Edval Daily: Questions and Answers from the December 2021 Webinar

Many questions were recorded in the chat during the webinar conducted on the 8th December and this document aims to answers as many of those questions as possible. Where appropriate, links to relevant existing documents will be displayed.

Q. When we swap someone for a lesson how can we stop them appearing in the absences list?

A. The 'Lesson swap' feature enables a swap of classes between two teachers during a single period. By design, it uses an absence reason called 'Lesson swap' to initiate the change. Due to this design, the teacher marked as absent with the lesson swap reason will always appear in the list of absences on the Daily Bulletin and on the relevant absence reports. There is no way to prevent them appearing on these reports. However, the 'Lesson swap' absence reason, unlike regular absence reasons, does not prevent the teacher covering classes during this 'absence'. 

We will address this design issue in the new Edval Daily by changing the lesson swap from using an absence reason to a function similar to the room swaps feature. For more information on the Lesson swap feature please see this document.

Q. If 3 classes are merged and only 1 teacher is required is there a way of showing the other teachers as having a 'cancelled' session?

A. When classes are merged, the teacher or teachers of the original classes not assigned to the merged class will appear in the 'Had cancel today' tab in the Alternatives screen, making them eligible for an 'in lieu' cover.  Their class will appear on the covers page with 'Merge' displayed as the 'cover'. Their timetables will also reflect that their original class is being covered by another teacher and will display the new room to which their class has moved due to the merge. If they are then assigned to cover another class, that new class will be displayed alongside their original class. For more information on merging classes please see this document.

Q. I need to input next years events and we are currently using your head start program.  Can I input these or do I need to wait until rollover for next year?

A. The rollover process does not involve the Headstart cloned dataset so it can be done at time. Once you have completed the rollover process in the 2022 dataset you can begin  to add absences and events.

For detailed information on rolling over please read this document.

When rolling over  from 2021 to 2022, the data is rolled over from the original 2021 dataset, not the cloned dataset. Therefore, the following should considered during the rollover process when a cloned dataset is being used:

 1. New casual teachers added to the cloned dataset, who do not exist in the original dataset, will need to be added manually to the 2022 dataset. Alternatively, they can be added to the original dataset prior to rolling over.

2. New permanent teachers added to the Headstart timetable will be added to the 2022 dataset when the 2022 timetable is synced at the beginning of the rollover process.

3. New document templates, roles and sync configurations created in the cloned dataset will not be rolled over and will need to be recreated in the 2022 dataset.

4. Daily settings and Admin settings are rolled over from the original dataset so these would need to be adjusted if changes were made in the cloned dataset.

Q. How do you set up the mapping for multigrid with different bell times?

A. The set up for bell times for multigrid schools is done via the Edval timetable file, not in Daily. The date mapping in Edval Daily is not reliant on bell times so the date mapping process is exactly the same for multigrid schools as it is for single grid schools. For more information on date mapping please see this document.

Q. Do we need a 2022 webcode to do the rollover? I don’t have that yet. How do I get it?

A. A 2022 webcode is required to complete the rollover process and can be requested by sending an email to edval-license@tes.com

Q. When you use an agency for CRTs, how do you add that on Edval daily?

Casual relief teachers must be added as users before they can be assigned to cover classes in Edval Daily. Casual teachers are added via Admin > Users. For more information on how to add casual teachers please see this document.  Currently  no integration exists between Edval Daily and external agencies for engaging casual teachers however the Edval Daily Casual Request module provides functionality for sending casual job offers via SMS messaging. For more information on this module please see this document. If you would like to add this module to your Edval Daily licence, please send an email to edval-sales@tes.com to get a quote.

Q. I have noticed the feature for adding replacement teachers when adding an absence only lets you add casual teachers to the cover, not your own underloaded staff. Why is that?

A.  The feature was designed for multi-period and multi-day cover assignments and in most schools, underload teachers are not usually available to cover multiple classes in a day nor to cover a full load for an absent teacher over multiple days. Therefore it is restricted to casual teachers and to permanent teachers flagged as part-time casuals. Underload teachers, teachers with cancelled classes and teachers with an available extras quota can be assigned covers via the usual process on the Covers page. We will look to make further improvements to this functionality in the future.

Q. When covering a class there are options to change the cover type to an extra or to remove the credit (no credit). Why is there no option to change a cover to an underload?

