Enhanced Parent Portal

Note: EPP currently does not support PowerTeacher Pro based sections. As a result the scores page page fragments may need to be removed to show assignments correctly.

Districts not utilizing the new pages added via EPP should evaluate if the stock PowerSchool SIS features are sufficient. Starting with PowerSchool 9.2 the core application provides controls to disable functionality which is also honored by the Mobile App. These settings can be found under Start Page > School Setup > Parent/Student Access.

Version 5 released! This update includes 3 major improvements:
1. Localization of all the new pages. Future updates should include other language packs as well.
2. Separation of the Parent Demographic Change files into its own plugin. This will allow you to make modifications to that page without future EPP core updates overwriting your changes
3. Database Extension table created for the demographic modify fields included.

Please install as a plugin even if you plan on using custom/web_root for your files. This will allow the localization tags and db extension to install. You may still install the web_root files within the zip to your custom/web_root if that method of customization is desired.

IMPORTANT - PowerSchool no longer allows students to edit their own student record. Because of this 1x Class Registration ONLY works when logged in as a Guardian. Students will have full Class Registration ability if 1x is enabled. I am unsure of what version this happened in, just fyi.

This is a new Parent Portal with more options for student screens.

Allows a school or district to show or hide icons on the public portal. The solution now cleans up the automatic e-mail page options when those options are hidden from normal view and displays a message when the grade & attendance page is hidden. Incorporates Roger Sprik's customization that allows a student to submit course requests just one time.

Stock PS pages that you can control;
Grades and Attendance
Score Detail
Score Detail Setup (Traditional or Traditional and Standards)
Historic Grades
Historic Attendance
Email Notification
Teacher Comments
School Bulletin
Class Registration
Balances
My Calendars

Added pages by EPP that you can control;
Grad Progress
Graduation Progress Setup (Grad proggress or Grad planer)
Demo Update
Honor Roll
Test Scores
Next years schedule (for in building grade changes)
Discipline Log
Access Log
Fees
School Info

V 1.0 - 2.X Changes included in documentation.

V3 (6/30/2011)
PowerSchool 7 Edition

  • Updated ALL pages for PS 7 UI changes
  • Added an option to select at the school level if the Graduation Progress or Graduation Planner is used. By default Graduation Progress is used
  • Added an option to select the use of the stock Scores page or if you would like to use a scores page that that combines Traditional and Standards Assignment scores
  • Custom links on the left hand side in the guardian pages do not have icons at this time if you were looking for them. :)
  • Removed Willington example for initial release

V 3.0.1 (7/4/2011)

  • Thanks to Joshua Schoeneck for modifying the EPP 2.x images to make them PS 7 compatible. Images for the links are now included

V 3.1 (8/16/2011)

  • Updated guardian_header and guardian_header_yui wildcards to correctly redirect on first logon. Also fixed unclosed span tag
  • Updated admin\schoolsetup\portals.html to correct first logon screen
  • Updated eppdialyredirect.txt to correctly redirect on first logon
  • Updated guardian\parentdemographics.html javascript to capture the Guardian name using a change in the FTL file
  • Added guardian\bulletin2.html so users can be directed to the bulletin on logon
  • Added \ftl\guardian\studentList.ftl. Added a hidden input to enable JS to capture the Guardian’s name easier

V 3.1.1 (9/8/2011)

  • Updated \guardian\scores.html fixed un-named if’s that cause all sections assignment scores to show.

