dashboard.

Joyce Murray
King City Union School District
King City, Ca 93930
(831)385-2940 ext 3014
jmurray@kcusd.org

I see the PDS Setup under Custom Report which has the Grading and Enrollment setup but no reports. I don't have the "Refresh Reports" link at the bottom of the page.

Has anyone had to delete the greendot images folder before installing the base? I am getting an error that says images already exist.....

I have successfully loaded the base plugin in our test environment on 7.11 using the 4.0.1 base. I do not see the Custom Reports tab. I do see where it built the CRB folder in Admin/Reports/CRB folder and there are files there. What am I missing or where else do I need to look?

Thanks in advance.

Debbie Harman
Director of Enterprise Data Systems
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools

Hello,

On the Grades by Percent Report, the buttons (Print, PDF, CSV Excel) are greyed out and don't work. We have to select all, copy, and then paste into Excel and we have thousands of rows, so this takes some time.

What do I need to do to activate the buttons?

Thanks,

Kathryn

Kathryn Howard

Temporary Changes

Custom Dashboards has been temporarily removed. This will be added back when it can be updated to a more modern look and feel. At this point the only things published are the ones we've updated for the new look.
Incidents tab has been removed until those reports are updated
Logs tab has been removed until those reports are updated
Scheduling tab has been removed until those reports are updated
The export to csv, pdf, etc buttons have been removed temporarily. We hope to put them back in soon but to speed things up we left them off for this release.

Greg Myers
Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill

try a flash update, if that doesnt resolve it, it could be a problem with that page.

I have installed the new plugin Custom Reports Bundle on the 16 servers we host and the Transportation Tab is not showing on any of them. All the others are working fine.

My mistake. I see the Transportation Tab only displays if you select a school. It will not display if your in the District.

I think the X code for the reports tab needs to be updated on the static report listing page (customreports_static.html).

I changed it on my test server to ~[x:insertfile;/admin/reports/reporttabs.html] and the report tabs show as expected now. The previously weren't showing. I think it's because you moved everything into your CRB folder.

Thanks,
Chad Cole

I tried this and my tabs still are only showing on the custom tabs, not system, state, setup, etc.....any suggestions?

Jennifer Savage
District Student Data Coordinator
Monroe Township School District

What is the proper method for reporting errors and operability issues on these reports? Comments here? Email someone in particular? Thx.

When I run the report nothing comes up. Even if I select 1 year on the minimum enrollment years. I know we have only been using PS for 3 years but I should have at least some names.
Never mind, my term was set for next year.

Any ideas?
Thanks

I am getting an error when trying to install the CRB Base (hosted site....7.11) I have the correct file but this is the error message

Plugin file contains a file that already exists: web_root/images/busy_blue.gif

The navigation crumbs appear to link to the old custom reports landing page still. Easy enough to fix en mass but I'd prefer not to do it every time I upgrade the plugin :)

Hi

I just uploaded the base, but when I click on Systems Reports the regular reports pages are not showing correctly (No tabs, just the hyperlinks to the tabs and a huge space underneath the links)...is there another page I need to include?

Jennifer Savage
District Student Data Coordinator
Monroe Township School District

Jason,

I am getting "Alert: Failed to retrieve report list. Response Status: parsererror" pretty much every time that any user tries to go to the Custom Reports tab. Any thoughts on where I should start to troubleshoot?

I get that every once in a while. I've found its normally when I click on something and it wasn't done loading so it gives me this false error. I'll look for a way to fix it but you can generally ignore it.

I've also noticed that customers who have the CRB on that don't allow it to open reports in a new tab have this happen more frequently than my test server which has that on.

Jason Treadwell
Custom Solutions Specialist
jason@powerdatasolutions.org
www.powerdatasolutions.org

If I am using to web_root method to install to files do I need to install any of the files from the Base?

Yes. The base isn't there just for CPM, it's the base of the reports bundle. It contains all the common files that will be needed no matter which tabs you choose to install with it. So if you only want attendance and grading reports you can now do that but everyone will need the base.

