April 2021 Release Notes

April 2021 Release Notes

  1. Advanced Class Options - Two new options have been added to customize classes on a class-by-class basis. The first is the ability to open the course outline. When this is selected, it allows the teacher and the student to navigate the outline without the level limitations that are normally in place. This is especially useful for classes that are a bit less linear and can be completed in a different order. The second option is the session finalization requirement. Normally all classes would require the teacher to finalize a session so that they can get credit (and eventually get paid for it). By turning off this option, it lets the system know that it is okay for the teacher to not finalize this class' sessions and that they should still get credit for their sessions. Note that with this option off, the teacher may still finalize sessions, it is simply optional.
  1. Default Teacher Classroom Link - The previously rarely used "Tutoring Zoom Room Link" in the teacher's profile has been repurposed to now be the "Default Classroom Link". This link is used for automatically pre-filling a class' classroom link upon class creation. To allow for maximum flexibility, the classroom link can be overwritten if needed even after pre-filled with the teacher's default link. Another place this link is used is for substituted sessions. When a session is subbed by another teacher, the classroom link will be that of the teacher's default classroom link.
  1. Classroom Password - We have added a new field to the class management to allow for the addition of a classroom password. When entered, this password is shown to both the teacher and the student that is ready to enter the classroom when they click "Enter Class".
  1. Course Discounts - Discounts may now have an optional course limiter added which will make the discount only apply if the student is enrolled in the particular course. Many courses can be selected at the same time to allow for discounts to apply for many different courses.
  1. Certificate Regeneration - Sometimes certificates need to be updated. We have added a button to the course outline that allows staff to regenerate all certificates for a particular level so that any changes to the certificate PDF are applied to students who have already received the certificate. This is also useful in cases where a level did not previously have a certificate, but now does. Upon regeneration, the system will now generate new certificates to students who should've received the certificate but never did. Note that if a certificate is removed from a level, and certificates are regenerated, the system will not delete or otherwise remove certificates that have been awarded.
  1. Manaarah Customization: Course Certificate - When a course needs to have a certificate, staff members are given the option to upload a certificate pdf to be used as the template. If the staff member does not have a template pdf they can optionally not upload a file and it'll use the system default. We have added the ability for the school to set this default course certificate pdf for these cases.
  1. Preventing Erroneous Autocalls - Sometimes automatic phone calls are scheduled to happen during the student's daylight hours. Well if something changes during the time that the system is waiting, there may be cases where the autocall is no longer applicable. To prevent this, we now re-check that the autocall reason still applies before finally making the call.
  1. Family Account Switching - Similar to how staff can shadow other accounts to see what they see when they are logged in, parents can now shadow their children's accounts. This new account switching feature can be accessed by parents from their profile sidebar. Once they click on their profile image on the topbar, they will see a dropdown of their family's accounts in the sidebar. Once selected, they will be automatically logged in as that child. If a staff member is shadowing a parent or child, they will also be able to use this functionality just like the parent would. Note that children may not shadow parents, nor will this option be available for non-family accounts.
  1. News Likes and Views - Published news articles can now be liked by users by clicking on the heart on the article. We are also tracking how many views each article gets. The metrics for the articles can be seen by staff when they open the news article.
  1. Discount Statuses - We have updated the discount manager to better show the status of each discount. Previously, if a discount expired, it would simply show as "inactive". Now the system will be more specific as to why the discount is inactive. This better reporting is also reflected in user feedback. If a student tries to enter a discount code upon enrollment, they will now be told that the discount has expired if the discount is outside it's active period.
  1. Question Banks Enhancements - For a better experience when working with question banks, we moved the question banks list to a tab next to the exams and questions lists. Additionally, we enhanced the question selection in the question banks to allow for a "select all" which will select all the filtered questions. This is especially helpful when you want to select all questions that start with "AR-A_EV_LVL-02" for example. Simply search for the questions you want to select, and click "select all" to select all the questions that matched your search query.
  1. Student Quick Search Enhancement -  When a student uses the quick search to search for a course, the system will now show them any courses they are currently enrolled in with that name and any courses available in the system for them to enroll in. Clicking the courses found will take the student to the course's detail page where they can enroll. If the student is viewing the course details page of a course they (or their child) are enrolled in, a message is displayed on the page letting them know they are enrolled and links to that class' dashboard.
  1. Private Courses - Just like private tuitions, sometimes courses need to be hidden so that they can only be enrolled in by staff. This new checkbox in the course management page will determine if the course is displayed in the course outline, featured courses, and any other place where a student may see it to enroll. An icon is shown next to courses that are private so they can more easily be found in the course list. 
  1. Class System Notifications - Sometimes notifications, emails, or text messages need to be sent to a particular class. This can now be accomplished by selecting a class in the system notifications page. Multiple classes can also be selected at once to do notifications to class groups. Note that this only messages active members of the class, so students who have canceled their class, or who are otherwise inactive in the class are not notified.
  1. Quran Memorization Tool Fullscreen - Sometimes you just need a little more real estate on your screen. To make the Quran memorization tool a bit easier to use on things like tablets and computers, we have added a new fullscreen button next to the close button. Pressing this button will bring the memorization tool in a native fullscreen mode. Clicking the fullscreen button while already in full screen will revert the screen back to normal.  
  1. Group Session Cancellation - Each session in the system is an individual session between one student and one teacher. For group classes, the system has potentially dozens of sessions in one time-slot. When a group class session needs to be canceled, normally staff would need to cancel each student's session one-by-one. So to optimize this, we have added an option when canceling a session which will automatically cancel all the sessions in this time-slot for this class.
  1. Class Dashboard Side Menu - On the class dashboard and all the pages within, the main side menu has been automatically minimized. This will free up a bit more screen space and not bombard the students with multiple side menus at once.
  1. Course Language Help Text - To help explain the course language field, we have added a question mark icon which when hovered on, will explain to the user that the language is referring to the language that the teacher uses to teach this course.

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