For the Technician

Accelerus may be installed and run in different ways at a school, and a school's technical staff need to have an overview of the different options and ensure it is deployed in the way required by the school.

To begin with, the Accelerus suite is made up of the main Accelerus program, an Accelerus Web program and several other management components.

Accelerus administrators must always set up and work directly on the school’s database, using the Accelerus program. Teachers may enter results for their students directly into the database or can collect and work on their classes in offline files. In either case, the same Accelerus program is used. However, different permission levels are assigned to different roles, restricting the data and processes accessible to them.

If teachers are working on offline files, synchroniser components must be installed on one computer that will host the synchronisation of the offline files with the Accelerus database.

In addition, a school may wish to allow teachers to enter their class results via a web browser. In this case, the Accelerus Web program must be used for installation on the computer hosting the web service.

Another issue of significance to technical staff is whether Accelerus is to be used in conjunction with Microsoft Active Directory, so that a teacher's school Windows login also applies when logging into Accelerus.

•	Where more than a few teachers will be logging directly into the database simultaneously, whether using Accelerus or via a web browser, an SQL Server database must be used for Accelerus.

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When teachers are working on offline files or via the web, they only have access to their own classes and comment banks, specific to their roles of class teachers. It is only by working directly in the database using the Accelerus program that the functionality available as part of their other roles, eg subject or year level coordinators, can be used.

Accelerus may be installed as:

•	A management installation, used only for Accelerus administrator computers, including any computer that is hosting the synchronising of offline files. A management installation requires an Accelerus licence file.

•	A standard installation, used by any teacher regardless of whether they are going to work directly in the database or on offline files. It only allows the installation of the Accelerus program and none of the management components.

The table below summarises the available Accelerus programs, whether they are installed from a management or standard installation, and the primary uses of the program.

The appropriate components are installed on different computers, depending on the way you are running Accelerus at your school.

Program

Installation Type

What it does

Accelerus

Management or Standard

The program used by:

•	Accelerus Administrators to set up and work on their schools’ database.

•	Teachers and those with subject and class roles to assess their students, whether in offline files or directly in the database.

Database Utilities

Management

Used by Accelerus administrators only to perform database management functions such as creating a new database, converting a database from MarkBook to Accelerus, etc.

Synchroniser

Management

The program that allows the synchronising of teachers’ data in offline files into the Accelerus database and, in turn, passes changes from the database to the teachers’ offline files. It is the all-in-one synchronising program, containing the synchronising host and the local control of it.

It is only required to be installed on one computer.

Synchroniser Service

Management

Used only where the synchroniser is to run as a Windows service, but not necessarily on a server. It is just the synchronising host program.

It is also only required to be installed on one computer.

Synchroniser Remote Control

Management

This allows the controlling of either the Synchroniser or the Synchroniser Service remotely.

In the case of the Synchroniser Service, it allows the local control of the synchroniser processes.

Accelerus Web

and

Goals Management System

Accelerus Web Installer

Used for installation on the computer hosting the web site where:

•	Teachers are to enter their class results via a web browser

•	The Goals Management System is being used by teachers for the setting up and tracking of goals.

Accelerus requires each user to login, with a user name and password, whether into the database or an offline file.

By default, the login system in Accelerus assigns the teacher's code, as set up in the Accelerus database, as their user name.

The password, by default, when a teacher is added to the Accelerus database, or when a database has been converted from MarkBook, is also their teacher code.

However, alternative login options are available to a school. Where a school is using Microsoft Active Directory, Accelerus can be configured to integrate with this. There are a series of settings in the School Settings window in Accelerus that must be activated, allowing schools to determine the level of integration, if any. For example, a school may decide that a teacher's Active Directory login is used exclusively and the teacher is never prompted to login to Accelerus separately. On the other hand, teachers may be required to login to Accelerus separately using either their Accelerus login details or their Active Directory user name and password.