V 3.1.2 for PS 7.0.1+ (11/8/2011)

  • Updated guardian_header and guardian_header_yui wildcards. The random icon (demo update, class registration) not showing when it should when switching students should be fixed
  • Updated \guardians\Scores.html added the ability to see the Weighting of final average. (Thanks MT @Shelby for all the help testing)
  • Updated admin\schoolsetup\portals.html to add on/off for the showing of the weighing
  • Updated the following files to correct the “String Key Not Found!” on 7.0.1+
    • Luncbal.html
    • Teachercomments.html
    • Termgrades.html
    • Requests.html
    • Requestform.html
    • Autuemailsetup.html
    • Scores.html

V 3.1.3 for PS 7.0.1+ (11/8/2011)

  • Updated scores.html and tgscores.html. The scores pages were not correctly handling assignments there were not published. This has been corrected

V 3.2 (1/13/2012)

  • All pages were touched in some way
  • Fixed issue where Class Reg’s submit button was off the screen
  • Fixed UI issues that become apparent on several pages after the PS 7.1 upgrade
  • Added the ability to remove the download grades link used for Alleyoop and other websites
  • Added term weighting to the Grades History Score page
  • Added standards grades to Grades History Score page
  • Removed some code from the bulletin2 (first page of day) file that will hopefully clear up the error some people were getting. I never got the error in testing

V 3.3 (2/29/2012)

  • Fixed UI issues on ppstudentasmtlist.html
  • Added link to home.html for previous page if scores page is not disabled
  • Added mobile version of the parent portal. Files in \guardian\mobile\
  • Added mobile detect code to home.html to redirect to mobile version of the portal
  • Updated tgscores.html and scores.html to fix future assignments not showing issue
  • Updated guardian_header and guardian_header_yui files to include version information. New clickable link will be added to the bottom of the page
  • Updated all guardian files to add version information

V 3.3.1 (4/12/2012)

  • Updated redirect code on pages to handle if parent is denied access but student is allowed access
  • Fixed comment/section description wrapping issue
  • Class Request page now shows the next_schools name instead of the current schools name
  • Added a full year list schedule to the bottom of the My Schedule screen

V 3.3.2 (7/30/2012)

  • Updated district\home.html to include 7.2 data validation
  • Updated wildcards to include 7.2 code
  • Added Teachers Comments page back in to prevent students from bypassing the wildcard security

V 4.0 (8/27/2017) BETA

  • Updated pages to be compatible with 8.0+
  • This download is currently not in plugin form!
  • Existing users should remove existing customized versions of /admin/district/home.home and /admin/schoolsetup/home.html. This version adds links using page fragments

V 4.0 (8/28/2014)

  • Plugin Version
  • Uses page fragments on all Pearson pages rather than customizing directly
  • Added page fragments in the /admin/schoolsetup/portals.html page so you can add new on/off switches without customizing the customization. This allows you to take future versions without redoing your customization(s)
  • Replaced /admin/district/home.html and /admin/schoolsetup/home.html with page fragments. If you have older versions you can now remove these custom pages.
  • /admin/students/more2.html now has page fragment to insert link
  • Replaced /admin/students/schedulesetup.html with page fragment. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP
  • Replaced /wildcards/guardian_header.txt and /wildcards/guardian_header_yui.txt with page fragments. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP.
  • Replaced customized versions of standard PowerSchool pages in guardian portal with page fragments. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP.
    • /guardian/autosemailsetup.html
    • /guardian/home.html
    • /guardian/requests.html
    • /guardian/requestform.html
    • /guardian/schoolinformation.html
    • /guardian/scores.html
    • /guardian/teachercomments.html
    • /guardian/termgrades.html

V 4.0.2 (10/21/2014)

  • Fix for the scores page issue in some setups
  • Update page fragments to do different things when 7.x vs 8.x to account for the change from tables to lists

V 4.0.4 (02/12/2015)

  • Fix for the admin student menu issue that caused the link to show up multiple times
  • Add in link that will show in the upper left side of the admin home menu if there are any updates from the parent portal to be acted on. The link will go away once all have been completed.

V 4.0.5 (03/04/2015)

  • Fix for menu items not showing when Account Preferences is not an option for the user
  • Fix for request form. Previously would auto redirect if the checkbox value was True instead of 1. Now checks for either 1 or True.

