Help Articles

Accelerus

Producing Reports

Student Report Production

Report Runs identify a particular period of time that reports are produced and printed.

Process Reports window

Report Runs are created, modified and run through the Process Reports window.

To go to the Process Reports window, go to the Management tab and clicking on the Process Reports tile.

All of the different aspects of a report run can be accessed through the icons found on top of the current report runs available.

Icons

The available icons, refer to a specific function or setting of the report run that you have selected. If you don’t have a current report run, you will need to create one. Instructions on how to do this can be found in the following section.

Add – Opens the Add New Report Run window, allowing the creation of a new report run.
Jobs – This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Report Jobs window opens, allowing for new reports jobs to be run or previously run report jobs to be downloaded or published.
Blank - This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Blank Result Listing window opens, allowing you to create a blank result listing.
Publish - This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Publish Report window opens, allowing you to upload the generated and downloaded reports to the student profiles.
Details - This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Report Run Details window opens, allowing you to modify the coverage dates of the report run, the status of the report run etc.
Structure - This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Report Structure window opens, allowing you to modify the structure of the report run.
Templates – This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Templates window opens, allowing you to upload, download and delete the current templates (custom or automatically generated).
Template Parts – This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Template Parts window opens, allowing you to upload, download and delete customised templates created specifically for the Quick Setup.
Output - This icon is active only if a report run is selected from the list of current report runs. When clicking this icon, the Output Options window opens, allowing you to select the format in which you will produce the reports generated.
Non-current – Clicking on the Non-current icon, you list all the report runs that have ever been created for your school.
Delete – Only empty report runs, with no slots or portions, can be deleted.

You also have the search/filter ability in this window and the ability to rearrange or hide the grid columns of the report run list.

Creating a new Report Run

Click on the Add icon, which brings up the Add New Report Run window.
Update the Report Run details accordingly.

Report Run details

Fields

The Report Run Details section applies to the Report Run you are preparing.

Things to note about this section include:

Code - Every Report Run must be uniquely coded as Report Runs can cross academic cycles, e.g. 2025Sem1, 2025Term1, etc.
Name - The Name field is often used as a field in the reports and, therefore, should be entered exactly as you wish it to appear on the reports, e.g. 2025 Term 1 Report
Cover Start/ End - The coverage dates are very important as they determine which subjects may be included for printing in the Report Run. Subjects from any academic cycle that falls within the coverage dates become available for inclusion.

For example, if you have some term-based subjects and both the term 1 and term 2 subjects are included in the end of semester 1 reports, the coverage dates would be something like 1 January to 30 June for the particular year. If the Coverage from date was the first day of term 2, the term 1 subjects would not be able to be included in the Report Run.

Result entry due date - The Result entry due date is not a mandatory field. It is only used if you have activated the system setting to notify teachers of the report entry due date, as shown below.

The Result entry due date works in conjunction with the Status field in the Prepare Report Run window.

Where the Report Run’s status is current, and a date has been entered in this field, teachers will see a reminder and a countdown of the number of days remaining for them to get their results in for the Report Run, in the Welcome Screen.

Printing date - The Proposed printing date field is there as a reminder to Accelerus administrators of the date the reports are to be printed.
Status - The Status field allows one of Pending, Current or Closed to be selected:
- Pending means the Report Run is being prepared. If the system setting to notify teachers of the result entry due date is activated, teachers will not receive reminders for pending Report Runs.
- Current means that this run is one about which teacher should receive a reminder of the due date.

It also applies to the Goals Management System, allowing teachers to enter results for reporting entries for the Report Run.

Completed means that changes cannot be made to the Prepare Report Run window for the Report Run, with the exception of the Template path field. The status would need to be changed to Pending or Current before changes can be made.

Where the Goals Management System is being used, administrators cannot change journal entry types associated with subjects for that Report Run. Also, teachers cannot edit reporting entries associated with the Report Run.

Reminder messages do not appear for Report Runs that have a Completed status.

Report structure

Style templates

Each Report Run must have a style template. Style templates are used in Accelerus to ensure consistency of look and format of the different components of a printed report. When a new report run is created, the default style template is created as well.

