School Loop imports terms (e.g. semester, quarter,and year) from your student information system (SIS). In order for School Loop to function properly, the first day and subsequent term needs to be set for each term that is imported from your SIS. This is an annual activity, unless there is a change in term or new terms are imported. In such cases, the terms must be set again.

In most SISs, each term is given a label. For instance, the first semester might be called S1. These labels are usually common and recognizable. Each term has a start date. Sometimes start dates are the same for more than one term. For instance, S1 and Q1 might both have a start date of 8/25/08. Each term has either a subsequent term or ends with the end of the school year. For exmaple S2 may be followed by the end of the year while Q2 is usually followed by Q3.

School Loop presents terms in a table. The default start date for a new term is the last day of school. We do this because it makes it impossible for anyone to see courses, in effect forcing the setting of terms.

As soon as School Loop has rolled your school over to the new school year and after successfully importing data from your SIS, you must set the start dates for each term.

Click the School Settings link in the Toolbox on the right side of your portal. Click Go next to Terms.

Click on the Set button to the right of the term, enter the correct start date, and select the following term. If there is no following term, choose "End of School Year". Click the Submit button when ready. Repeat this procedure for each term.

If you get an error message about an invalid start date, try setting the terms in reverse order.

For example, set semester 2 before setting semester 1.

Once you've set the terms, it is a good idea to spot check teacher and student schedules to make sure they are correct. Click the link to learn how to verify imports.

What if I get the dates wrong?

If the dates are set incorrectly, things will look very wrong to users. Support will get messages from people complaining that their classes have changed, been archived, have “disappeared”, etc. This can occur because the Start Date is wrong, or the wrong subsequent term was selected. The remedy is to simply fix the error. Users will experience the correction immediately.

What if terms are missing?

We pull all the terms from your SIS. If a term is missing, it is because it doesn’t exist or, in the case of some new districts, because the data was not yet sent to us. We can manually create a new term for you, or delete one if necessary. Please click HELP in your account and submit a ticket with these requests.