V 5.0.0 (07/27/2015)

  • Localization tags added to all pages so that schools can localize any EPP page as needed. Future updates should include more language translations as they are being worked on right now. This modification was sponsored by Orleans Public Schools.
  • Fix for 8.3 - My Schedule page. Will not use built in schedule page if 8.3 or later and the EPP schedule page if the version is earlier than 8.3
  • Move demographics modify page into it's own plugin. This will allow you to update that section without future updates of EPP overwriting your changes
  • Migrate demographic update custom fields to a new database extension. All pages were updated to use the DB Extension. This should improve performance.

V 5.0.2 (08/20/2015)

  • Added DB Extension for 1 field in the schedule setup page
  • Update the schedulesetup fragment to use the new db extension field
  • New plugin for demo modify to fix the missing options in the portals menu and to change the fragment on the home page to use the DB Extension to speed it up

V 5.0.3 (09/11/2015) *Demo update only

  • Fixed the localization tag in html pages. Localization code existed, the tag was incorrect (thanks to cboyle for pointing it out)
  • Remove /admin/javascript/parentdemo.js
  • Update /admin/students/parentdemochange.html to have javascript inside. Update fields and buttons to use cleaner methods. Previously had not updated how the page works since v3. (thanks to vinit for pointing out how old the code was)
  • Update /admin/students/studentpages/parentdemochange.html to properly include the frn (thanks to cboyle for pointing it out)

V 5.0.4 (09/29/2015) *Demo update only

  • Fixed the approve buttons on the admin side
  • Added custom insertion points in /admin/students/parentdemochange.html and /guardian/parentdemographics.html. Insertion point is called pdsdemochange.footer. Thanks to those at PSUG-MI 2015 for the suggestion.

V 5.0.5 (10/25/2017) *Demo update only

  • Fixed performance issues by making home page query more efficient.
  • Removed pre 8.0 support
Sponsor: 
Orleans Public Schools

Customization:

Contributor: 
Brian Andle
Jason Treadwell
Matt Freund
Roger Sprik
Images: 
Plugin: 
Y
CPM Import Friendly: 
Y

Comments

Brian,

I am having the same issues with the tabs not showing in the EPP, any update on this?

Susan Calabro
Student Information Systems and Enrollment Supervisor
Middletown Township School District

I installed the EPP V 3.3.2 and my Class Registration screen is not working. When you hover over the MAIN PAGE Class Registration button it shows that it should take me to the requestform.html, but once I click on the button I am taken to what I beleive is the Requests Page (I see the message that says in red 'There are no course requests for this student'. From this location the Class Registration button shows it is linked to the requests.html.
I tried just fixing the code on the guardian_header.txt and the guardian_header_yui.txt pages but this did not help. There has to be something else.
Has anyone else run into this issue? I am on PowerSchool Version 7.10.2.
I appreciate any help you can give me with this.
The screen works properly if I turn off customization

Kim

You are not set to record requests in the enhanced parent portal. If the link is pointing to requests.html it's pointing to a view only list of requests already entered. Check the settings from that admin portal and make sure that the school the student will be in next year (not the one he/she is currently in) is not set to view only. If that is set properly check the student's scheduling setup page and make sure the "Allow student to submit requests" checkbox is checked. If not the student will not be allowed to enter requests even if the school setting says he/she can.

This page does this so that if the school chooses to let students submit requests once but not change them after then this box will be unchecked after 1st submission and the page will behave in the requested manner.

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

Is there a new guardian_header_yui_.txt wildcard version already created/modified that allows all of the plugins to be visible in the blue ribbon. This version only allows the ! and printer and there are actually two others. Just wondering before I begin modifying this text file.

