This year, the term “back-to-school” means something different for each school community. Schools providing in-person instruction and schools operating on a remote or hybrid model face different challenges. The latest PlusPortals release introduces two features that can help schools overcome these challenges.
For schools providing in-person instruction, PlusPortals provides the Health Questionnaire, a list of questions based on CDC guidelines to help schools monitor the health of their teachers and students. For schools operating remotely, PlusPortals provides teachers with the ability to schedule online meetings directly from their portals.
Keep reading to learn more about these new features as well as other improvements and feature fixes included in this release.
| New Features | ||
|---|---|---|
| Added Online Meeting Management | Teachers can schedule meetings using custom links from any online meeting service or links from Microsoft Teams. Students can access meetings from their portal. | |
| Added a Health Questionnaire | PlusPortals administrators can activate a Health Questionnaire based on CDC guidelines to screen students and teachers for symptoms of COVID-19 and other illnesses. At login, parents and teachers must complete the questionnaire before they can access their portals. | |
| Improvements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Added a File Attachment Option for All Quiz Question Types | Teachers can attach files to any quiz question type. | |
| Added Validation of Answered Quiz Questions | When a student submits a quiz, PlusPortals verifies that all questions have been answered. | |
| Updated the Subject Line for Automated Student Report E-Mails | The subject line for e-mails containing automated student reports has been updated to include more information. | |
| Redesigned the New E-Mail Page and E-Locker Tabs for Mobile Viewing | Redesigned the PlusPortals Manager New E-Mail page and the PlusPortals E-Locker tabs to display on mobile devices. | |
| Feature Fixes | ||
|---|---|---|
| Push Notification Settings Are Saved with Draft E-Mails | Fixed an issue with the Push Notification setting not being recorded when a draft email was saved. | |
New Features
Added Online Meeting Management
For many schools engaged in online learning, PlusPortals has become the hub for student-teacher communication. A key component of online learning is the ability to conduct video-based group meetings. With this release of PlusPortals, teachers can now schedule and manage online meetings using the Online Meetings panel.
Teachers can schedule meetings using Microsoft Teams meeting links or Custom Links from any online meeting service. When using Microsoft Team meeting links, teachers can schedule reoccurring meetings.
Students can view meetings for the current day and join meetings from the Online Meetings panel in their portal.
On the Teachers Permissions page, administrators can enable or disable Online Meetings and select the types of links available to teachers.
Added a Health Questionnaire
Schools providing in-person instruction need to carefully monitor their students and teachers for symptoms of COVID-19 and other illnesses. Now schools can activate the PlusPortals Health Questionnaire, which contains a list of questions based on CDC guidelines, for parents and staff to complete.
On the Summary Permissions page, administrators can activate the Health Questionnaire and select how often users are required to complete the questionnaire. Administrators can also select which questions are included in the questionnaire. Under Instructions for positive answers, administrators can provide instructions for users who answer yes to at least one question.
On the Teachers and Parents Permissions pages, administrators can enable or disable the Health Questionnaire for teachers and parents separately.
When logging in to PlusPortals, users are prompted to complete the Health Questionnaire and are not allowed access to their portals until they submit their responses. Parents must complete the questionnaire for each of their students. If a user answers yes to a question, PlusPortals displays instructions for positive answers.
On the Update User page, the plusportaladmin can enable or disable an administrator's access to data collected in the Health Questionnaire and their ability to run reports on the data.
On the Reports page, authorized administrators can run reports on data collected in the Health Questionnaire. Full Reports show data collected for all users while Exception Reports show only data collected for users with a positive response to a question or users who have not submitted the questionnaire. Administrators can select the range of dates and the users they want to include in the report.
Improvements
Added a File Attachment Option for All Quiz Question Types
Teachers can attach multiple files from their computer, Google Drive™ online storage service, or personal Microsoft OneDrive™ to any type of quiz question.
Added Validation of Answered Quiz Questions
If a student attempts to submit a quiz without answering all questions, a dialog box lists the unanswered questions and asks the student if they want to submit the quiz.
Updated the Subject Line for Automated Student Report E-Mails
The subject line for e-mails containing automated student reports has been updated to include more information. Parents will now see "Portal Summary: <School Name> for <Student Name>".
Redesigned the New E-Mail Page and E-Locker Tabs for Mobile Viewing
The New E-Mail page in PlusPortals Manager and the PlusPortals E-Locker tabs have been updated to fully display on mobile-sized screens.
Feature Fixes
Push Notification Settings Are Saved with Draft E-mails
Previously, when a draft e-mail was saved, the setting for the Push Notification check box (selected or cleared) was not recorded. This issue has been fixed.