PowerSchool Administrator Basics

PowerSchool Quick Tips

• Important: Chrome is the best browser choice for PowerSchool.  
• If you click the drop down next to the word "All", you will see some options that will allow you to run searches on certain data fields.  
• You can choose to have the Alphabet to appear under the search bar by clicking your initials at the top right, clicking Manage Profile, and then check the box that says "Display Quick Search Alphabet".
• You get a quick view of daily attendance on the right side of the screen.  Alternatively, you can hide the attendance quick view on the right by clicking on the Settings Icon under the "Quick Data" section on the right, and uncheck all boxes to shrink that menu.  

PowerSchool Instructions

Search for Individual Students*

• Type a student’s last name comma first name (i.e. Smith, John) in the Search box to look for a student.
• The student’s name will appear in the box below. Click the blue link to view the Student Screens for that student.
• The screens with all information regarding the student appear on the left. Click through the screens to see what information is available on each one.
• Click More and then Parents & Emergency to look at Parent and emergency contact information.

Print a Report for an Individual Student

• Click the Printer icon at the top of the student screen.
• Choose the report to print from the drop down menu.
• Click Submit.
• The report will be added to your queue. The Status column will say “Running”. 
• Click the blue Refresh button at the top (as many times as needed) until the Status Column says “Completed”.
• Click View to view and print the report.

Search for Groups of Students*

• From the Start Screen, click a grade level or letter of the alphabet. You can also use any of the search comparators at the end of these instructions.
• Your group of students will appear in the box below.
• Once your group is selected, click the blue “Functions” drop down at the bottom of your list of students.
• Choose which function you would like to perform. Common functions are Print Reports and List Students:
• Print Reports:
  • choose a report from the dropdown menu.
  • Click Submit.
  • The report will be added to your queue. The Status column will say “Running”. 
  • Click the blue Refresh button at the top (as many times as needed) until the Status Column says “Completed”. 
  • Click View to view and print the report.
• List Students – this will produce a table report that can be printed or copied into Excel:
  • The boxes on the left will fill in the data on a table. The boxes on the right are for your own use and will be used to add a header row to the top of the table.
  • Click the blue Fields link to bring up the list of fields from which you can select. Type something into the filter box like “name”.  You will then see the fields that contain names.
  • Each box down the left side of the screen will represent the rows going across the table for one student. Continue selecting Fields for each piece of data you would like to see in your table.
  • Click Submit.
  • Click the print icon to print the table.
  • OR Select all of the data in the table (ONLY the information in the table itself), right click and choose Copy. Then open Excel and paste in the table.

Stored Searches

Return to the PowerSchool Start Page by clicking the PowerSchool icon at the top left of your screen.  You can click the “Stored Searches” link to access common groups of students.  For example, click Stored Searches and then find the search for Today’s Birthdays.  Click Run Search on the right to bring up today’s list of birthdays.

Start Page Left Side Menu

Return to the PowerSchool Start Page by clicking the PowerSchool icon at the top left of your screen.  There are several system reports and functions that are available from the Start Screen.  Click the links on the left to view information about today’s attendance, overall school enrollment, teacher schedules, etc.  Click through each screen to see which features and reports may help you with your work.  NOTE: Not all screens are available to all staff members.  Some screens are only available to the System Administrator because they are used to set up how PowerSchool functions. 

*Search Comparators 

Comparator	Meaning
=	equals
<	is less than
>	is greater than
<=	is less than or equal to
>=	is greater than or equal to
#	does not equal
in	is [field] present in the search argument?
contains	is the search argument contained in the [field]?
!contain	is the search argument not contained in the [field]?
@	wildcard

The comparator "in" is a powerful tool that allows you to verify if the value of the field matches any search argument in a list you provide. For example, to obtain a single list of all 9th, 10th, and 11th graders in your school, enter the following search: 

grade_level in 9,10,11 

PowerSchool displays all students whose grade level is contained in the list 9, 10, and 11. In this example, the field is "grade_level", the comparator is "in", and the search argument is "9,10,11". The search function looks at the specified field for every student and checks to see if that field matches anything in the search argument specified. When entering a search command line, separate a list of items in a search argument with commas.

The comparator "contains" is another powerful search tool. For example,  you want to find all of the students in your school who live on Cherry Lane. Enter the following search:

mailing_street contains Cherry Lane 

PowerSchool displays all students with Cherry Lane appearing in the mailing_street field. It does not matter if the mailing_street field is 194 Cherry Lane, or 24230 Cherry Lane Parkway; anything that contains Cherry Lane is considered a match.

The comparator "!contain" provides another search function. For example,  you wanted to find all of the students in your school who do not live on Cherry Lane. Enter the following search:

mailing_street !contain Cherry Lane

PowerSchool displays all students with Cherry Lane not appearing anywhere in the mailing_street field. It does not matter if the mailing_street field is 194 Cherry Lane, or 24230 ,Cherry Lane Parkway;  anything that contains Cherry Lane is not considered a match.

The wildcard "@" provides additional search flexibility. For example, you want to find all of the students whose first names started with Jen. Enter the following  search command  line:

first_name = Jen@ 

PowerSchool displays all students with the first name that begins with Jen.