HomeSchool Skedtrack - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

General
Today
Activities
Tests
Courses
Reports
1. How do I print a list of all the lessons in a course?
2. Why do I see a blank page when I generate a report card?
Admin
Business

What browsers work best for Homeschool Skedtrack?
Homeschool Skedtrack has been tested to work with Google Chrome, IE 6, IE 7, Firefox 2, and Safari 3. For Windows users, we recommend Google Chrome for fast display.
Will Homeschool Skedtrack run on a Mac computer?
Yes, you can use Homeschool Skedtrack with a PC or Mac, your records will be accessible from both systems anytime.
Can I open multiple Homeschool Skedtrack sessions (multiple tabs) in a single browser?

Homeschool Skedtrack will work with multiple sessions on the same browser. Note also that Homeschool Skedtrack does a lot of caching to speed up response time and if the user uses multiple sessions, update on one session might not reflect on the other session. If this happens just log out and log back in to update the session.

I was editing activities and I got booted out and was sent to the login page, why did this happen?
Try logging out then log back in. Note that Homeschool Skedtrack will not work if you open more than one session in one browser (like opening two Homeschool Skedtracks on separate tabs in the same browser).
I'm using Bsafe Online, why do I see blocked portions of some pages?
We noticed that this happens for Google Ads. To remove the block, in Bsafe allow access to pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/
What does Skedtrack mean?
Skedtrack stands for Scheduler and Tracker.
What is the main advantage of using Homeschool Skedtrack as a Home School Planner, Scheduler, and Tracker?
Homeschool Skedtrack frees the teacher from putting schedule dates on each activity. It also frees the teacher from the headache of rescheduling missed activities (refer to lessons, assignments, and things to do). The heart of Skedtrack is the automated scheduling of activities. There is no need to put schedule dates on activities. Rescheduling of missed activities is done automatically. The user simply needs to set the class schedule for a particular course. If there are activities in the course, it will be scheduled according to the course specification and if none a new activity will be created with a blank description as defined in the As-You-Go feature.
How safe are my children's information?
Please read our Privacy Policy for details. As a highlight the information that you provide for your children are accessible only by whom you allow access through your account and our Database Support Team. As explained in our privacy policy statistics on the top reads, hobbies, field trip locations, and resources may also be collected without identifying you in any way. In relation to backing up your data, we back-up your data daily.
What happens when I register with Skedtrack?
When you register with Skedtrack a teacher account is created. The teacher is the owner of the home school. The following defaults will be provided:
1. Home School Name: My Academy
2. One student with First Name: editMe
3. School Year with date range
4. One Enrollment for the School Year
5. One Course for the Enrollment
6. Two Activities for the Course
What happens if I register with Homeschool Skedtrack and I don't activate my account?
When you register with Homeschool Skedtrack you need to click the activation link that will be sent to the email address that you provided. You have 3 days to activate your account or it will be deleted. If you missed to activate your account you need to register again.
Will my account ever expire?
Once you have registered and activated your account, you are required to access your account at least once a year or your account will be disabled. Email notifications will be sent one month prior to your account's expiration to remind you that you need to login to your account to reset your account access counter. If it is disabled you can contact Homeschool Skedtrack support to reactivate it. A disabled account is placed in our archive to lessen the load of our system.
How long will it take to activate a disabled account?
It depends on the support team work load but it should be within 48 hours of your request.

How do I print the schedule ahead of time?
To print the schedule ahead of time, go to Today-Calendar and click on the specific date links.
What does 'Approve Pending Activities' mean?
"Approve" simply means logging the date. If you want to erase the date, simply uncheck the activity and click "Approve" again.
How can I add/edit activities when there is an ‘Approval-Pending’ and it is not yet the end of the day?
Simply click "Approve" even if it is not the end of the day. You can hit approve any number of times in a day. All it does is log the completion date. Checked activities will have completion dates while unchecked activities will have blank completion dates.
What actually happens when I hit ‘Delete Pending Activities?’
When an activity is checked off and saved, it goes to “Approve Pending Activities” mode. If the Approve button was not clicked, and you hit "Delete Pending Activities", then there will be no completion dates saved, and the check disappears.

However, if some activities were checked and approved by hitting the Approve button, and if another activity was checked off again and saved, this goes to “Approve Pending Activities” state. If you click on “Delete Pending Activities,” only the checked off activities that were not approved yet will be deleted and no completion dates will be saved for those. The previously approved activities will still have completion dates. Notice that the check in the Today page does not disappear for the previously approved activities.

