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Implementation Checklist

Review this checklist for a comprehensive overview of all steps involved when you implement Faculty Access for the Web. Complete all steps before you enable teachers to set up their gradebooks.

□ Plan to implement Faculty Access for the Web when you and your staff can devote sufficient time to learn about the program, including installation, security, and school policies. Our experienced consultants can help you plan your implementation. For information about our consulting services, contact us at solutions@blackbaud.com or 1-800-443-9441.
□ Confirm your Web server hardware and software meet our system recommendations. Visit our website at support.blackbaud.com to find detailed system recommendations.
□ Plan to train all Faculty Access for the Web users thoroughly before the beginning of the academic year. Allow time for teachers to set up their online gradebooks before classes begin.
□ The Faculty Access for the Web User's Guide and Online Help File for Faculty are written for teachers, department heads, advisors, and administrators. The guide is in a printable, Adobe Acrobat PDF format. The help file is an online, searchable resource. Both can be found on the Faculty Access for the Web Help page on the Blackbaud website at https://www.blackbaud.com/howto/faculty-access.aspx. You can also find information about new features, admin resources, and answers to frequently asked questions.
□ To help you prepare handouts for teacher trainings, on the Faculty Access for the Web Help page we also provide Faculty Access for the Web teacher tutorials. These documents are in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat PDF format so you can customize them to your needs or provide a ready-to-go version.
□ Back up the database daily! You can lose a large amount of daily grade and attendance information if you have to restore to an old backup.
□ Plan for your daily backups of the Education Edge database and test the backups frequently. This is extremely important with Faculty Access for the Web because teachers can enter daily grades and comments and use daily grades to calculate marking column grades for students. A school could lose this important detailed information due to an unpredictable database problem before marking column grades post.
□ We strongly recommend you consult with an Internet security analyst to ensure that you fully secure the Web server from unauthorized access.
□ Review the Faculty Access for the Web installation information for important network security and installation instructions. You also learn how to set up security privileges. Securing the Web server against outside attacks is vital. Blackbaud cannot be held responsible for any unauthorized access to your Web server. From the Microsoft IT website at www.microsoft.com/technet or the Microsoft Developer Network website at msdn.microsoft.com, you can access more information about securing your Web server. For information about installation, see Faculty Access for the Web Installation Overview.
□ Thoroughly review, plan, and implement security rights for your users. An incorrect setup can allow users to access restricted information. Review the information about how to plan user rights.
□ In Registrar's Office, ensure you have your marking columns set up as you need. Marking columns organize time frames in which faculty enter grade information. For more information about how to set up marking columns, see the Configuration Guide for Registrar's Office.
□ Determine your school policies for how you want to grant access to marking columns in Faculty Access for the Web. For every school, academic year, and session combination, you can determine which marking columns faculty can view and edit. For information about how to set up marking column access, see Marking Column Access Rights for Faculty.
□ Decide if you will set up marking column weights in Faculty Access for the Web to calculate marking column averages based on other marking column grades. For example, you can calculate the Semester 1 average based on the Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 grades. You can set up marking column weights for teachers or enable teachers to define their own marking column weights. You can require teachers to use supervisor-defined marking column weights only. If you enable teachers to define their own marking column weights, ensure they set up and assign the marking column weights before they enter grades. If a teacher assigns a marking column weight after grade entry, the teacher must delete and re-enter one of the grades included in the marking column weight calculation for each student for the grade to re-calculate.
□ Set up a process for which marking columns to post from Faculty Access for the Web to Registrar's Office. If you want to print progress report cards in Registrar’s Office, you can set up a method to post marking column grades from Faculty Access for the Web to a marking column created specifically for interim grades. To prevent teachers from entering grades in the wrong marking column in Faculty Access for the Web and disrupt their marking column weight calculations, you can restrict access to the marking columns you create for interim grades.
□ In Registrar’s Office, review the translation tables associated with the marking columns for the academic year and sessions on course records. When you set up grading information for an academic year and session on a course record in Records, you associate translation tables with marking columns. You also designate whether you allow grade or numeric values, or both, marking column grades. This determines how the program posts grades from Faculty Access for the Web. If you allow only letter grades, the grades post as letter grades based on the translation table. If you allow only numeric grades, the grades post as numeric grades based on the translation table. If you allow both numeric and letter grades, the grades post as teachers enter in Faculty Access for the Web. If you allow both numeric and letter grades, you can also set an option to post letter grades only when you run the Post from FAWeb utility.
□ Determine if you want to require teachers to use supervisor-defined grading scales only or if teachers can set up their own grading scales. Grading scales are for assignment grades only and they translate non-numeric grades, such as letter grades or check marks, into numeric grades. Numeric grades are used to calculate gradebook averages. If teachers always use numeric values for assignments, you do not need to set up grading scales. For more information about grading scales, see Define Grading Scales.
□ If you want to require teachers to use supervisor-defined grading scales and marking column weights only,we recommend you wait to grant teachers access to academic years until you finish your supervisor set up. For more information about how to grant access to academic years, see Academic Year Access Rights for Faculty.
□ When teachers set up their gradebook, they can create assignment categories, such as Homework, Essay, and Test, to group assignments. Categories are set up for each class per academic year, session, and marking column. When teachers set up categories, they designate whether to calculate marking column averages with category averages or total points received on assignments. Review with your teachers how they should set up the categories and any school policies for marking column average calculations.
□ Set up timelines and procedures for when and how teachers enter grades into Faculty Access for the Web. Based on this timeline, determine when the administrator will run the Post from FAWeb utility to post grades to Registrar's Office. For assistance in how to set up a posting process, see Sample Post from Faculty Access for the Web Processes.
□ Establish an attendance entry procedure and communicate to teachers and office staff when you expect them to enter attendance.
□ Determine if you want to track attendance by class or day, or by day only. In Configuration in Registrar's Office, you configure attendance per academic year. If the year is set to track class or day attendance, teachers enter class attendance codes in Faculty Access for the Web. If the year is set to track day attendance only, teachers enter day attendance codes in Faculty Access for the Web.
□ If the academic year is set up to track attendance by day only, set the If entering day attendance, require users to indicate “attendance taken” when taking attendance by [ ] business rule in Configuration in Registrar’s Office. The business rule determines whether teachers take attendance in homeroom or in a class meeting at a specific time.

