Setting up PowerSchool reports to work with BrightArrow

In order to know how to break a big report into individual students we will use the student number as the identifier. Each report you want to be able to email to parents will need to be set up correctly so that the system knows how to break it apart and who should get each individual report.

1. Navigate to the report setup area (Reports > Setup)
2. Select the report you want to be able to email. This may be a Form Letter, Object Report or Report Card report. Report name can not have a period (.) character, otherwise it will fail to transfer.
   Note: Currently does not work with ReportWorks
3. Establish the identifying phrase. This can be white text on a white background if you want to hide it from users actually seeing it. Reports can have many numbers on them so it needs to know that you are identifying the number as the student number. The following phrases work, though if you need more please let us know:
   1. Student Number: ~([01]student_number)
   2. Student Number : ~([01]student_number)
   3. Student_Number: ~([01]student_number)
   4. StudentNumber: ~([01]student_number)
   5. Student #: ~([01]student_number)
   6. Student # : ~([01]student_number)
   7. Student ID: ~([01]student_number)
   8. StudentID: ~([01]student_number)
   9. ASN: ~([01]student_number)
   10. MET #: ~([01]student_number)
   11. SASID: ~([01]student_number)
   12. State ID: ~([01]student_number)
   13. ID: ~([01]student_number) *Only if none of the above are found first. Always prefer the methods above.

**In all instances you can replace student_number with state_studentnumber if that is your identifier of choice. Please make sure BrightArrow knows so we are sure to pull the correct field to match on.

A note on object reports

Object reports are tricky to get right because of layers and exact alignment. One way to make sure it works correctly is to put the label (Student Number: ) and value ( ~(student_number) ) in the same object. This ensures that layers and alignment don’t come into play during the parsing procedure and cause it to fail. You may put the label in a separate object from the student number if you like but if you are finding that you are getting errors this method tends to resolve them.

With Object reports you may also hide the key (ex Student Number: ~(student_number) ) if you like by setting the Color to White. That will make the font white and printing white on white will not show for users though our report parsing mechanism will still see it. Form letters and report card reports do not obey this unfortunately. Only Object reports can have white text. PowerSchool does not obey the html tags to make the font white in other formats.

Testing the report

Once you have a report setup to work with BrightArrow Report Emailing you’ll want to make sure it works. Here is how you can test it:

1. Navigate to a student’s record
2. Click “Print A Report” from the left side menu
3. In the drop down select the report you just worked on
4. Click “Submit”
5. Once the report completes the “Send” column should have an icon to click. This icon will show for all reports, even if they are not properly set up so it is not an indicator that the report will work yet. Click this button.
6. If the report is successful you’ll be taken to either:
   1. The create message page (this indicates that you only have 1 list setup for report emailing that you have access to)
   2. A page asking you to choose which list to use as the source. This happens when you have access to more than 1 report emailing list (district wide users who have access to each school’s report emailing list as well as the district wide list). In this case choose which report emailing list to use and click “OK”. You’ll be take to the create message page.
   3. Note: the number of contacts will be the list size, not the number of individual student reports it found. Even though it may say 100 it will only be able to email the report to the contacts who have a report with a matching student number. If there is no report to send they will not receive an email.
7. If the report fails you’ll be taken back to the “My Lists” page and a note will appear (for a few moments) at the top stating “Report card feature not operable”. This indicates there is a problem somewhere in the setup. Possible reasons:
   1. No report emailing list is established or at least none that this user has access to
   2. The “Student Number: 1234” pattern is not in the report
   3. The “Student Number: 1234” pattern is in the report but not on the same layer (some object report tools put each object on different layers causing this problem)

Note 2: The preview button will not send you a sample report. If you need to verify that it’ll send print a single student report, edit the list record for that student so that the email address is you instead of the real emails, then send it for real. That will show you how it works, preview will not attach any reports.