District Portal updates
Product Guide – Upload All of Your Students in the District Portal
You can now upload student information for multiple students directly into the Portal, eliminating the need to manually enter much of your student’s information.
How to upload all your students at once:
- Access the Student Data Upload feature by selecting the new Upload Student Data button on the Top Right of the Transportation Request Form.
Formatting the student data correctly is important. Get a template for formatting the student data on the Student Data Upload screen.- The template can be completed with the minimum required fields and any other desired fields, including:
- Student ID (required)
- Student First Name (required
- Student Last Name (required)
- Student Date of Birth
- Home Address
- School Information
- Once the spreadsheet is completed, upload it on the Student Data Upload screen.
- When the file is successfully uploaded, select Continue to view an Overview of the file.
- The Upload Overview will show the total number of students and schools and a sample of the first items on your list.
- Once the list has been confirmed on the Upload Overview, select Yes, Submit to process the uploaded file.
- The next screen will confirm that the upload has been completed and that the students have been saved as “Draft” records. Please note that these records have not been submitted and will need to be completed in the Transportation Request Form before submitting.
- Use the Search box to locate the Drafts of any of the uploaded students. These Drafts are the same as those that are created from the Transportation Request Form and records will have the “Draft” indicator.
- Once a Draft has been located via the Search, it will populate the Transportation Request Form with any saved information. Complete and validate the form and Submit to send the new request to EverDriven.
- Additional upload requests can be made from the confirmation screen by selecting the Student Data Upload button from the top right corner.
- Return to a blank Transportation Request Form from the confirmation screen by selecting the Go To Form button or the Student 1 Information tab.
Product Guide – School Calendar Upload in the District Portal
The District Portal now supports the ability to upload school calendars and send to EverDriven for school day exceptions such as holidays, non-school days, late starts, and early releases.
Features
1. Users can access the Calendars view for each school by selecting the new Calendar Upload button on the side navigation.
2. On the Calendars screen users can upload up to 5 files by dragging files into the box or selecting “click here to upload” and searching for the files.
3. Users can indicate the applicable student population by completing the Calendar Audience for each uploaded calendar.
- Districts and schools will autopopulate if they have been used previously.
4. Users can also add additional Notes for EverDriven for each uploaded calendar.
5. Once calendars have been successfully uploaded, selecting Submit will send all successfully uploaded calendars, indicated by the green check mark, directly to the Routing team and EverDriven.
- The user submitting the calendars will receive a confirmation email.
- Calendars that were not successfully uploaded, indicated by the red X, will not be sent on to EverDriven.
6. Calendars that are sent to EverDriven are displayed in the Previously Uploaded Calendars section so Districts can confirm that EverDriven has the most recent calendars.
- Selecting the file name will load the stored document.
- Selecting the Notes link will display any notes associated with that calendar.
7. Old calendars may be deleted from this section by clicking the Remove link.
8. New or replacement calendars may be updated with EverDriven by uploading and submitting to EverDriven via the upload process described above.
2022-2023 School Year Kickoff for Districts
At EverDriven, making sure you have what you need to kick off the new school year is very important. Check out some of the new enhancements and features we’ve got for you.
Prepopulating existing Students’ data:
The Transportation Request Form (TRF) in the District Portal will prepopulate student information for existing EverDriven Students who have had previous subscriptions.
This will make it easier for you to use the TRF for new trip requests or existing students because you won’t have to type in that student information. It also helps minimize data issues like typos.
To use this, you’ll simply search for the student in the existing “Search for Student” on the TRF:
Next, select the existing Student and you’ll see their information populate”
- Student ID
- First Name
- Last Name
- DOB
- Age
- Home Address
- Population Type
- Trip Needs
- School Information (if only one school is attached to the student)
- Emergency Contact Information (Up to 3)
If there are multiple addresses on file for a Student, you can select from the list of address for Home and for Different Pickup or Dropoff Addresses.
Now, you’ll enter information specific to that trip request:
- Grade
- Start and End Dates
- Day and Bell Schedules
The TRF can now be saved as a Draft if you are only partially completed and want to come back to it in the future.
Note: Submitting the TRF form always creates a NEW trip request and does communicate edits for existing in-progress subscriptions. Edits to in-progress subscriptions should be requested per existing processes.
Providing last year’s Student List:
To help make getting the school year kicked off easier, we will be posting the End of Year Student List to the Reports section of District Portal. This report will help you quickly identify existing Students as you enter TRF requests for the new year.