A. An underload cover can only be assigned to a teacher who does not have a full load. Selecting a teacher from the underload tab is the only way to assign an underload cover. It would not make sense to change a cover from an extra or in lieu to an underload if the teacher covering the class was not actually underloaded. Therefore we have not included that option.

Q. I am using Edval and Daily for the first time. How do I sync to SEQTA?

A. Integration with SEQTA is via a csv export from both Edval 10 and from Edval Daily.

For information on exporting data for SEQTA from Edval 10, please see this document. 

For information on exporting data for SEQTA from Edval Daily, please see this document.

Q. Syncing changes to SEQTA to reflect teacher and room changes - is that possible yet?

A. Yes it is now possible to export a csv file from Daily containing teacher and room changes that can be imported into SEQTA. See the document link in the answer to the question above for more information.

Q. The ability to swap classes across the whole school via the Move and Replace lessons feature is great but it would be good if you could move an individual class also.

A. Currently there is no direct functionality for swapping lessons for individual classes but this can be achieved by using an event or by using the 'Lesson swap' feature.

Here is an example of using an event for the purpose of changing teachers (and thus lessons) for a particular class via an event.  Year 7A have History in period 1 with Kelly Davies and Geography in period 2 with Michael Kane. They wish to swap periods so that Michael takes 7A for Geography in period 1 and Kelly takes 7A for History in period 2. An event called 7A Geography is created for period 1 with 7A selected in the students tab and Michael added in the teachers tab. If a room swap is also required, simply add the required room in the rooms tab.  This will add required room and teacher covers on the covers page if the teacher and room are unavailable in that period. Create the corresponding 7A History event for period 2 with 7A selected in the students tab and Kelly added in the teachers tab. If a room swap is also required, simply add the require room in the rooms tab. These events cancel the original classes which are replaced by the events.

The second option is to use the lesson swap feature. Note that this method does not change the subject for the class, only the teacher. Using the above example, to swap teachers for 7A for periods 1 and 2, create an absence for each teacher for the required period (Kelly Davies would be absent in P1 and Michael Kane would be absent in P2). Use the 'Lesson swap' reason so that the teachers will still be available to take a cover in their absent' period if needed. Then on the Covers page, assign Michael to cover Kelly's class and assign Kelly to cover Michael's class. You will need to change the credit to 0 so that these covers do not count as extras.

As mentioned in the Webinar we will be building specific functionality for swapping teachers in the new version of Edval Daily which is currently under development.

Q. Does syncing changes to Sentral reflect teacher and room changes or does it have to be manually entered like SEQTA?
A. The integration with Edval Daily and Sentral is via LISS and therefore, any changes made in Daily do not need to be manually entered in Sentral. A sync from Edval Daily to Sentral sends daily changes along with other information. The data that is sent via the different types of syncs ('Advanced', 'Basic' and 'Publish and sync') varies and is identified in this document.

For more information on syncing to Sentral please see this document.

Q. Is there a way of displaying version control for daily bulletins? E.g.  If there are multiple versions of the daily bulletin as a result of staff calling in sick late.

A. There is no automatic version control of Daily bulletins emailed via the 'Publish and sync' option as all bulletins  have the generic file name DailyBulletin_YYYY-MM-DD.  When using the 'Generate' option, bulletins are downloaded to the download destination folder of the user's computer. Downloads normally have a number suffix when multiple files with the same name are downloaded. A manual 'Save as' would be required to change the file name for a more comprehensive method of version control. We will investigate the possibility of an option to include the time in the Bulletin's file name or another method for improving the version control of the Daily Bulletin.

Q. Can a note be written and appear on the casual day sheet?

A.  Unlike the Daily bulletin, there is no method of adding notes to Day sheets, other than the lesson notes created via timetables. We will look to add this functionality in the future.

Q. Is there a plan to communicate with Compass so that events are published?

A. Discussions between Edval and Compass have been held and a preliminary design for event integration between Edval Daily and Compass has been drafted. We should have more news on this development early next year.

Q. How can I collate all teachers' timetables into a report that isn't one teacher's timetable per page?

A. Printing master timetables or individual timetables in bulk is best done via Edval 10 rather than Daily, however, a limited number of timetables can be displayed and printed in one view in Edval Daily via View > Timetables. An example is show below. For more information on viewing and printing timetables in Daily please see this document.

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