Getting started guide - Report Cards
The following guide will introduce the Principal, Deputy Principal, and Secretary to report cards. How to
set them up in Aladdin, how to complete, view, comment, send back and approve report cards, and finally
how to correctly print out your approved report cards.
It will also guide class and resource teachers as to how to correctly complete the report cards for their
class and allocated students.
Table of Contents:
1. Principal/Secretary/DP: how to set up report cards in Aladdin (1st time)
2. Principal/Secretary/DP: how to set up report cards in Aladdin (if you already have
Report Cards set up in Aladdin from last year)
3. Principal: how to view/comment/send back/approve completed cards
4. Secretary/Teacher: how to print out approved report cards
5. Class/Resource Teacher: how to complete your report cards in Aladdin
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1. Principal/Secretary/DP: how to set up report cards in Aladdin (1st time)
Step 1.
From the settings menu, click on the blue tab entitled Report Cards.
Step 2.
Click on the option “Create Report Card”.
Step 3. If you have not already created your report card via the NCCA Report Card Creator, you will
need to do so before proceeding. To create your report card click on the link provided. This will bring you
to www.reportcard.ncca.ie where you need to follow steps 1 to 7 to create your report card. Once you are
happy with your report card, you need to save this onto your desktop, and proceed with step 4.
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Step 4. If you have created your report card via the NCCA Report Card Creator and have this saved as a
pdf on your desktop, from the “Create Report Card” screen click on the box “Choose File” and select your
report card pdf. You now need to give the report card a description such as End of year 2012/13.
Step 5. If you have one report card for eg the Junior classes, and a separate one for the older classes, it
may be a good idea to create this second report card now by following steps 2 to 4 a second time and
entering in a different report card name.
Step 6. You now need to link your report card(s) with a reporting period. If you had entered a due date on
your Create Report Card page, this period will have automatically created for you. If not click on the “New
Reporting Period” button midway through the main Report card section under School Settings. Enter in a
name for the reporting period eg End of year 2013 etc, and enter the date by which these reports will be
due. You can also enter in date ranges here for test results to appear on the report. If no date is entered
all tests done during the current school year that have been inputted into Aladdin will appear on the
Report card. In the "I am using one report for all classes", select your newly created report card.
If you are using different report cards for different classes, select the correct report card for the
appropriate class and click save.
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Step 7 - Signatures. Your report cards are now almost ready to be filled in by the teachers. If you want
signatures to appear automatically however please do so as follows: Scan in a sheet with the
teachers/principals signatures. This can be done on one sheet for convenience. Once the signatures
have been scanned in and saved as a JPEG image, go to the staff menu, under Admin. For each staff
member, go to their profile page by clicking on their name. At the end of each profile page there is a
signature section. Press the Edit Signature button. From the choose file button, enter in the scanned in
file name. Click enter and then save. You will now have a crop option available. Highlight the correct
signature with the cropping cross that will appear and click save. This can then be repeated for all other
teachers. Once a signature has been entered in this way, it will automatically appear on the report cards.
To ensure a Principal’s signature will appear please make sure you have set the Principal from the drop
down box in the Contact Details from the School Settings section within Admin.
Step 8. The auto text box is available to use to save comments for your own use, or to share comments
amongst other staff member that you would like them to use. This option is available when you choose
the “edit report” for any student. To add comments, enter your comment into the text box, decide if this
comment is positive, needs improvement or a neutral comment, and decide who can view this comment,
and press save. You can also copy text from a comment box from within the report card and add this to
the auto text, by clicking on the option “copy text from the current box”. To use a comment, enter your
cursor into the box where you want the comment to appear and choose the comment from the auto text
list by clicking on it.
Step 9 - Report cards are now ready to be filled in by teachers. The teacher can now go to Report Cards
under the Modules menu. They need to first choose the correct reporting period in the top drop down
menu. This will bring up a list of their students, and they can choose the edit report option to start filling
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out the report template. The “view report option” will show you how the completed report card will look
when printed. The status will reflect if the report has been started, approved printed etc. Only an
administrator can approve the report cards, but once they are approved they can then be emailed or
printed and sent to the students family as desired.
2. Principal/Secretary/DP: how to set up report cards in Aladdin (if you already have
Report Cards set up in Aladdin from last year)
Step 1. Once you are happy with using your report card from last year, you just need to create a new
reporting period for this year. From the settings menu, click on the blue tab entitled Report Cards.
