System Items

The System Items tab of the School Settings window contains three sets of settings: System Defaults, Synchroniser and Login Settings.

Set SystemItems

Four general default settings appear in the first section of the System Items tab. These settings are not related, but apply across the board in Accelerus.

Set SystemDefaults

System subjects are special subjects created and used by Accelerus as part of the AusVELS Quick Setup processes, applicable only to schools in the Victorian Catholic and Government sectors. These subjects hold the overall AusVELS domain and dimension scores for students in order to produce a summary report and an exported XML file of each student's AusVELS scores. System subjects and their classes have an underscore preceding their code and are coded in a very specific way. For example, _S2_ENG is the Secondary semester 2 system subject that holds AusVELS results for the English domain; _P1_MAT is the Primary semester 1 Mathematics system subject.

These subjects and the classes of these subjects rarely need to be seen by any users and, therefore, are hidden from all windows, by default.

However, there may be occasions where they need to be made available, eg in the Quick Find and Explorer windows, in order to view their details. To temporarily view the system subjects and classes, check the Show system subjects and classes box in the System Defaults section.

When this setting is checked, you will see system subjects and their classes in all applicable windows in Accelerus, including Quick Find and the Subject and Class Explorers.

Set SystemSubjectsExplorer

The classes of the system subjects will also appear in all windows that include classes and enrolments, such as in the Enrolments table of a student's record.

Set SystemSubjectsStudent

In the Teacher and Student windows, each student and teacher may be assigned a start and end date. These dates determine whether a teacher or student is current or not.

By default, teachers and students who are not current do not appear in the Quick Find or Explorers.

A teacher or student is not current if:

•	Their start date is after the end date of the currently viewed academic cycles. For example, if 2011 is selected as the current cycle, any students and teachers whose start date is in 2012 will not appear.

•	Their end date is before the start of the academic cycles being viewed. Therefore, for example, if 2012 is currently selected, teachers and students with end dates of 31 December 2011 or before are not current in 2012.

However, there may be occasions where you wish to view non current teachers or students. This may be necessary, for instance, if you need to change the code of a teacher who has left because the code has now been assigned to a new teacher.

In order to display non current teachers and student, the Show non current students and teachers box in the System Items tab of the School Settings window may be ticked.

Set SystemNonCurrentTeacher

The above teacher will appear when viewing 2009, 2010 and 2011. She will appear for all of 2011, even though her end date is 30 June. It is not until the 2011 academic cycle ends that she will not appear.

The default system date determines the cycles that are automatically selected in the Academic Cycle Selector when a user logs into Accelerus and, therefore, what is displayed in the Welcome Screen and in Quick Find initially.

Set SystemDefaultDate

Any academic cycle that includes the default system date will be included. For example, as shown above, 1 January 2012 is the default system date. If there were two cycles that included this date - 2012 and Sem1 - these will be the selected cycles, as they both include 1 January 2012.

Set SystemDefaultDateSelector

The default system date may be:

•	Automatically set to use the current date.

In this case, whatever date is set on the computer running Accelerus will be the default system date.

•	A specified date may be entered, using any valid date format, or selected by clicking the calendar icon.

Where the current date is used, it is not necessary to change the default date as cycles change, eg at the beginning of each semester or term.

However, there may be times when you want to enforce a particular set of cycles. For example, your school may have finished all of the reporting for 2011 and the Accelerus administrator may want to start working on setting up 2012 without having to remember to keep selecting the 2012 academic cycle when the date is still December 2011.

The default system date setting affects all of the following:

•	Anyone logging into the Accelerus database.

•	Teachers logging into the web version of Accelerus.

•	Teachers logging into an offline file.

Note, however, if teachers already have their offline files and the Accelerus administrator changes the default system date, teachers must synchronise their offline files in order for the changed default to take affect.

This setting in the School Settings window works in conjunction with fields in the Prepare Report Run window. It allows a school to notify teachers of the number of days remaining for them to enter their student results for a particular report run that has been marked as current.

Set SystemDefaultsNotify

When activated, a notification appears in each teacher’s Welcome Screen when using offline files and when logged directly into Accelerus. It also appears on the landing screen if teachers are using Accelerus Web.

It informs them of the report run for which results are due, and the due date.

