Category: Plugins

I’m not publishing this to the PowerSchool Exchange yet because it was a rush job and I’m not satisfied with the back-end management component of it. It’s in a “good enough” stage right now because of rapid-release requirement, so to speak.

This plugin replaces the default student schedule page in the public portal of PowerSchool and prevents viewing of schedules until the family has completed a back-to-school emergency contact update form. It seems like a common concern where schools beg for this information but parents just can’t be bothered to complete it, and there’s little for the school to do to enforce it.

Some schools have had success in making completion of that information a condition for receiving student schedules, but PowerSchool doesn’t have any built-in tools to accomplish this. So I created something instead.

There are two prerequisites:

1. You must be using Ecollect Forms to present your emergency-contact update form. The plugin requires the form ID to work.
2. In each school’s Years & Terms, “suppress student schedules” must be turned on. Otherwise, the entire purpose of this plugin is defeated.

PowerSchool users, feedback is welcome. I have a topic on the PSUG community forum where comments and discussion can be posted.

Version 2.1 was released 2/29/24. This includes the following fix since the last available version:

• Public portal customization conflict with removing/displaying Class Registration button. Added preference to show or hide based on school-level preference that’s in PP customization.

Download the plugin here.

As I was reviewing the blog and putting up my post about my new guitar build project, I realized I forgot to talk about two more PowerSchool plugins I published on PowerSource.

Public Portal Links

Contact Address Verification

PowerSchool’s student contacts permit some detailed information about contacts associated to a student, but lacks any meaningful automated validation with the “Lives With” flag. This is, of course, a natural constraint as a student can live part time with one parent and another, even if their designated home addresses don’t match (to avoid sounding like I’m criticizing PowerSchool here).

This plugin compares a student’s address to the addresses of contacts claimed to be living with the student. If the addresses don’t match within a large percentage, an alert icon appears to signal a need for review of both the student’s address in Addresses or General Demographics pages or the contacts themselves.

It could be a simple misspelling or order of the components of the address (123 Main Street East versus 123 E. Main). Or it could be a custodial arrangement, but not everyone may be aware of it.

Download from PowerSource.

Publish a directory of links to parents or students or both, at either the district level or school level. Manage them in the admin panel and enable or disable as needed.

Available on PowerSource.