Jason Treadwell
Custom Solutions Specialist
jason@powerdatasolutions.org
www.powerdatasolutions.org

Thanks

If we upgrade to PS 7.11.1 from 7.10.2 will CRB 3.44 still work? I'm not sure I want to update to the new CRB 4 until you have the copy/csv/tab/pdf working again and the additional tabs.

Thank you,
Judi

Is there way to check what Bundle version we have installed?

Unable to download zip files. I get...

The requested page "/?q=system/files/CRB_base_4_0_1.zip" could not be found.

Naomi Doughty
SIS Coordinator

This should be fixed now. I was still in the middle of migrating to the new server. We had to do a hot switch as something was erring out on the other server and nothing seemed to fix it. Files just hadn't been moved yet.

Jason Treadwell
Custom Solutions Specialist
jason@powerdatasolutions.org
www.powerdatasolutions.org

It's spotty for me.

I can download these:
Standards Management 101
Dynamic Dropdown
Dynamic Dropdown plugin

but not these:
Enhanced Parent Portal
Custom Reports Bundle

Gina Ciprotti
SIS Administrator
Accel Schools

I just finished installed the Custom Reports bundle and when I go to System Reports > Custom Reports, the tabs within the black box are white with white font. I can't read the tab headers. I am running 8.0.1

I installed report plugins on 8.0.1. Some of the report titles are in red text. What might cause this?

Are your headings in white font on a white tab? I am running 8.0.1 too

Found the answer to this...

For me the red title links are also preceeded with a blue "blob", and clicking on this blog gives you a dialog telling you a preference isn't turned on that is needed.
Screenshot of the above can be found here. Caveat: I fixed the first one so the appearance is as it should be after my proposed fix below.

Quoting the text in the popup: (Screenshot here.)

This report requires a preference to be set in order to work properly.

Preference Name: allow_expanded_tlist_sql
Required Value: true

As an administrator, you may set this preference to the required value by pressing 'AutoSet Preference' below.

I was able to run one of the reports without this preference being set, but I will likely set this preference anyhow.

Fix:
In the file: /admin/reports/CRB/customreports.html; Line 359 had:
class="ui-icon ui-icon-alert button"
I changed it to:
class="ui-icon ui-icon-alert"
to make the red alert triangles appear.

Critical Details:
PowerSchool 8.0.1
Hosted by Pearson
Using CPM

Edit: to change the HTML snippets so they would pass the filter. Now it's only the class part that I edited.

Thanks for this awesome customization! I was wondering if there was a way to allow certain security groups access to only certain tabs/sections of the CRB. I want our site secretaries to have access to all groups except the Security. That tab I only want administrators (group 9) to access. Thanks again.

Lara

Have 8.0 on our test server; installed the base plug in, modified the reportstab.html as instructed, installed plug in for attendance. Went to system reports and nothing appears. Checked Admin for CRB folder, there isn't one. Advise?

I just moved to the new CRB and I installed all of the extra plugins as well. Everything worked out fine, but I am curious. Are the reports supposed to look this bad? The layout of the parameters is horrible, there is so much white space everywhere. As an example, on one machine, I saw where the Pause looked like this:
P
A
U
S
E
And then the checkbox was underneath it. While off to the right, there was so much dead space that it seemed silly to have to stretch out the word pause like that. There was more than enough room for it. We are currently on PowerSchool 8.0.1.1. I am just curious if this is the new look or if something is not rendering right with our setup.

Thanks!
Del

Mine were very similar to this and until I installed it as a plug-in from there, everything looked great. How did you install the customization?

I am running 8.0.2 hosted. I am using CPM. I have deleted reportstab.html. Installed base, misc and grading but I do not have the Custom reports tab or a Refresh Reports link. I installed the slqReports 4 for 8.0 and don't have that tab either. I am at a loss as where to proceed.
Can't live without this bundle and appreciate all the work.
Thanks,
Jim

I made a link that is available at the bottom of the left navigation to reach the reports even when the tab is not visible by adding a file to the wildcards folder named: admin_nav_menu_left_css.custom_links.leftnav.footer.txt

with the contents:

<!-- Custom Links Page Fragment Insertion -->
<h3>Custom</h3>
<ul id="customLinks">
<li>
<a href="/admin/reports/CRB/customreports.html">Custom Reports</a></li>
</ul>
<!-- End Custom Links Page Fragment Insertion -->

(Actually I have a couple other links in the list, but I restricted the code here to the relevant item for the Custom Reports bundle.)