Where multiple report runs are current, a notice will appear for each report run.

SRP WelcomeScreenDaysNotice

If activated, you must enter the number of days before the date that the results are due that the notice begins to appear. The notice counts down the days.

If you do not want teachers to receive notifications for any current report runs, deselect this checkbox.

The Synchroniser section of the System Items tab applies when teachers are using offline files to enter their student's results.

Set SystemSynch

•

The IP address of the Synchroniser computer and the port number entered here are used by the export offline files process so that this information is stored in the created offline files, making it unnecessary for teachers to manually enter these details when logging in to their offline files. The IP address and port number must match those entered when setting up the Synchroniser.

•	The Synchroniser start and end date fields determine which cycles of data will be available to teachers in their offline files. Only cycles which fall within these dates will be available in the Academic Cycle Selector when teachers are working offline.

For example, using the start and end dates entered above, all cycles in 2012 will be displayed in the offline files, as the date range is 1 January to 31 December 2012.

The Synchroniser will automatically remove any classes from teachers' offline files that fall outside this range, eg the classes from 2011.

The Academic Cycle Selector in the offline files will not even display any cycles that do not fall in this date range. As shown here, only cycles that belong to 2012 are displayed and available for selection.

Set SystemSynchCyclesSelector

The Accelerus administrator must change the Synchroniser date range fields each cycle in order that, when teachers synchronise, they receive the correct classes for the new academic cycles.

•	The first of the checkboxes - Only allow one offline file to be collected - should be checked if you do not want teachers to be collect offline files multiple times.

It applies whether teachers are collecting offline files via the Login window or, when logged directly into the Accelerus database, via the Welcome Screen.

However, the Accelerus administrator is not restricted from exporting offline files multiple times for teachers.

When teachers are logged into the Accelerus database, and they have already collected an offline file, the Collect offline file icon in the Welcome Screen becomes disabled. Teachers collecting a second time via the Login window will receive a message, as shown below.

Tech SynchCollectAlreadyCollected

It is only necessary for teachers to receive their offline files once in their time at the school. Thereafter, teachers need only periodically synchronise their offline files with the Accelerus database, so that the file and the database are kept in synch. As the Accelerus administrator updates the synchroniser start and end dates, teachers will receive the correct classes for new academic cycles and those for previous academic cycles will be locked or removed, as determined by the Accelerus administrator.

It is highly recommended that this box is checked. Otherwise, the teacher may keep collecting a new offline file, rather than synchronising the one they have already collected.

•	The Include classes without assessment items checkbox should be checked if you want teachers to receive all classes in their offline file that they have been assigned to, whether it contains assessment items or not.

This setting does not impinge on the export of offline files as the Accelerus administrator may determine this when using this process. However, it affects not only the collection of offline files but also their synchronisation. For example, if an offline file was exported that included classes without assessment items, but the checkbox was not ticked in the School Settings window, when the teacher next synchronised, any classes without items would be removed from the offline file.

Ticking this setting may be useful where schools may want teachers to receive their files early in the year, before the Accelerus administrator has completed setting up the assessment items in subjects in order for teachers to check their class lists. Also, teachers may begin recording their own personal assessments in class assessment items, if they wish.

The Login Settings section only applies to schools using Microsoft Active Directory who wish to integrate Accelerus logins with Active Directory.

Accelerus requires each user to login, with a user name and password, whether into the database or an offline file. By default, the teacher's code, as set up in the Accelerus database, is their user name. Their Accelerus password when a teacher is added to the Accelerus database, or when a database has been converted from MarkBook, is also their teacher code. Teachers then change their password when they first login.

Schools may continue using the Accelerus login system, even if using Active Directory at the school.

However, they may link Accelerus logins with teachers' Windows logins using these settings so that teachers do not have to use or remember an additional user name and password for Accelerus. Instead, their school Windows login is used to verify their identity.

Set SystemLoginSettings

When the Enable Active Directory Integration checkbox is ticked in the School Settings window, an additional field appears in every teacher's window - Domain User Name - in order to link the Accelerus teacher record with their domain user name, which includes both the domain and the user name, as shown below.

Ent TeacherDomainUserName

The Active Directory settings only became available in Accelerus v1.2.1000. If these settings are activated when teachers already have offline files, the login settings will only take effect in the offline files after the teachers synchronise, once the Synchroniser has been upgraded to version 1.2. Until then, they must still use their current Accelerus teacher code and password settings.

