As part of the Release 84 cycle, the following improvements are now available as part of our main release.

We understand the importance of seamless communication between educators, parents, and students, and that's why we're excited to announce the addition of a long-awaited feature — the ability to attach files to emails directly within our communication tools!

Adding attachments is straightforward. While drafting a message in our communication platform, simply select the Add attachments option to include your document, then send your message as you normally would.

Upon clicking the button, a popup for adding attachments will appear, enabling the upload of documents either directly from your computer or from Google Drive or OneDrive.

Supported file types include: .pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .csv, .ppt, .pptx, .gif, .png, .jpeg.

We're responding to the request for an overview feature within Microsoft Teams: Assignments. As one of the first education software solutions to make Microsoft Teams Assignments available to parents, we were originally restricted by the information available in the API and therefore were only able to pull through assignment details on request.

This did not enable us to store this data and prevented us from displaying a summary view. Now, we're pleased to upgrade our Microsoft Teams Assignments integration, aiming to enrich the user experience with a comprehensive overview of all assignments.

This update will display details in the Assignments list, such as the status of each student's assignments, enabling parents and staff to quickly ascertain what's due or completed.

This integration empowers schools to provide guardians with a consolidated overview of their child's assignments and homework. It ensures informed tracking of progress and active engagement in supporting their child's academic journey. Schools gain increased control over the integration, eliminating the need for contacting support to set up.

To allow Guardians to access this information on the frontend there is a new option within the content manager called Use Assignment Overview Interface that needs to be checked.
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Guardians gain an overview of all assignments, filterable by class, status, and default academic year date range. The interface features two tabs — Outstanding and Completed.

Additionally, the option to reveal detailed information for each assignment will display additional insights, including any marks or teacher feedback, provided the corresponding options are chosen in the content manager.

In July 2022, we implemented a change to use the Meet Time as the primary time display across various system areas. However, this led to inconsistencies in behaviour and alignment with SOCS. After careful consideration, user feedback, and discussions with SOCS, we are reverting to using the Start Time as the primary time display.

Events list page:

Event detail page:

Sports Fixture list page:

Day planner page:

Events list pages:

Events detail page:

Sports Fixure List page:
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Day planner page: For a given day planner entry: 'From' time = Start Time 'To' time = Return Time (note that a sports fixture without a return time won't show on the day planner)
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The View details button goes to the event page, if there is one for that sports fixture.Future options that we would like your feedback on, please feedback using our community post here:

Creating a summary for grouped fixtures on the event page. Note: new events will be created and sports fixtures may move to new events if any of the following changes and is different from other events in the group: sport, opposition, start date, start time, meet time, tea time, return time, location.

Extra day planner page options:

We're thrilled to introduce your new Access Digital Assistant!

Your Access Digital Assistant enhances your digital support options, helping you to get even more from My School Portal with:

To utilise the Digital Assistant, select the new option located in the bottom right corner within the admin tools.

As always, our dedicated Support Team are still on hand to deal with more complex or technical queries. Look out for future updates as we build even more resources to surface the answers you need when you need them and ensure you are getting the most from your software.

The following updates are live and were released during the R84 mini-update earlier in the term.

We've integrated the new SOCS Transport module into the portal. Transport details can now be showcased on Events Calendar, Day Planner, and Events Calendar Section pages. Within the content manager, each of these pages will feature a new option called Include Transport.

Transport events will also be visible in the subscribe and export calendar options. A new filtering option called Transport has been introduced under event types.

The day planner widget has been updated to include transport events, accompanied by a new Transport Walkthrough slide in the day planner inline help.

For seamless integration of your portal with SOCS transport data, please reach out to our support team with your SOCS XML URL along with the specific student ID you would like us to use for linking students to transport.

This enhancement ensures that MSP maintains a comprehensive list of all students associated with a given club. These lists, accessible via a student group, can be utilised for various purposes, including communications to ensure accurate contact with the relevant individuals.

This update improves the logic available for our SOCS Events integration and provides an additional option to ignore Schools if Schools and Year Groups are present in the feed.

We've introduced support for SOCS Statuses: Postponed and Abandoned. Users can now easily track and manage events marked with these statuses. This update also includes updates to the publication status, filters, exports, and subscriptions to support the new statuses.

Priority order when there are multiple fixtures:

The Export Daily Register for clubs/activities will now feature students with a left status, enabling schools to effectively manage times between terms, such as summer clubs. The Daily Register and subsequent export will now incorporate students with the attendance status Left, displaying their status in the year group.

The portal now supports the addition of multiple YouTube pages, each linked to a distinct YouTube channel.

A new option is available within Content > Content Manager > YouTube Page > Additional Options. This enables schools to direct their media content to the appropriate schools and year groups — for example, creating separate YouTube pages for the Junior and Senior School.

A new feature has been introduced to display set/tutor codes from iSAMS within the student timetable on the Day Planner page. New admin tool options are available to show the Set/Tutor Code.

To increase the flexibility for schools using the Sanctions feature, we are implementing a new option to hide teacher comments from the Sanctions page if required.

Following feedback on Document Permissions changes from Release Cycle 82, we are introducing enhancements to improve staff access to documents without year-group restrictions.

We have revamped the icons used throughout the portal, encompassing both the fixed and administrator-selected icons. These updates extend to the icon picker in the admin tools, providing schools with the ability to choose and implement the newly introduced icons. We now support icons for social media platforms X (Twitter) and Threads.

As part of our ongoing commitment to advancing our technology, we will continue to elevate our systems through improvements to our codebase, database systems, and overall infrastructure — contributing to quicker response times and smoother user experiences.

Security remains of the utmost importance. By consistently updating our technology stack, we will continuously leverage the latest security patches and protocols, safeguarding our users' data and providing a secure environment for their interactions.

Automatically available to all schools on 10 April 2024 at approximately 12pm GMT.