Beneath the report card forms, press the option for “New Reporting Period”.
Step 2. Enter in a description (name) and a due date. If you have test results in Aladdin and want these
automatically included in the report card, enter in the dates the tests were done (default is the current
school year).
Step 3. Tick the option to replace the template date with this year's date.
Step 4. Choose the report card you are using if you have one report card for all classes, OR allocate the
correct report card per class should you be using different reports cards for some classes.
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Step 5. Save
Step 6. Communicate to your staff the correct reporting period they should now be using, and they are
ready to start their students’ report cards.
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3. Principal: how to view/comment/send back/approve completed cards
Step 1. Click on the Report Cards option from the Modules menu. From the drop down menu entitled
Period, select the correct reporting period.
Step 2. The Principal can now view a class list, and the number of reports started, completed, sent back
and approved, for each class.
Step 3. To view a report, click into the class list, and click on the “view report” option per student. To
approve, send back or add a comment to the report, click on the “edit report” option. If you are using a
browser such as Internet Explorer 10, Firefox, or Google Chrome, a spell checker will automatically be
available. Spelling errors will be underlined, and right clicking on the highlighted word will offer you an
alternate correct spelling. At the top of the screen there is an option to change the status of the report. To
send the report back to the teacher, choose the status option “sent back”. Add a note as required and
press save. The teacher will now see this report card with this status, and will know she needs to
update/amend as required.
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Step 4. A report card can be approved one by one, or in bulk. To approve a single report card, this can be
approved within “edit report” by choosing the Status “approved” and pressing save. From the class report
list, you can also tick the box to the left of the student(s) and press the Approve button from the top of the
screen.
Step 5. A Principal’s signature, if correctly entered, will only appear when the report is marked as
“Approved”.
4. Secretary/Teacher: how to print out approved report cards
Step 1. Once all report cards have been approved by the Principal, they are ready to be printed out.
Report cards can be printed out by anyone with administrative access such as a Secretary or Principal, or
for a class by their class teacher. Click on the Report Cards option from the Modules menu. Choose the
correct report period,
Step 2. Reports can be printed out on a class by class basis. Click on the class whose reports you want
to print out.
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Step 3. Reports are printed out in batches of 15. Choose the option “Print first 15 ticked”. and once these
have correctly printed out, press the option “Print remaining ticked” to print out the remaining report cards.
Step 4. To print a single report card, just tick the box to the left of the students name from within the class
list within the reporting period, and choose the option “Print/View all ticked”.
Step 5. Ensure your printer can print on two sides of a page, and you select the correct option so that the
report prints in such a manner that it can be folded and viewed correctly.
5. Class/Resource Teacher: how to complete your report cards in Aladdin
Step 1. Click on the Report Cards option from the Modules menu. From the drop down menu entitled
Period, select the correct reporting period as communicated to you by the Principal.
Step 2. Click on your class, or “show for your resource students”
Step 3. Press “edit report” to start the report for a student. Fill in the template as appropriate. If you are
using a browser such as Internet Explorer 10, Firefox or Google Chrome, a spell checker will
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automatically be available. Spelling errors will be underlined, and right clicking on the highlighted word will
offer you an alternate correct spelling.
The “view report option” will show you how the completed report card will look when printed.
Step 4. The auto text box is available to use to save comments for your own use, or to share comments
amongst other staff member that they may wish to use. To add comments, enter your comment into the
text box, decide if this comment is positive, needs improvement or a neutral comment, and decide who
can view this comment, and press save. You can also copy text from a comment box from within the
report card and add this to the auto text, by clicking on the option “copy text from the current box”. To use
a comment, enter your cursor into the box where you want the comment to appear and choose the
comment from the auto text list by clicking on it.
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Step 5. Once a student has been allocated hours with a resource teacher, both the class and resource
teacher can enter information onto the one report card for a student from within their own Aladdin
accounts. The note section can be used as communication between teachers if needed.
Step 6. Once the teacher is happy that the report card is ready for approval, they need to set the status to
“Complete”. To do this they need to click the “edit report option” and change the status to “complete”.
They also have the option here to translate comments made within the report to aid non english/irish
speaking parents, and to add a note to the principal/resource teacher.
The option to mark report cards as complete in bulk is also available by ticking all completed report cards,
and selecting the "mark complete" option.
Step 7. Should the Principal change the status of the report card to “sent back” , the teacher can edit the
report to view the comments made, and make changes as appropriate, and then reset the status to
“complete” once more.
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