A Style template does not contain any text – if it does, it is ignored. It contains:

Word formatting styles.
The default page set-up settings for the cycle, including:
- Paper size.
- Page orientation.
- Page margins, including gutter and mirror margin settings.
- The header and footer distance from the page edge.
- Paper source.
- Vertical alignment.

These are copied into every newly created template for the cycle, regardless of the type of template being created (i.e. General or Subject template)

Changing the Style template

If you want to change the default Style template to a custom one that you have created:

Select the report run
From the Management window, click on the Process Reports tile.
Select the report run you want to update the Style template for
Click on the Structure icon.
Upload the new Style template
Click on the Templates tab, on the right-hand side of the window.
Click on the Upload icon.
Navigate to the folder you saved the new Style template in
Select the file and click on the Open button.
Click on the Upload icon
Assign the new Style template
From the Style Template drop-down, select the new template you just uploaded.
Save your change by clicking on the Save icon found on the left-hand side of the window.

Portions

A student’s printed report is produced from Accelerus from a set of templates that belong to different parts of the Report Run’s structure.

The first task when preparing the Report Run is to determine your school’s needs and set up the structure accordingly.

In the Report Structure section of the Process Report tile, you set up the portions that make up the report and, for each portion, the report template slots to which subjects are to be assigned.

At least one portion is required for any Report Run. For example, if your school wants to produce a simple, one page report on which each subject is included, you only need one portion. On the other hand, you may want to have a cover page, followed by an academic summary page and then a full page for each subject. In this case, you will need three portions.

By definition, a portion is a section of a report which always begins on a new page, and which has its own formatting requirements, parameters, subjects and template formats. For example, a portion could be a cover page, or a single summary page of all the student’s subjects, or a set of full-page subject reports for the main subjects being undertaken, or a set of shorter reports for other subjects, etc.

Portions allow you:

To determine the order in which different components of the report print out, e.g. that a cover page prints before the summary portion.
To print text or pages which are not subject-specific at any point throughout the report, e.g. at the beginning and/or end of a set of subjects.
To set up different sets of parameters for different report components or sets of subjects, e.g. whether the subjects in the portion are to have a common layout or not, with each beginning on a new page or that they are to print directly after each other.
To control the page setup of the portion, including page margins, orientation, headers and footers, via a Layout template.
Start a new page in your reports.

Report template slots

Report template slots are user-defined subsections of a portion that determine the order in which the templates making up the report are to be printed.

You may have any number of slots within each portion, with a minimum of one slot required for each portion.

The order in which the slots appear, is the order in which they will print. To reorder the printing order, simply click and hold the portion/ slot you wish to move and drag it into position.

You may name the slots as you wish, e.g. use numeric names to indicate the report’s relative position or you may use descriptive names that clearly identify the subjects that are to be included in the slots or the purpose of the slot.

In the example shown here, the Middle 7-10 portion has 6 slots – Table Header, RE, English, etc. In this case, the header will print first, then the Religious Education reports, English and Maths, followed by the rest of the subjects. The last slot is for a Home Group template.

Note that in this example, we have a slot for non-subject specific template – Table Header. Rather than subjects appearing in such slots, we would have general templates, covered in section 1.4.1.

A subject may be added to more than one slot position. For example, you may create a slot called Top Home Room that includes a subject template for the Home Room report containing just work habits assessed by the Home Room teacher. Further down, another may be created, e.g. End Home Room, which contains the number of days absent or a general comment from the Home Room teacher.

Creating slots

Slots are created in the Prepare Report Run window in one of two ways:

Manually, by clicking the portion required in the Report Structure section, and then clicking the icon, found at the top of the screen.

Double click, or click the pencil icon next to the newly created slot to rename the slot.

Automatically, by selecting all subjects that you wish to create slots for and dragging them into the appropriate portion in the Report structure section.

Slots will be added for all subjects with a default slot. A default slot is added during subject setup, in addition to the subjects being added automatically to their correct slot.

Any subjects that do not have a default slot will be added to a slot called Subject templates.

Note that the Subject templates slot will always be at the bottom of the other automatically created slots. However, you may need to change the order of the other slots that have been created, by selecting and dragging into the desired position.