Greg Myers
Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill

Thanks, that did give me the link but it turns out I don't have the Customreports.html in the CRB folder. It seems I am having a problem installing plugins.
Jim
Voluntown Elementary School

We are having an issue with our Start Page not showing up properly. Pearson tells us it's customization. Sure enough, when I turn customization off, the page shows up correctly. Could the Custom Bundle be causing this? We have not customized our start page and I can't think of any other reason it would be incorrect. Thanks!

Janet
Elk City Schools

Janet,
I am a novice to Customization, but I had the same problem at first as well. We had not Customized the home.html, but our start page looked all strange. The student group functions menu was expanded down the right hand side of the screen and the student search box was reduced in size.

What it turned out to be was not something on our home.html page that was the issue, but an image that was referenced on it.
/images/css, the following two files were customized:
screen-ui0.css
screen.css (referenced in home.html).
=> One of these files may be causing the formatting issue on the admin Start Page. I ended up deleting the two images.

I suggest looking at home.html and see if you may be having the same kind of problem.

- BethAnne Krupa

BethAnne Krupa

Hi BethAnne,

Thanks for the help. Not sure I completely understand, though. Were the images you deleted the green check marks for whether or not the teacher had taken attendance? I saw those referenced in the screen.css. Also, I can't find screen-uio.css anywhere. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Janet
Elk City Schools

We used the old web root custom report and installed 3.4.3 last year. Updated to 8.0.2. Support moved me over to the custom reports manager. The initial clicking on the reports would then just spin. Updated to PDS CRB version 4.01-removed the reportstabs.html then uploaded and installed the base and then the other plugins.
Clicking on any of the custom reports still causes a "spin" that does not resolve. What can I look for?
Thank you!
FYI- The reports are all working now--I turned disabled the plug ins, then went back into the custom web root and one by one deleted all of the files from 3.4.3 Then enabled the plug ins--no more spinning! Thank you so much for all of the great stuff!

I downloaded and enable the nurse plug in but can't see any nurse reports? I am a nurse who knows a little about IT we have a small IT department so I work on my own projects. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Tabitha

Does anyone know how to remove this bundle, i want to remove this before i install the new bundle.
Thanks

The answer depends on how you installed it. What I did was download a copy of Custom Reports Bundle 3.4.3, examine the files, and delete those files one at a time using the CPM tool. My experience was this is best done away from my desk with some good snacks around and a few good football games to watch. It is tedious work, but the results of clean directories was worth it to me. Many of the files could simply be left in place without hurting anything, but I removed them all. It is mostly the files that replaced standard pages that need to be removed.

Greg Myers
Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill

I am trying to install the 4.0.1. I am hosted on Powerschool 8.1. I have deleted my custom page of reporttabs.html in custom page management. When I install the plugin it does not create the CRB folder under admin/reports (when I look in CPM) or customize my reporttabs.html page. What am I doing wrong or am I missing a step?

NEVERMIND I figured it out from another post. I am on a mac and I was using safari to download. Once I changed over to firefox I was able to get it to upload correctly.

I removed all the old files but I still have two custom reports tab. Anyone have any ideas on how to remove it?

Kathy Stainbrook
Computer Technician Student Information Manager
Centerville-Abington Community Schools
115 West South Street
Centerville, IN 47330
kstainbrook@centerville.k12.in.us
Phone: 765-855-3475 Ext 2193
Fax: 765-855-3815

Never mind I got it. Thanks

Kathy Stainbrook
Computer Technician Student Information Manager
Centerville-Abington Community Schools
115 West South Street
Centerville, IN 47330
kstainbrook@centerville.k12.in.us
Phone: 765-855-3475 Ext 2193
Fax: 765-855-3815

Thank you for this extremely useful tool! I'm eager to have the "export to csv, pdf, etc buttons" back. When is the next release planned? Will those buttons return in the next release?

Thanks,
Kate

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