InformationNOW System Preferences About this Guide This Quick Reference Guide provides an overview of all options within the System Preferences menu except for Setup. For details regarding the Setup menu, please refer to the InformationNOW Lookups Quick Reference Guide. Group Maintenance Groups are user groups which are created to manage access and permissions within InformationNOW. When a user accesses the program, the user group that they are assigned to determines the rights they have within the software. The program installs with predefined user groups: Administrators Attendance Clerk Census Clerk Counselor Discipline Clerk District Personnel Administrator District Technician Enrollment Clerk Scheduling Clerk School Personnel Administrator School Technician Teacher Transcript Clerk Rights have been assigned to each of these groups based on their assumed responsibilities. These rights may be edited. For detailed instructions, please see the section Permission Maintenance on page 8. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 1
Add User Group To add a new user group, perform the following steps: Go to System Preferences Group Maintenance. Click Add. Enter a Name. Description is optional. Click Create. Continue adding groups or click Cancel when finished. View User Group To view existing groups, along with the users assigned to the group, perform the following steps: Go to System Preferences Group Maintenance. To view the group, either: o o Click the name of the group that appears as a blue link; or Bullet the name of the group and click View. Click to see the user(s) in this group. The list of users in this group will display. Note: The built-in Support and Administrator user accounts are automatically added to all groups that are pre-installed. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 2
Delete User Group To delete a user group, perform the following steps: Note: Deleting a user group will not delete the users from the database. However, permissions that were granted to individual users based on the user group will be removed. Go to System Preferences Group Maintenance. Bullet the group to be deleted. Click Delete. At the prompt Warning! All users in this group will lose the rights granted by this group. Are you sure that you want to delete the selected group?, click OK to delete or click Cancel to exit without deleting the group. Mass Assign User Groups Users should be added to the user groups. Users must first be entered under Staff Staff Maintenance. Users must also be assigned a user name and password. Go to Staff Staff Maintenance Access tab. Enter a user name and password. Then re-enter the password in the field provided. In the following steps, users have the option to assign users to groups based on school and/or classification. o o For instructions on assigning users to schools, see the section Mass Assign School to User Group on page 7. To assign classifications, first create the classification by going to System Preferences Setup. Select Classification from the drop list and click Refresh. Click Add to create new Classification Codes. Assign these codes to staff under Staff Staff Maintenance Class tab. To add users to user groups, perform the following steps: Go to System Preferences Mass Assign Groups. Review the steps and click Next. At any point during the process, click Back to return to the preceding screen or click Cancel to exit the process. Note: Duplicates are not allowed. Also, user must select at least one filter option School or Classification when assigning users to groups. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 3
Bullet the group to which to add the users and click Next. Alternate: Select the school(s) to which the users belong that are to be assigned to this user group. Click Next. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 4
Alternate: Select the classification(s) that the users currently belong to that are to be assigned to this user group. Click Next. Note: User must select at least one filter option School and/or Classification to proceed. Click to see the user(s) that will be added to the group selected. Click Assign. Once the process is complete, the Group Assignment screen will display. Continue adding users to groups or click Cancel. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 5
View/Modify Individual User Group Assignment To view or modify the user group assignment for a single user, go to Staff Staff Maintenance Access tab. User may be added to additional user groups by checking multiple Groups boxes. Note: If a user is a member of multiple groups and the permissions within these groups conflict, each area of access will be compared and the greater access will be granted. For example, if a user is granted Read access to a field under one user group and is granted Read/Write access for the same field under a different user group, the user will be granted Read/Write access to that field. To give permission for the user to access to any school in the district, bullet Grant access to any school in the district. To limit the permission to specific schools, bullet Allow access to these schools and check the box for the appropriate school(s). Note: A user s access will be the same for each school to which he/she has permission. For example, a user who is granted permission to view attendance will be able to view attendance in all schools to which he/she is granted permission. Click OK. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 6
Mass Assign School to User Group To mass assign a specific school, to a group of users, perform the following steps: Go to System Preferences Mass Assign School. Review the steps and click Next. At any point during the process, click Back to return to the preceding screen or click Cancel to exit the process. Bullet the school to which to add the users and click Next. Optional: To filter the staff to just those that are currently assigned to a specific school, check the box for the school and click Next. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 7
Optional: To filter the staff to just those of a specific classification, check the appropriate boxes and click Next. Note: The user must select at least one filter option School and/or Classification to proceed. Optional: Click to see the user(s) that will be added to the selected school. Click Assign. Permission Maintenance The Permission Maintenance module is used to control access within InformationNOW based on user groups. Each user group may be granted customized permission levels. The user groups that come pre-installed have been created with various permissions based on their assumed responsibilities. These permissions may be modified as needed. Note: For detailed descriptions of each security option, please refer to the InformationNOW Permission Maintenance Quick Reference Guide, which is available from the support Web site. Permissions are separated into three sections: Tasks: Examples include View Address, Maintain Attendance, View Attendance, and Export State Reports. Fields: Provides Hidden, Read or Read/Write access to individual data fields. Reports: Provides the ability to generate various pre-defined reports. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 8