Improvements to the cancelation process:
We’ve improved the workflow for when a District Portal user or Parent cancels a trip. Previously, cancellations caused the trip to be locked and EverDriven would have to approve them. Now, District Portal users and Parents will receive notification of the cancelation within minutes.
Visibility into District Calendars:
You can now see your schools’ calendars for the year. With this, you’ll be able to review calendars to make sure that it accurately reflects holidays, in-service dates, late starts, and any other event that could impact your transportation needs. Select “View Calendars” within the District Trip Tracker in the District Portal.
Need to make an update? Just send an email to your dedicated email address for EverDriven.
Saving an In-Progress TRF as a Draft
The Transportation Request Form (TRF) in the District Portal now supports the ability to save incomplete or work in progress TRFs as Drafts, for completing and submitting at a later time.
Features
1. When the minimum required data fields are completed, a new Save Draft button will be enabled at
the bottom of the TRF.
2. The minimum required fields are:
- Student ID
- First Name
- Last Name
3. Once a Draft TRF is saved, it can be recalled by Searching for the Student
- Draft TRFs will be noted by a “Draft” indicator after the Student ID in the search results.
- Existing student records are still available and will not have the “Draft” indicator.
4. Once drafts are recalled, they can be edited and saved again, or they can be submitted once
completed.
- Once a Draft is submitted, it will be removed from the system, be sent, and further processed as a new Transportation Request.
5. Drafts can also be deleted without submitting by selecting the Delete Draft button that is available
when working in a Draft.
Finding a Saved TRF
Here are some best practices for finding your saved TRFs.
To find a saved draft:
- Go to the TRF section of District Portal.
- Search for the student for whom you previously saved a draft of an in-progress TRF. You can search by name or by student ID.
- It’s important be specific in your search, the more criteria you enter the easier it will be to find your draft. Keep entering the student name until the results show only the student you’re looking for.
- You should see two results if there is an existing student with the exact same name and ID, i.e. who has had trips previously with us. Otherwise, there may just be one draft result.
Additional Takeaways:
- All users can see in-progress draft TRFs for their district. This allows district professionals to collaborate on completing TRFs. In other words, Jonathan User could start a new TRF, save it as a draft, and then Maria User could retrieve it later and complete it.
- You cannot save more than one draft TRF for a student. If you begin work on a second TRF when you already have an existing draft TRF in the system, the new draft will replace the old draft when you click “Save Draft.” This keeps the system from getting cluttered with more than one draft TRF per student.
- Once a draft has been submitted, it gets sent to our Routing & Optimization team. You can no longer see it in the portal. As always, you will receive a copy of the submitted TRF via email (just like a brand new TRF).
- When you go to the TRF section of the DP, there is no indication that you have saved drafts of in-progress TRFs. You must search for them.
- If you are creating TRFs for siblings, you can save both their in-progress TRFs as drafts and come back to them later. However, you will need to search and complete each draft separately — they won’t be automatically linked as siblings again.
New “Running Late” Trip Identification
New status on the District Portal highlights trips that are running late so you can see them immediately.
The District Trip Tracker feature in ALC’s District Portal allows you to track students in near real time during transportation. Now we’ve added a new status so you can easily see any trips that are running more than 5 minutes behind schedule.
The “Running Late” status will be shown in both the school view and when viewing trips for an individual student. Here’s how it works:
- When a driver is on the way to pick up a student (at home or at school), our system calculates their ETA based on distance and current traffic conditions. If the driver is predicted to arrive more than 5 minutes later than the scheduled pickup time, the trip will be highlighted in yellow on the District Portal.
- When the driver picks up the student, the ETA for drop-off will be recalculated again. If the student can be dropped-off within 5 minutes of the scheduled time, the status will return to the normal in-progress green color. If the trip is still running late, it will remain yellow.
- Once the trip is complete, the color will turn the normal dark green to show the trip has been completed. As always, you can view the actual pick-up and drop-off times for the trip by expanding the trip card.
District Trip Tracker, school view: Students with a “running late” status will be highlighted in golden yellow for quick identification.
Trip details: Expand the trip card to see all the details, including the scheduled time, new ETA, and driver information.
Redesigned TRF
We are excited to announce a redesigned TRF that includes new features such as a tabbed design, easier bell schedule selection, ability to copy siblings when entering multiple siblings’ information, and more.
Log into District Portal and begin reaping the benefits today!