Portion layout style

Each portion may have its own layout style. For example, a cover page portion would be a full-page layout, whereas a summary portion’s layout would require each subject to appear on the one page, as part of a common layout.

A Report Portion section appears when you click on a portion in the Report Structure box. Therein, you determine the layout style, which should be one of the following:

Part Page Common Layout, whereby each subject takes up part of a page, with a layout template controlling the common layout (headers, footers etc.).
Full Page Common Layout, whereby each subject report is to begin on a new page, but the Layout template for the portion controls the page setup and headers and footers of each page.

For example, if every subject is to have its own page, but they all have the same generic header and footer, the layout type could be Full Page Common Layout.

Full Page Unique Layout is used where each subject template begins on a new page, and they are controlled by the subject template itself. This allows each subject template to have its own page setup and headers/footers.

Layout templates

Where you have chosen either of the layout styles that have a common layout, you should create a Layout template that contains the common layout.

Layout templates control the page margins, orientation and other page layout features of the portion, as well as the headers and footers of a portion. Any text found in the body of a Layout template is totally ignored.

To begin with, when created, the layout template will be identical to the style template, and you may retain the page layout features of the style template.

Each portion can have its own layout template. For example, you may have a portion for Middle School with a particular report layout, whereas the Senior School portion has a different layout.

Note that it is not necessary to have a layout template if it is to be the same as the Style template. Where it is missing, the Style template will be used.

Templates

Portions contain slots and slots contain report templates, with these being set out in the Templates table of the Process Reports window. There are two types of templates:

General
Subject templates.

To view the templates of a report run you can:

Select the report run
From the Management window, click on the Process Reports tile.
- Select the report run you want to view templates for
Choose the correct icon depending on what action you want to take
Click on the Templates icon if you want to upload or download a template to the report run
Click on the Template Parts icon if you want to upload or download a modified template that is used by the Quick Setup
Click on the Structure icon if you want to assign/change subject templates

General templates

A general template is one that is not associated with any subject, but which contains general information that needs to print once in a report.

Often, at the beginning of, or at specific locations within a student report, a school may want to insert text that is not subject-specific, e.g. the heading section of a table that is to contain a summary of results for each subject. Such a table heading does not apply to any subject and is only required once before all the subject-specific data is printed. This is the function of general templates.

General templates are usually used with part page reports, in conjunction with a Layout template. They are used to print text at the top of a page, or a signatures section at the end of a report, after all subjects have printed. They are also used for full page cover pages or back pages.

General templates that are associated with a part page portion or full-page portion with a common layout and should not contain headers and footers. If they do, these are ignored and only the body text prints.

General templates are created in a report template slot – whether a slot specifically designated for it, or one in which subject templates are to also be created.

Where a slot contains general and subject templates, the general template always prints first. However, it is more common to have a slot specifically for general templates in order that their position is clear, and they are not intermingled with subject templates. In addition, if you want text not associated with a subject to print last, it must have its own slot at the end of the specific portion.

For each general template, you select the condition under which the template is printed. Double click in the Condition column on the general template row and select one of three options as shown below.

Include Always means that the general template will always be included in the print run for each student.

This option is usually selected for cover pages that have their own portion, without any subjects.

Include If Portion Enrolment Exists will result in the general template printing only if the student is enrolled in a subject found in the portion.

This option is most often used for part page reports where a table heading or generic text must precede the subjects of the portion and the general template never prints unless there is at least one subject.

It is also used where subsections of the school have different cover pages and each subsection has its own portion. Therefore, the correct cover will print based on the portion in which the student's subjects are found.

The Include If Slot Enrolment Exists option means that the general template will only print if there is a subject, in the same slot as the general template, in which the student is enrolled.

This would only be used if you have very specific needs for particular subjects. For example, you may have a Music slot in which all of the instrumental music subjects have been added, as well as a general template containing introductory text for the music subjects.

Layout templates vs General templates

In some circumstances, your requirements may be met with a layout template, as all the generic text that you want to insert can be inserted in the header and/or footer of the layout template. At other times it cannot, and you need both.