I also wonder if there is a new version. We had it working fine until we upgraded to 7.10.2 from 7.9.2

I also wonder if there is a new version. We had it working fine until we upgraded to 7.10.2 from 7.9.2

We have been using your custom parent portal for at least a couple of years now, and really love it. However, we also use Infosnap and have experienced a problem combining the Infosnap plug-in with this custom portal. Last summer, when we used the Infosnap plug-in for the first time and realized that there was a conflict, it was one of those last-minute crises and we simply had to turn off the custom portal and use the plug-in for the summer.

Supposedly Infosnap was working over the winter to resolve this issue, but we have determined today that it remains unresolved. While there might be other issues, we have determined that it appears to be the file guardian_header_yui.txt that is the apparent initial source of the problem. If we rename just that one file so that we are using the standard version, then the Infosnap plug-in at least appears in the portal. (Obviously other things break when we do this, so it's not a solution... just a clue!)

Can anyone state that they are using the Infosnap plug-in AND this custom portal? Or have any experience with this issue? Any feedback would be helpful. This is really an issue for us as we really don't wish to regress back to the standard portal! However, I'm pretty sure using the Infosnap plug-in is not negotiable in our district as this point.

Kate Isabelli
Community HS District 128

Kate Isabelli
Tech Integration Specialist
Community High School District 128

I don't use InfoSnap but, I know in 7.11 PowerSchool has a couple of insertion points not found in the EPP version of guardian_header_yui.txt so you might try adding them to the EPP version of the file to see if it fixes the problem. It could be the plugin tries to use the missing insertion points and fails to show up because they are not present.

Line 68 of the EPP guardian_header_yui.txt page is a blank line between two </div> tags where you can add:
<div id="cust-content-header">~[cust.insertion_point:content.header]</div>
(This is line 50 of the standard guardian_header_yui.txt page.)

Just after the </ul> on line 159 of the EPP guardian_header_yui.txt page add a line with:
<div id="cust-leftnav-footer">~[cust.insertion_point:leftnav.footer]</div>
(This is line 125 of the standard guardian_header_yui.txt page.)

Hope this helps.

Greg Myers
Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill

I was able to get a patch for this from Darryl Downs. He said it would be posted on PDS but if it hasn't been yet and you are struggling, email me and I will send you what he sent me. Thank you.

I can't find the parent portal settings link. I must be missing it somewhere. Can someone send me in the right direction.

Stephanie Kilburn
District Student Database Specialist
Amity Regional District #5
Woodbridge, CT

I'd like to install only the demorgraphic update portion of EPP.
Are these the correct pages I need to install:
guardian/home.html
guardian/requestapproval.html
wildcards/guardian_header.txt
wildcards/guardian_header_yui.txt
guardian/parentsdemographics/html
admin/students/studentpages/parentsdemochange.html

Thank You,

Nancy

I want to make all the fields required for parents to complete (new student registration). Is there a simple code I can put on each field? I think I tried in Dreamweaver (Behavior>Validate Forms>clicked required) or is their a javascript that I could insert that would work better?

Will you be upgrading this for 7.11?

My web designer figured it out.

While I know I could get this pulled together eventually, I'd love to know how you implemented required fields, that way I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

I'm having a problem with this icon. In the page code-view I see that it is looking for "/guardian/bulletin.html". The page in the kit is "bulletin2.html". Can you point me to the code that builds the navigation section so I can edit this?

Hello:

We are first year users of PowerSchool and are getting ready to roll out the parent portal to families. As the out of the box portal was too limited (NO schedule??), we have installed the EPP and so far, so good. A couple of questions:

1. When a parent log-ins a second or third time in a day, rather than their initial screen displaying, the tab for Grades and Attendance is displayed with the message 'Please check your demographics to ensure the information we have on file is correct.' We are NOT displaying Grades and Attendance (at this time) so I'm not sure where this is being called from.

2. Can we make the Grades History page read-only? At this time, we don't want parents to click through to tgscores.html.

Thanks,
Jan

I just installed the EPP and now the students cannot request their classes for next year. Does anyone else have this issue?

