The Welcome Screen

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The Welcome Screen is the first window displayed to all users after they login to Accelerus.

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What is displayed in the Welcome Screen, in addition to the standard tool and status bars found throughout Accelerus, will vary based what permissions and roles you have been assigned by the Accelerus administrator. Also, its features will depend on whether you have logged into the Accelerus database or an offline file.

The Welcome Screen above is an example of what teachers see when they login to an offline file.

 

minusIn an offline file

The following features are not only available when a teacher logs into an offline file, but are generic to every Welcome Screen.

The Welcome Screen displays:

The title displays your name, the school name and the academic cycles you are currently working on.
Your classes, if you have any, and your roles, eg Teacher.

The listed classes are those which are in force for the displayed academic cycles.

You may click a class to open it, as shown above, to work on assessing the students in the class.

You may open as many of your classes simultaneously as you wish, via the Welcome Screen.

As you open and close class files, you will be returned to the Welcome Screen, from where you select further classes or perform other tasks allowed in Accelerus.

Your own comment banks, if you have any.

You may open a comment bank displayed in the Welcome Screen, by clicking its button.

An icon in the bottom right corner that brings up the Comment Bank Explorer in which you may view and work on comment banks.

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One feature of the Welcome Screen that only applies to offline files is the Synchronise button in the top right corner. Features of this to note are:

The red up arrow allows a teacher to synchronise the offline file they are currently logged in to.
Below the arrow, teachers are informed of the last date and time that their offline file was synchronised with the database.
In addition, to the left of the button, a message will be displayed if the teachers has made any changes to the offline file that have not been synchronised back into the school's database.

Tech SynchWelcomeMessage

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The red up arrow is a handy, instant reminder that you are working in an offline file.

In addition, in the bottom left of the status bar, the name and location of the file are displayed.

 

minusIn the Accelerus database

In addition to the generic features always available in the Welcome Screen, and covered in the section above, additional features are available when logged into your school's Accelerus database.

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Firstly, the status bar will display the name and path of the Accelerus database rather than that of a file.
Potentially, there will be sections headed Your Roles, Your Subjects, Your Cohorts, in addition to Your Classes and Your Comment Banks which are found in all Welcome Screens:
If you have a school level role, the role will be displayed at the top of the Welcome Screen, under the heading of Your Roles.

As shown above, Kathleen Edwards has the role of Administrator.

Note that those with a school level role will also have a Quick Find pane to the left of the Welcome Screen.

A Your Subjects section will be displayed if you have been assigned a subject role, eg subject coordinator, in the displayed academic cycles. Your subject level roles are listed, together with the subjects that apply to these roles.

Above, the teacher has two subjects where she has the role of Subject Coordinator.

Those with subject roles logging into the database will only be able to access their own subjects, unless they also have an administrator role.

A Cohort section will appear if you have any cohort roles, listing the roles and the cohort groups that apply to each role, for the current academic cycles.

For example, you may be a year level coordinator and a home group teacher, for a particular year level and home group. Therefore, these cohort groups will be displayed under their applicable roles.

Again, those with a cohort role without an administrator role, will only be able to access the cohort groups they oversee.

When you are logged into the Accelerus database, as with your classes, you may click the button for any of your subjects or cohort groups to open their windows.

You may return to the Welcome Screen as needed, to open further classes, subjects, cohort groups or comment banks.

Note that an Accelerus administrator who does not have any class, subject or cohort roles will only find their school role listed in the Welcome Screen.

Lastly, another difference between the Welcome Screen when logged into the database and when logged into an offline file, is the Collect offline file button in the top right corner.

This is a green down arrow, compared to the red up arrow that appears in an offline file. This button allows you to collect an offline file while logged into the database. For example, you may have been working in the Accelerus database at school and now want to take your classes offline to work on them at home. You may do so by clicking this button.

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minusClosing and redisplaying the Welcome Screen

Like all tabbed windows in Accelerus, the Welcome Screen may remain open, and you may return to it as needed.

Also, like all tabbed windows, you may close the Welcome Screen by clicking its Close tab icon.

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If the Welcome Screen has been closed, you may redisplay it at any time by:

Clicking the Show welcome screen icon in the toolbar.

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OR

Going to the Window menu and selecting Welcome Screen.

OR

Pressing Ctrl W.

 

minusHiding and viewing roles

In the Welcome Screen, under each of the Classes, Subjects and Cohorts sections, your specific roles are listed, eg Teacher, Teacher 2, Year Level Coordinator, together with the records that apply to those roles.

Besides each role is an icon that allows the records for each role to be hidden or displayed.

This is a handy feature for those teachers that have a role that applies to large numbers of records, eg a Learning area coordinator or a specialist teacher in a Primary school, etc.

Hovering over the role name will also inform you of the number of records for the particular role.

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For example, as shown above, teacher Travis Basso, has 18 classes in his role of Teacher. The classes are not visible as the icon beside the Teacher role has been clicked to hide the classes - note the down arrow in the icon, compared to the up arrow in the case of the Subject Coordinator role.