If you want to delete completion dates for the day for all or specific activities, simply uncheck all activities or uncheck the specific activities that were not completed and “Approve”. This will erase the completion date that was saved earlier.
How do I print the alternating gray colors of the table on the Today Daily Schedule page?
To print the alternating gray colors of the table for IE7 browsers, do the following: Tools (located on upper right of browser) -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Printing -> then check: Print Background Color and Images.
In Today Daily Schedule, why do my activities show up even if it is a holiday, vacation, or field trip?
Activities on the Today Daily Schedule page comes up during holidays, vacations, or field trips for convenience just in case your family decides to hold school on that day.
In Today Daily Schedule, why do I get the message: 'Data has been modified, please refresh page.'
Usually, this happens when one is editing on two separate computers or working on Homeschool Skedtrack on two separate browsers. When the Today Daily Schedule page (or other pages like Courses and Activities) is modified on one computer/browser, the Today Daily Schedule page on the other computer will have "stale" data hence no longer current. To make data current, the user needs to hit "Refresh".
Why is my last day of school not the same as my school year end date? Why is my school year cut short?
The last day of school is calculated based on (1) the hours per day set on the Admin-Enrollments Edit page and (2) the number of school days with default 180 days. The product of (1) and (2) is the total hours for the whole school year. For example, if the hours per day was set to 5.0 hours per day but the child actually does (or is scheduled to do) more than 5 hours per day, the extra hours accumulate and when it reaches 5 hours, it is counted as one day and the school year is cut short.

If your school year is cut short, it means that the scheduled hours per day exceed the hours per day set on the Admin-Enrollments Edit page. To fix this, you may increase the hours per day (maybe set it to 5.5 hours) or shorten the duration of each of the courses.

Take note that when you change the duration of the courses, it will only affect the newly generated activities - the old ones will stay as is. To change the duration of the already created activities, you have to do it manually.

How would I know when a specific activity is going to be done by my student?
To know when a specific activity is going to be scheduled, go to Activities-Predict Dates, choose the course and it will predict the dates for all your activities listed.
What happens when an activity is missed?
When an activity is missed it just comes back again on its next schedule. For example, if the Course schedule is Mon, Wed, and Fri (MWF) and Mon activity is missed, the missed activity on Mon will be scheduled on Wed.
Why can’t I save the completion date?
Completion dates must be in ascending order (no skipping -- blank dates in between activities),can be the same with other activities for dates prior to current date, and must not be greater that current date.
I already started the school year, how can I back track my entire student’s work?
Please watch the video tutorial: Auto-Generate Activities Part 1. All the steps needed are explained there.
I forgot to check off my student’s work yesterday (and was marked absent in the Calendar), how do I enter completion dates and credit my student for the work he/she has done?
To add completion dates, click on the Activities tab and go to each course and enter the completion date manually.
I was editing activities and I got booted out and was sent to the login page, why did this happen?
Try logging out then log back in. Note that Homeschool Skedtrack will not work if you open more than one session in one browser (like opening two Homeschool Skedtracks on separate tabs in the same browser).
How do I check off multiple activities of the same course done on the same day?
If a student completes more than one activity for a specific course for the day, the merge button in the Activities - Edit Activities page can be used to merge multiple activities done.

There should only be one activity per day (current day) per course. If the student does more than one activity, it should be listed in the description separated by a delimiter of your choice like a comma, semi-colon, etc. This would allow prediction of completion dates for activities.

If the user wishes to split the past (prior to current date) activities later on, the user can insert activities on Activities - Edit Activities page, give the same completion date and manually move the description to the new activity -- this is normally done for multiple graded activities on a given day.

What are graded activities?
All activities are considered graded except of type Regular. The default activity type is Regular.
Why would Field Work be considered a Test?
The system is designed in such a way that anything not graded is of type Regular and all other activity types are graded. If the activity is a field work that is not graded, just describe it in the description field, and choose activity type Regular.

Graded Field Work is something a student would do outside the home. Example would be doing a Science Investigation like investigating the water cycle, classifying different kinds of leaves, examining creatures found in topsoil/subsoil, etc. and needs to make an activity report about it. Another example of Graded Field Work would be interviewing people about a topic and the student makes a report on it.
Why are the Tests/Quizzes not showing when I click on the Tests tab?
The Tests tab will only contain tests/quizzes or any graded activity that has been completed, thus have a completion date, awaiting score/grade input. Once a student has completed a test, the teacher can then input the score by going to Reports tab - Select Courses That Need Test Input, and click on the number link (the number will tell how many tests need score input) OR go to Tests tab and select the Course on the left, then click on New(1) if there is 1 test that needs test input.
How can I enter multiple tests/quizzes on a single day?
Insert activities (graded type like Test, Quiz, etc.) at Activities - Edit Activities page. Assign the same completion dates for the tests. Note that you can only assign the same completion dates for activities that are prior to current date.