Stephanie Kilburn
District Student Database Specialist
Amity Regional District #5
Woodbridge, CT

We have been asked to block our parents from seeing next falls schedules. We would like to try the enhance parent portal, but will need to customize it even more. Would anyone be willing to help us with this?

I have a new version I'm testing out before I release it. It's now a plugin and uses page fragments when possible. It also allows for adding your own additional options via page fragment rather than customizing the customization so this should help get everyone on the same page. Once it's done testing I'll post it here.

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

Jason - I noticed that the Fathers Day Phone is not on the Guardian Demographics page, but it is on the admin side. A simple edit that may be included in the new version.

Thanks,
Bryce

I'd be happy to test an update if you need testers.

Chad

Any work when we might see this?

Quick question, is SSO required to use Future Schedule in EPP?

Thanks,

Dan

Dan Morgan
PS Support
Saint Mary's College High School
Berkeley, CA

Will the Enhanced Parent Portal continue to work with PS 8.0 without updates? Thanks

JJ

Seems to be working. Only problem I had was related to branding. Had to go in and modify all custom header wildcards to use the new branding method

Is anyone using InfoSnap with the EPP? We are having difficulty getting this to work properly. Thanks!

UPDATE: Thanks to Kate Isabelli for the help in resolving my issue!

I've just installed EPP and love it. However, appearing in the left sidebar above the App store and Google boxes is a box displaying District Code and TFSS. Did I miss a step? How do I get this to disappear? We are using V7.9.1 Thanks for your help!
Denise Taugher
dtaugher@fhps.net

I've just installed EPP and love it. However, appearing in the left sidebar above the App store and Google boxes is a box displaying District Code and TFSS. Did I miss a step? How do I get this to disappear? We are using V7.9.1 Thanks for your help!
Denise Taugher
dtaugher@fhps.net

I am getting Deprecated Images on file name tgscores.html in the /guardian folder after my upgrade to PowerSchool 8. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Margie Olinger

I have installed EPP on version 8.0.1 I have parents saying they can't see student grades. I also do not see any when I look at a student 'Quick Lookup' screen. Any tips?

Have you done Final Grade Setup and selected which term grades to display in Quick Lookup?

Dan Morgan
PS Support
Saint Mary's College High School
Berkeley, CA

Thank you! Worked!

Do I have to remove the pages first and then install the new version? I did this on my test server however I can not find where to activate the pages as the parent portal settings page is not on any list that I can find anyway.

I removed the old files as indicated on the version summary. When installing the plug-in, I get the error concerning list of existing files. It then seems that I must remove those files also, correct?

I received that as well. Did you happen to find where you turn items on and off?

So I was just looking for confirmation. Since I had the backup for all of those files, all of which were customized. I deleted them and plug-in installed just fine - just in time for school to start. To turn items on and off, I found that you can go to district/parent portal settings and do this for each school. The other way would be to go to each individual school settings and then parent portal settings.

So if I understand you correctly, you removed all the files that came up after you attempted the install not just the files listed on the update page.

Thanks for the information about activating the items as well. I didn't think to look at the district level.

Update: I just looked on my test server at the district and I do not have a parent portal settings anywhere.
Second Update: I figured out what I did and have that fixed. Now the only problem is the approve button not working.

I've just finished uploading version 4.0 and deleting custom pages as indicated above. At first I was able to use the Parent Portal Settings page as intended, to turn on and off both standard PS pages and EPP pages. Now, however, the only pages I can control are the 'canned' Powerschool pages. None of the icons for EPP pages--Discipline, Honor Roll, etc--are being displayed even though the Portal settings are set to display them.

I've broken something--just can't figure out what. I was attempting to add some customizations to the 'discipline.html' EPP page when this all seemed to happen. I've since restored an uncustomized version of discipline.html, but no luck affecting the icons displayed on the left nav bar. Any advice appreciated.