•	Before you activate these settings, the person who is logged into Accelerus should be the same user as is logged into the computer.

•	Check the box to enable Active Directory integration in the School Settings window, if required.

Accelerus will immediately check who is logged onto the computer and will assign their domain credentials to their teacher record. A message will appear, informing you of this.

Set SystemLoginConfirm

•	Click OK to the message.

•	If the logged on user to the computer is not the teacher who is logged into Accelerus, when you have finished setting the Login Settings, you must ensure that the correct domain user names are added to the two teachers concerned.

•	Then choose from the two available option buttons, in accordance with the following information.

The first option button, Login using current Active Directory user credentials without prompting, is the tightest security option.

This option means the teacher is to be authenticated by Windows exclusively and, once logged into Windows, no further password of any kind is required in order for the teacher to work in Accelerus.

When this is selected, Accelerus automatically checks who is logged into the computer and if the logged in domain and user name matches the domain and user name of any teacher in the Accelerus database or the teacher who owns the offline file. If it does, on clicking such a data source in the Accelerus Login window, the teacher is immediately logged in. They are not prompted to enter a user name or password at all.

Set SystemLoginFirstOption

If a school decides to activate this option, so that only Active Directory credentials are accepted, there are some disadvantages:

•	The database must have every teacher's Active Directory domain user name set up in it.

•	Where teachers use offline files, they will not be able to collect their offline files from the Accelerus Login window. At that point, Accelerus does not know what authentication the database is using. Therefore, the offline files must be:

➢	Exported for teachers from Accelerus by the Accelerus administrator, or

➢	Teachers must login to the Accelerus database and collect them via the Welcome Screen.

•	Users can only login to the database and an offline file as themselves, eg where a school has staff room computers, teachers must log out of the network so another teacher can login and be able to use Accelerus.

•	All users must belong to the school's Active Directory.

The intention of the second option, Prompt for Active Directory user name and password, is that teachers do not have to remember two passwords but still need to login to Accelerus separately from their Windows login.

This means, for example, where there is a shared staff room computer, teachers do not need to log out of Windows totally in order to be able to login to Accelerus as a different teacher.

Set SystemLoginSettings

With this option, you may:

•	Not select any of the further options that are available.

In this case, teachers will be prompted to enter either their Windows login name and password, or their Accelerus login details.

UI LoginBothPasswords

•	Select one of the additional authentication methods:

➢	The option Try current domain/username before prompting will check the current user who is logged into the computer and if their Windows login credentials match with those in Accelerus, they will be logged into Accelerus immediately, without prompting them to reenter any login details.

However, if the login details do not match those in the selected data source, ie the offline file, or anyone found in the Accelerus database, the teacher is prompted for login credentials.

Whether the data source accepts Accelerus login details, in addition to the Active Directory login details, will depend on whether the last of the three checkboxes is ticked or not.

This option has advantages in that in most cases a teacher will not have to reenter their login details. However, where the database does not have the teacher's domain user name and password, or the computer has never been attached to the school's domain, eg a home computer, teachers will be prompted to login and they may enter their Accelerus login details.

➢	Checking the Store a hash of the AD credentials in the offline file option means that, when offline files are created or synchronised, Accelerus stores an encrypted copy of the teacher's Active Directory user name and password in the offline file.

Set SystemLoginHashOption

This option may be useful where teachers at the school regularly need to access student results outside of the school or do not have their own laptops.

Storing the teacher's Active Directory user name and password in an encrypted format in the offline file means that the offline file can be opened on any computer that has never been part of the domain.

This is a potential security issue because the Active Directory password should only be stored in the actual Active Directory.

However, security concerns are mitigated by the use of a bcrypt algorithm that provides one of the highest levels of security.

•	The last checkbox, Disable Accelerus teacher code/password login, means that teachers, where prompted, will have to login using their Active Directory credentials.

If the login box appears, it will only allow the teacher to enter their Windows user name and password to login.

UI LoginWindowsPasswordOnly

Where this last checkbox is ticked, the Accelerus administrator must immediately open their own teacher record and set their own domain user name therein or will not be able to login again.