If you set the business rule to homeroom, teachers select “Homeroom” in the Class field on the Attendance page. You do not have to create a class for homeroom, the program refers to the homeroom teachers on student progression entries for the selected academic year. With this setup, all teachers can view daily attendance in their classes in Faculty Access for the Web but only homeroom teachers can enter attendance.

If you set it to a class meeting at a specific time, only teachers of classes meeting at that time can enter attendance, but all teachers can view daily attendance in their classes.

□ If the academic year is set up to track day attendance only, set the If entering day attendance, require users to indicate “attendance taken” when taking attendance by [ ] business rule in Configuration in Registrar’s Office. The business rule determines when the teacher takes attendance during the day.
□ Users can enter attendance in Faculty Access for the Web and Registrar’s Office at the same time. To avoid confusion, set up procedures to prevent the possibility of multiple attendance for the same class at the same time.
□ In Configuration in Registrar’s Office, you restrict the attendance codes that teachers can use. For example, you may separate attendance codes for teachers and the administration office, such as when you want the office to determine if an excuse was excused or unexcused.
□ Before you enable teachers to access to Faculty Access for the Web, on the Restrictions 1 tab of faculty/staff records in Registrar’s Office, select the schools in which teachers can be scheduled. This restriction also affects the schools the teachers can select in Faculty Access for the Web.
□ If you have users who are advisors only and need to access course requests, you must mark the schools in which the advisor can access requests.
□ If you enable teachers to change their own passwords, establish a strict password policy for teachers to prevent students guessing a teacher’s password. For example, require that teachers do NOT use:
 •   A family name in any form— first, middle, last, maiden, spelled backwards, nickname, or initials.
 •   Any part of a user name.
 •   Any common name or word, such as Joe or dog.
 •   A phone or office number, address, birthday, or anniversary.
□ If your school uses NetClassroom, educate all teachers about NetClassroom before the beginning of the academic year and what information students and parents can access. For more information about NetClassroom, see the Administration Guide for NetClassroom.
□ For each school, select whether you will allow teachers to use the assignment dropbox for assignments. The assignment dropbox enables students to turn in documents to NetClassroom. Teachers can then access the documents in Faculty Access for the Web, or if you have it, Online Campus Community.
□ Encourage teachers to be clear and informative in the assignment names and descriptions to appear in NetClassroom. Recommend teachers to establish conventions for assignment names, for example, using HW for all homework assignments and indicating chapter numbers such as HW1-1 for the first homework assignment of Chapter 1. Also recommend that teachers provide detailed assignment descriptions.
□ If you have NetMail, teachers and advisors can send emails through Faculty Access for the Web to students, student relations, or both. As Supervisor, you set the criteria for which relations can receive emails. For more information about setting this criteria, see Set Up Email Relationship Filters.
□ Emails sent through Faculty Access for the Web are also visible in NetMail in The Education Edge. To avoid an extremely lengthy list of emails in NetMail and Faculty Access for the Web, set a policy for how long users should keep sent emails.
□ For faculty to approve course requests in Faculty Access for the Web by course, ensure the course and faculty records associate with the correct departments. Then, decide which users will approve requests. Teachers can review requests by student or by course. For the selected academic year, they can access the students they teach in the previous year. Typically teachers review course requests for the next academic year. If a teacher is also the department head, he can access all student requests for courses in his department.

Advisors can review requests by student. For the selected academic year, they can access the students they advise in the previous year. Typically they review current advisee requests for the next academic year. They can also access students they advise in the selected academic year if a student does not have a student progression entry for the previous year.

Administrators can review requests by student. They can access all students in the selected academic year.

□ Grant access to course requests in the academic year. For information about how to grant access, see Academic Year Access Rights for Faculty. Also review and communicate the course request business rules you set up in Configuration in Registrar's Office.
□ Set up comment approval for faculty. For each school you designate who reviews gradebook comments and how you designate department heads. For more information, see Set Up Comment Approval and Department Heads.
□ Set up email and default teacher settings for gradebook alerts. Faculty can receive alerts when students have unacceptable grades, missing assignments, or infractions. For information about how to set up alerts, see Set Up Faculty Alerts.