How do I create the same course for multiple students?
First, create a course for one student. Add the activities for the same student then copy to the other 2, using the Courses-Copy page, one at a time on the same copy page. This will copy the course plus the activities to the other students. Please note that the copy feature only copies activities and not completion dates.
How do I schedule courses that runs on a specific period of time, i.e. co-op courses?
To schedule courses that runs on a specific period of time, uncheck the "Synchronize dates with school year" in the Courses - Edit page and enter the start and end dates.
How do I schedule courses done only once a week, i.e. co-op courses?
To schedule courses done only once a week, check the day that specific course is held when the course was created in the Courses-Edit Course page.

If you would like to make an accurate projection of your last day of school, in Courses- Edit Course page, you need to check “Day Co-Owner, only day co-owner courses can be in a scheduled day “ on the “Advanced Scheduling” box located below Class Days for courses on co-op. Also choose the right frequency “Repeat every” – it defaults to every “week.” If you want a certain course to be on schedule all the time – even on co-op days, example “Piano practice”, check “Always on Schedule, will always be on schedule except on non-class days”.
How do I delete a course?
To delete a course, the activities in it need to be deleted first. To do that:
1. Go to Activities tab, choose the course you want to delete, then go to Edit Activities tab. Click Select All (located on top left), then click Delete. SAVE. Now your course does not have any activity on it.
2. Go back to Course tab and delete the course.

How do I print a list of all the lessons in a course?
To print a complete list of activities/lessons in a course, go to Reports - Course Report. Choose the course from the drop down and print.
Why do I see a blank page when I generate a report card?
This happens when Adobe PDF Reader prompts the user in the background for an upgrade. Just look for the window that shows the Adobe PDF Reader prompt and either upgrade or cancel.

How can I edit the grade level of my student?
To edit the grade level of your student, go to Admin-Enrolments tab, choose your student and click edit. Choose the correct grade level and hit save.
How do I delete a resource in Admin-Resources?
Deletion of resource in the Admin-Resources can only be done if the column Use has 0 on it. This means that this resource is not being used by any student in any school year, thus the Delete option is available. If there is a number under the Use column, it means that a student (or students if number is greater than 1) is using this resource, thus only Edit is available.

To delete a resource with a student using it: Go to the correct school year and student. Go to Courses-Resources page and select the course. Delete the resource there. Then go back to Admin-Resources, you will now see that the Use column is 0, the Delete option is available, and the resource can now be deleted. If the resource is being used by 2 students, it must be deleted in both.

Note: The list of resources in the Admin-Resources page is a list of all resources used in all school years.
I am trying to add a Field Trip, why is it that the only option is 'Not Joining?'
To be able to join a field trip, the student must have at least one course. The field trip needs be assigned to a student course. To create a course for the student, go to Courses - Display/Edit page then click New. If you just want to record field trips, simply create a course: Miscellaneous and choose this course for the field trips.
I already added my students, how do I delete the student editMe?
First, make sure that you have enrolled at least one of your children in the Admin - Enrollments page.

To delete editMe, follow these steps:
1. delete the activities for editMe in Activities - Display/Edit page
2. delete editMe's course in Courses - Display/Edit page
3. delete editMe's enrollment in Admin - Enrollments page
4. delete editMe in Admin- Students page.
It takes these 4 steps to delete a student so no student record gets deleted accidentally.

For how long are you offering the service for free?
As long as the business is viable.
Why is Homeschool Skedtrack offered for free, what's the catch?
We believe that being organized in the scheduling of activities and tracking the progress of the students is a very good practice in a home school. We have benefited much from this tool and sharing it with the home school community is the best that we can do. There is no catch, we adhere to the community business model, and we rely on your donations and sponsors that advertise on our site.
What will happen to our data if Homeschool Skedtrack goes out of business?
The best answer would be: Homeschool Skedtrack will not go out of business because of your help. But if it is the Lord's will for it not to continue, the download functionality of Homeschool Skedtrack allows the user to save his/her data in comma separated values format (CSV) or XLS for use in Microsoft Excel or any other product that uses CSV.
How can we help support Homeschool Skedtrack?
You can help us through donations, buying from our sponsors through the links of Homeschool Skedtrack, and joining Homeschool Skedtrack forum. When you buy from our sponsors through the links on Homeschool Skedtrack, you are helping us with no added expense on your part (prices are just the same).