New report card builder formatting still a mess.

Brian Hoyt

Last year at the Blackbaud UC I handed Jacqueline Koca a printed laminated 11x17 sheet showing the numerous formatting issues. I am now running our semester 1 reports and I find that none of them are fixed ?. I wanted to share it with others in case they have found fixes or workarounds? It just looks bad. Help?


 

Brian Hoyt

Is this not a problem for anyone else? Am I doing something wrong build my report cards?

Jennifer Welch

Brian,

I used the new report card for the first time this fall. The font formatting can be found on the third tab - Style Form. You need to highlight each section and column and set font, bold, etc. That should take care of your comments appearing bold. Under 2. Design Form, each section parameters are set. One of the parameters is Format - All on One Page and 
If the content doesn't fit

• Only page break between different elements of course (grades, comments, skills)
• Page break wherever necessary
  
  May cause page breaks in the middle of a line

I am not having the same issues as you. I have had really good luck chatting online with Blackbaud support who can look at your report card and help you.

My only issue currently with the new report card builder is you can't incorporate a high school class that a middle schooler is taking (i.e. math) because the new report cards are either Middle School or Upper School. The workaround on that is to offer two classes for the same course: a middle school and a high school.


Jennifer

 

Brian Hoyt

Thanks so much for the feedback and help. I have chatted with tech support and the lead on development team on this and couldn't get this answer. I still think it doesn't really work right.


I found that this controlled if the comment was bold for some unknown reason?


Then this one makes the header "Course Title" bold but not the actual course name? What good does that do?


As for page breaks, I have it set to "Only page break between different elements of course (grades, comments, skills)" but as you can see in this screenshot it doesn't work?


That is one skills section it shouldn't be breaking in the middle of that as far as I understand. Ideally I would want the whole course to be kept together on one page. I don't want to make it a page per course since that makes our report cards 12-13 pages long.

Jennifer Welch

Hi Brian,

Answers to comments being bold - yes, the Courses/Groups grid
style controls how your comments appear. I would also set the font
and size. I happen to like Times New Roman 14 but whatever you use,
just be consistent throughout the report card.

When highlighting a column, I have 2 choices for formatting:
header style and style. If you choose Bold (B) for the style it
will bold the course names. Apologies for the photo and the hard to
read screenshot.! Your report card may not be set up in the same
fashion. I have columns for Course name, marking period 1 grade,
MP2 grade, Exam 1 grade, Semester 1 grade. You need to highlight
and mark the formatting for each column individually. Yours may be
set up differently. I hope this helps. It took me lots of trial and
error to get it right.

Jennifer Welch Registrar and Advancement Database Manager Greenhills School | Ann Arbor, MI O: 734.205.4083 | F: 734.769.5029

850 Greenhills Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 | greenhillsschool.org

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Brian Hoyt

Thanks so much for your suggestions. It seems that Course title style also affects the assessment formatting. It just seems they weird groupings of styles. Why does Course title header style also control comments? I am getting closer to readability on this. This new builder is good but they didn't really give you as much control as you think due to odd grouping of text.

Jennifer Welch

Agreed! It would be much easier to format if we had
more control!

Jennifer Welch Registrar and Advancement Database Manager Greenhills School | Ann Arbor, MI O: 734.205.4083 | F: 734.769.5029

850 Greenhills Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 | greenhillsschool.org

GREENHILLS CONFIDENTIALITY
NOTICE: This transmission may contain privileged and confidential
information, including information protected by privacy laws. It is
intended only for the use of the person(s) named above. If you are
not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply
email or by telephone, and destroy all copies of the original
message.

Susan Ott

I don't know if this helps anyone but I don't use Course header names for the Course Title and Head Teacher columns. I don't see the point in using them (they seem self-explanatory to me). I've been able to get the Course title bold without effecting the comments. I'm not using the new builder until I'm comfortable with how it works/looks so I'm still trying to figure things out as well.