User interface updates A new coat of paint is needed every now and again. d6+ is no exception and has received a refreshing new appearance without changing any of the functionality on which you rely.
Administration My Home > My Tasks A task will now display if there are duplicate online registration forms submitted.
My School > General > School Setup When exporting to SA-SAMS, d6+ can now export a plain SA-SAMS database or one with the additional reporting functionality that can be used in MS Access. The additional reporting functionality was included automatically in the past, but some districts and provinces have struggled with MS Access. The new option for a standard SA-SAMS database makes d6+ nearly undetectable in the exported database. To select which database template to use, select it in the “SNE and SA-SAMS requirements” section. Partial support for multi-grade classes has been added. In My School > General > School Setup, multi-grade classes can be activated in the “SNE and SA-SAMS requirements” section. This adds a new stream to the “Learner receives education in” field in My School > Learners > Learners when adding or editing a learner. When exporting to SA-SAMS, learners indicated as multi-grade will be combined into multigrade classes based on matching register class names in different grades. Class allocation and class lists in d6+ remain unaffected.
My School > General > Absent reasons > Staff absenteeism In the SA-SAMS reason, “Office bearers/shop stewards Leave” was removed as SASAMS no longer includes this reason. Support for “Pending Incapacity leave” was added. It is now also possible to have reasons not linked to SA-SAMS - absenteeism for such reasons will not be exported to SA-SAMS.
Staff My School > Staff > Staff We made two changes to support SA-SAMS information requirements better. First, a “Reason for no SACE number” field was added to show educators with no SACE number captured. The second addition is to indicate reasons for computer usage.
Absenteeism My School > General > Absent reasons > Staff absenteeism The SA-SAMS reason “Office bearers/shop stewards Leave” was removed as SA-SAMS no longer includes this reason. Support for “Pending Incapacity leave” was added. It is now also possible to have reasons not linked to SA-SAMS - absenteeism for such reasons will not be exported to SA-SAMS.
Code of Conduct My School > Code of Conduct > Discipline Letters Discipline groups can now be printed or exported to Excel.
Learners My School > Learners > Learners A new field was added to learners: Progressed into current grade. SA-SAMS requires this information and can’t be derived from previous years’ promotions for schools that started with d6+ in the current year. This field will be editable for learners in the year they were admitted but not in subsequent years since the admin year-end process will maintain it.
My School > Learners > Learner Support It is now possible to capture learner support from previous years.
Achievements In My School > Achievements, several improvements were made: “School activity category” was renamed “Achievement category” on all the screens. In Allocated Achievements, the default report type was changed to Detail, and the options to print the achievement block and a learner per page are now ticked by default. In Achievements, the size of the achievement name fields was increased, and the achievement text editors now default to Tahoma 14 centre-aligned. When duplicating an achievement, the copy will be linked to the same certificate template as the original. The message shown when an achievement is updated was clarified as well. In Print Certificates, a message will now be displayed when generating the report if no results are found. In Academic Criteria, criteria can now be duplicated. In addition, the year can be selected when previewing formula results.
Marks Calculation Method Options My School > Curriculum > Learning Programmes After the release of SA-SAMS version 23.0.2 in March, we discovered a difference in the calculation methods between SA-SAMS and d6+. Specifically, SA-SAMS rounds off task marks out of the task total, whereas d6+ retains fractions for more accurate calculations. To align with SA-SAMS and comply with DBE standards, the SA-SAMS calculation method was incorporated and became the default from term two onwards. When rounding off is used, especially with small task totals such as marks out of 2 or 3, it can happen that a small change in captured assessment marks results in a larger change in the task or subject marks or vice-versa - a large change in an assessment mark may not affect the task and subject marks. It is now possible to adjust the calculation method when changing the calculation method for existing learning programs; all marks captured will be recalculated. You can now change the preset of an existing learning program if no marks have been captured in it yet. When a learning program preset is changed, all existing tasks, assessments and weights in the learning program setup will be replaced with those of the selected preset.
Curriculum My School > Curriculum In the CAPS preset, some marks (Oral, PAT and Art forms) must be recaptured in term 4 for promotion mark calculations. The process has now been automated recapturing these marks manually is no longer necessary.
Compliance My School > Compliance > Export To SA-SAMS Database After discussions with provincial DBE EMIS staff, d6+ no longer offers the option to hide contact information in the SA-SAMS export. We understand that the DBE is legally entitled to request this information. When exporting to SA-SAMS, learner discipline will now be exported as well. This can be seen in SA-SAMS in functions 1.11 and 3.7. Only violations and recognitions are exported, not actions/detention, as d6+ and SA-SAMS have very different approaches.
My School > Compliance > Outstanding Compliance Tasks A check was added for learners with no ID number and no reason indicated why there is no ID number. The DBE requires clarification of all undocumented learners. A check was added for learners whose years in grade or years in phase are incorrect A new compliance task was added to compare educators’ overall years teaching experience with their age and REQV level. This is separate from the existing check of educators’ subject training and experience vs age. A new compliance task has been added to identify duplicate learners and staff between different d6+ schools. This is meant to proactively highlight duplication errors which would result in EMIS data quality report findings.
Reports Reports > Learners In the Top Achievers report, Report Cards and Progression Schedules, you can now choose whether to calculate learner averages using accurate subject marks or rounded subject marks. Using rounded subject marks provides consistency with SASAMS reports.
Reports > Learners > Discipline You can now select which conduct categories to include on the report.
Reports > Learners > Whereabouts Report You can now print the various whereabouts lists per subject groups
Reports > Learners > Top Achievers You can now print top achievers per subject group. With this option, if you select multiple subjects, each list will display only the subject of that particular group.
Reports > Staff > Leave Application There are now separate leave application forms for educators and non-educator staff.
Papyrus Library Administration System d6+ now integrates with the Papyrus Library Administration System! You can activate this integration in My School > General > School Setup, to allow Papyrus to synchronise learners and staff as members of the library. To sign up with Papyrus, please send an e-mail to sales@papyrus.co.za.
Finance Finance > Debtor > Capture Debtor notes and arrangements A Few improvements have been made to the debtor notes and payment arrangements functionality: It is now possible to delete debtor notes When payment arrangements SMS are sent, the payment arrangement date is used and not the next day’s date. The last notification date and time is now retained when editing a payment arrangement. The user rights for Debtors invoices, debit order, bank details, debtor notes are now split.
Finance > Reporting Structures We are pleased to announce the introduction of enhanced functionality within the Finance module of our system. These improvements are designed to provide you with greater control and flexibility in managing your financial data and reporting needs. You now have the ability to set up your own custom reporting structures, allowing you to include only the specific accounts that are relevant to your reporting requirements. For instance, if you wish to generate separate reports for your Hostel and Aftercare activities, you can create dedicated reporting structures for each and link only the relevant general ledger accounts to these structures. Additionally, these reporting structures support the inclusion of budget information, enabling you to analyse and compare your financial data on a monthly basis.. Budget Categories: As part of this update, we have relocated the Budget Categories within the reporting structure functionality. You can now find the “Budget” reporting structure under the Reporting Structure menu. You can easily add your own custom categories and link general ledger accounts to these categories.
www.d6.co.za