To edit permissions for a group, perform the following steps: Go to System Preferences Permission Maintenance. Select the user group to be modified. Note: All permission options will display. To make the list more manageable, users may hide individual items to which the user group has not been granted access. To do so, check the box to Hide Unassigned Tasks. To view all items, uncheck this box. Click the icon to expand the list under each module name. Click the icon next to each module name to compress the list. Tasks Tasks are the various duties to be performed. They are separated by module (ex. Attendance, Classroom). Each module lists various tasks. Maintain indicates that a user will be able to make modifications to the data. View indicates that a user will only be allowed to view the information but will not be able to modify it. To grant permission to all tasks within a module, place a check next to the module name. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 9
To remove permission from items within the module, uncheck the item(s). Click Apply to save the changes. Fields Fields are the various data elements (such as Student Address, First Name, Last Name, etc.). They are separated by module (for example, Attendance or Classroom). Three levels of access are available: Hidden: Users will not see the data field when they access the screen that contains the data element. Read: Users will see the field but will not be allowed to make any changes. Read/Write: Users will see the field and will be allowed to make changes to the data. To modify the access level to a field, click the desired permission level. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 10
Reports Reports are the pre-defined forms which may be printed, such as Honor Roll or Daily Absence Listing. To grant permission to all reports within a module, place a check next to the module name. To remove permission from reports within the module, uncheck the item. Click Apply to save the changes. Security Menu The Security menu allows users to define system-wide security settings. To modify these settings, go to System Preferences Security. Account Settings Logout user after inactivity (minutes): Enter the amount of inactive time that must pass before users are logged out of the application. The value will default to 15 minutes. The minimum setting is 2 minutes and the maximum setting is 120 minutes. Just before the designated amount of minutes is reached the user will receive a message warning that they are to be logged out due to inactivity. If the user moves their mouse they will remain logged in. If the user fails to move their mouse in the allotted time, they will be logged out. Password expiration (days): Enter the number of calendar days in which a user s password will expire. After this amount of time has passed and the password has expired, the user must create a new password in order to log in. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 11
Lock account after login failures (attempts): Enter the number of unsuccessful attempts a user may make to an account before it is locked. Then enter the number of minutes the account will be locked before the user may attempt another login. Accounts lockout (minutes): Enter the number of minutes that must pass after a user is locked out before they will be allowed to attempt to log back in. Restrict System Access by Time: To restrict access to the system for a specific period of time each week, enter the start and ending day and time. This allows for routine maintenance or backups for districts who host their data. Attachments Check to enable attachments for emails and/or grade book activity attributes. Review the Terms and Conditions Of Use and click Agree. Note: Capacity is set to 10.00 GB by default. It is an aggregate total for all users. For customers who have their data hosted, this maximum may not be exceeded. For customers who host their own data, this maximum may be changed. If the district/school hosts their own data, please contact a customer care representative for assistance with changing this maximum. Home Portal Enter the URL to the InformationNOW home portal. This information will be included in the alert notifications to be sent to contacts and/or students who have elected to Go Green. INFocus If using INFocus to create reports and dashboards, enter the URL and Webservice Path. Note: This information should be set at the time of installation and should not be changed. If changes are needed at a later point, please contact a customer care representative. API URL Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 12
Enter the API (Application Program Interface) External URL and Internal URL. Microsoft Active Directory Enter the name of the active directory server name only if InformationNOW is to use Active Directory as its authentication source. Entering the server name here will cause a password that is changed in Active Directory to immediately be changed for the user in InformationNOW. If desired, check to automatically append the domain name to the login name. If selected, users may log in to InformationNOW with only their user name (ex. jsmith) instead of the entire domain name (jsmith@hometown.edu). If selected, enter the domain name in the field provided. Click Test to ensure the proper name has been entered. Mail Server Settings To allow users to send emails from within InformationNOW, Mail Server Settings must be entered. Enter the following details about the mail server: o From Address o Mail Server Name o Port o Server User Name o Server Password: If entered, a message will display stating that the password has been set. o Enable SSL Click Test to generate a test e-mail to confirm setup is complete. Passwords Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 13
Occasionally Support will request permission to access the database to troubleshoot an issue. To allow this access, check the Enable Support User Login option. Note: In accordance with the Chalkable data policy, support will not access a database without expressed permission. Check the Enable Forgot Password Reset option to allow users to reset their own password. If this is checked, the Password reset instructions field will be disabled. Enter a message in the Password reset instructions field if not allowing users to reset their own message. This message will display if a user indicates they have forgotten their password. Click to Reset the System Admin Password. Enter the new password and then retype the new password in the field provided. If a user unsuccessfully attempts to log in as the Administrator user with the incorrect password, the account will become locked. A user with administrative level rights must then access InformationNOW and click to Unlock System Admin Account. Setup Menu (Lookups) Setup contains the lookups which are codes used throughout InformationNOW. Some codes are created in order to populate a drop-down list (for example, Ethnicity or Lunch Code). Other lookups, such as Bell Schedules or Grading Scales, will not only populate drop-down lists but will also affect how data is calculated within the program. For more details regarding the Setup menu, please refer to the InformationNOW Lookups Quick Reference Guide, available from the Documentation page of the Support Web site at http://support.sti-k12.com. Quick Reference Guide Chalkable_0330151138 InformationNOW System Preferences 14