Something else that may or may not apply in this situation: I've taken over Powerschool & CPM from a previous user. I've often found that if I delete a customized page in order to revert back to the Powerschool stock version, the display style also reverts to Powerschool version 6.x (?!?). In order to restore the current display style, I have to 'customize' the page and publish it with no changes. I hope I have explained that issue well enough--don't know where to begin to look for what might be causing that. And I also don't know if that has any bearing on this issue. But: when I deleted the district home.html and school setup home.html page as instructed above, I got that weird display issue. So I had to 'customize' and publish these pages with no changes in order to restore the current Powerschool display style.

Elizabeth Middleton
Registrar
Notre Dame de Sion School

To me, it sounds like at one time, someone was using the Custom WebRoot to do customizations and then switched to CPM. So, when you delete the page out of CPM, it is loading the page which is in the custom webroot. I would make sure there are no pages hanging around on the server in the custom webroot (C:\Program Files\PowerSchool\data\custom\web_root). My guess is the page which you are having show, is in the path. If you would delete it from here, I think it would function as expected.

Macaddict: Thanks so much for your response! You've given me my first clue about this weird issue. We are a hosted site. I don't think I have direct access to the custom web_root folder, right? Do I need to contact the tech support folks for our PS account?

Meanwhile--trying to figure out what I broke with EPP version 4.0. The navbar is currently not reflecting the choices I make in the Parent Portal setup screen. Perhaps the issues are related in some strange way. . .

Elizabeth Middleton
Registrar
Notre Dame de Sion School

I too am seeing an issue with the student portal navigation bar not showing the EPP icons as they used to show, but the parent portal is showing them. I tested the look with my fake student/parent account to verify this. On the Student Portal, only the stock PS icons can be added or removed through EPP, but on the Parent Portal, all stock and EPP icons were showing and working correctly with the exception of the 'Approve' button after a parent submitted a demographic change. Some insight from one of the developers or someone with more experience with EPP would be helpful here.

Thanks.

I deleted and reinstalled the plugin and it is now working in 8.0.2:

Thanks for the quick response!

I'm still missing my custom Report Card tab...will need to figure out how to add it.

I found the cause of this issue. Both wildcard files had to be changed for the EPP part of the files because all referenced #btn-accountPreferences which may not be allowed to be shown on Student screens if a district does not want students changing passwords. Once I changed the code from accountPreferences to schoolInformation (a button most allow to show on both portals) like

~[if#1.pref.testscore~(curschoolid)=1][else#1]l.find('li#btn-accountPreferences').after

to

~[if#1.pref.testscore~(curschoolid)=1][else#1]l.find('li#btn-schoolInformation').after

for each EPP button line in both wildcard files, the buttons showed up on the Student Portal.

Thank you for this! I had deleted, reinstalled, deleted, etc. and nothing was working. I even tried your fix and nothing....then deleted, reinstalled, applied your fix and VIOLA! it is working. Again thank you for relieving my frustration!

Are you referencing the included EPP files in the EPP customization package?

I've re-uploaded all the files from EPP 4.0, deleted and re-installed the plug-in as suggested above, removed the custom pages as outlined above. Still not seeing the custom EPP page icons on the student/parent portal. And it WAS working at some point! Can't figure out what I've broken. . .

Elizabeth Middleton
Registrar
Notre Dame de Sion School

We have to go back to PowerSchool's canned parent portal. We have more system that will have a direct interface within PowerSchool so don't want to create any uneccesary issues. How do we uninstall the custom parent portal?
Brad Taylor, Ashwaubenon, WI btaylor@ashwaubenon.k12.wi.us

The bulletin link was dead--had to use href in the coding of the wildcard/guardian_header.txt to the following: (Caveat being you need to click on another link before it works.)

  • ~[text:psx.txt.wildcards.guardian_header_yui.school_bulletin]
  • Kent
    --
    Kent Sweigart

    Would it be possible to add a Cumulative Information screen to EPP, that mimics the Cumulative Info screen on the admin side?

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