In some circumstances the layout template will be blank, and it will only be its margins and page orientation that are applied to the student reports.

The graphic below summarises which aspects of a report page are taken from the layout template and which from a general template.

Subject templates

Subject templates form the bulk of the reporting templates created and used in a Report Run.

Each subject that is to be included in the Report Run should be in the Templates table at least once.

Some aspects of subject templates to note:

Subjects may be added to multiple slots of the one portion, if required.
You may attach a template to multiple subjects in one process, by selecting the subjects you require using the standard multiple selection methods using Ctrl + Click or Shift +Click. When you have selected more than one subject, you can then either drag an existing template from the template tab on the right-hand side and drop it over the selection to apply that template to the selected subject

Once subjects are added to a slot, you can create subject templates for them by highlighting the subject and clicking the ‘Create’ icon. This process allows you to assign a name to the template, create a template and attach it to all the selected subjects, in the one step. The checkbox at the bottom of the window allows the newly created template to be initialised with the content of an already-existing template, so that you do not have to start from scratch.

For example, you may have created a new English template and want the mathematics template to have the same structure as that. You use the process just mentioned above, selecting to initialise from the English template and then making the necessary changes to the newly created Mathematics template e.g. Changing the assessment items fields accordingly.

Removing subjects and/ or detaching templates

All the templates used by a particular subject, in any Report Run, are listed in ‘Report Structure’ within Process Reports.

From here you may remove subjects or detach templates from a subject easily, by highlighting the relevant subject and by clicking the Delete or Detach button.

Refreshing templates

The Refresh template option available for layout, general and subject templates has very specific uses.

Templates may need to be refreshed for the following reasons:

Subsequent to the creation of a subject template, should the assessment items for the subject be modified, e.g. more are added, the template will not automatically reflect these changes. Refreshing the template against a subject ensures that the assessment item and custom property fields in the template’s Accelerus Fields pane accurately reflect those in the subject to which the template is attached. Refreshing a subject template will remove any assessment items which no longer exist from the Accelerus Fields pane, add new ones, and modify those that have been changed.
If student custom properties have been modified and these need to be used in any of a general, layout or subject template that was created prior to the modification of the custom property, you will need to refresh the particular template in order for these to be available.
If the styles in the Report Run’s Style template have been modified, all of the already created templates for the Report Run will need to be refreshed in order to contain the changed styles.
If autotext errors appear in the template, the first step to take is to refresh the template. Often these are an indication that the underlying field inserted where the autotext error appears has been manually changed. Refreshing the template will correct any autotext errors for legitimate fields, but any remaining autotext errors indicate that the field, usually an assessment item, does not exist in the subject to which the template has been attached.

Refreshing a template or multiple templates at once is possible via the Refresh icon at the top of the page.

Advise on how to update the templates with your Accelerus fields, can be found here.

Setting up the template

When you are using a graphical marking scheme, you must follow a few extra steps when setting up templates so that the special characters you have set up in your marking scheme print out correctly. These vary slightly depending on whether the marking scheme uses Tab to move between values or table columns.

Using tables

Where the graphical scheme’s reported value contains a column jump character, i.e. ^c:

A table with the appropriate numbers of columns needs to be set up and the columns formatted as required, e.g. with text centred or appropriately aligned, etc.

The Accelerus report field for the particular assessment item is inserted in the cell in which the tick for the first result is to be printed, in this example in the cell for Satisfactory.

The field that is inserted is the reported value field, i.e., the one that displays (rpt) after the assessment item code.

The template, therefore, would appear as seen here, at this point.

Highlight all of the cells in the columns in which results can potentially appear and change their font to Wingdings or whatever font it is that you used for the graphical characters when setting up the marking scheme.

The assessment item fields will be converted to a series of symbols which Accelerus will translate in accordance with the special characters found in the marking scheme, at print time.

The font size for the assessment item fields may be changed, as required, to make the symbols larger.

Using tabs

Where the marking scheme uses tabs (^t), you must ensure manually set tab stops are correctly positioned in the template, in accordance with the number of tab characters in the scheme.

Also, in the case of tabs, you need only highlight the actual inserted (rpt) fields and change their font to Wingdings.