BigSIS BIG Glossary of Common Terms and Buttons

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• Academic Years - This is the term used for past/future school years. 
  
  
• Academic Years Table - The area of the system where you will set up your school year. This includes where you create and manage school days, set up the begin and end dates of your school year, pre-generate attendance records for students, and set up the number of terms (see Terms) that your school will use throughout the school year. To locate the Academic Years table go to Students > Other > Academic Years.
  
  
• Admission Logs - An Admission Log is a log in the Student Record that reflects all changes to a student’s Matriculation Status. An open admission log is reflected in green and a closed admission log will be reflected in red. Admission logs allow you to keep an extremely accurate running record of the comings and goings of a student at your school.
  
  
• Alerts - BigSIS has a variety of alerts your admin community can use to make sure you are notified when a change or a certain action occurs in the portal. Ranging from alerts for public inquiries being submitted to user account information being added, edited, or deleted, your administrators can be up to date on most changes made in the portal. 
  For example, if you implement the “User Account Email Address Changed in Portal” alert, anytime a user changes their email address in the portal any user that is part of the distribution list tied to the alert, will be alerted with an email (see Distribution Lists).
  To view all of the alerts available to you go to System > Settings > Alerts.
  
  
• Application MPF Forms - This is a form used for setting up your BigSIS applications. Application Multi-Page Forms (MPFs) are electronic and will be filled out in the portal by users. All information from the application will be captured and stored on the admin side of BigSIS as well as in the portal for guardians/parents. Applications are customizable and allow you to retrieve a variety of information necessary for the application process. This includes information about the student and/or guardians/parents, uploading of documents or images, collection of fees, and much more. To view all created application MPFs or to create a new one, go to Leads > Applications & Contract Setup > Application MPF Forms (see Step by Step Process for Creating Applications for more information).
  
  
• Assessment Group - This is a customized group of assessments for teachers to select from in the portal. Schools can have as many Assessment Groups as they need to accommodate the different assessments that different teachers, courses, or programs may use. 
   
• Assessment Periods - These are tied to Terms and are a duration of time where a student’s performance is evaluated. All Assessment Periods will be tied to a specific Term, and you may have as many Assessment Periods per Term as necessary for your school. For example, you may have a Term that runs the full Academic Year. In this Term, you could have an Assessment Period that ends on December 20th (mid-year progress reports) and another that ends on June 15th (end of year reports). This means that, in the first Assessment Period, the students will be assessed for what they completed up to December 20th and the grade will reflect what they have completed up to this date. In the second Assessment Period, they will be assessed for what they completed between December 20th and June 15th, but the grade will reflect the grade for the entire year.
  
  
• Assessment Report - These are reports written about the student based on evaluations. They can only be written if there are assessment periods created for them. To view assessment reports available to you go to Favorites > Report Viewer > Assessment Reports.
  
  
• Attrition (Students) - This refers to any student that has left for any reason during the Academic Year, at any time. There are a variety of attrition types that help you tell BigSIS why a student may have left during the Academic Year. The Attrition Status will be set for an individual student from the current status box of a Student Record and includes graduated, expelled, leave of absence, on exchange, and withdrawn/left. You also have the option to set attrition statuses in bulk by using the graduation and bulk attrition tool (see Graduation and Bulk Attrition Tool). When you set an attrition status for a student BigSIS will handle the student record accordingly (see Matriculation Status).
  
  
• Auto-Register (Courses) - This is an option that you can select for Course Templates or for specific courses offered in a term. During the registration process, all courses utilizing the Auto-Register option will have ALL of the students in that Program registered into them. TIP: We recommend that when 51% or more of the students from a program will be registered into a course, that you use auto-register to take advantage of the automation and just remove the students that do not belong in the course manually.
  
  
• Auto-Register Tool (Registration) - This is a tool that allows you to register all students from a particular program into all of the courses utilizing the auto-register option in that program (see Auto-Register (Courses) above). For example, if you have 20 students in the 1st grade and you offer 5 courses (all of which utilize the auto-register option); when used, the auto-registration tool will register each of those 20 students in all of the 5 courses for the 1st grade. Versus the alternative which would require you to manually register each of those 20 students to each of the 5 courses. Go to Courses > Other > Auto-Register.
  Note: The auto register tool only registers students for courses that have used the auto-register (courses) option.
  
  
• Contract MPF Forms - This is a form used for setting up your BigSIS contracts. Contract multi-page forms (MPFs) are electronic and will be filled out in the portal by users. All information from the contract will be captured and stored on the admin side of BigSIS as well as in the portal for guardians/parents. Contracts are customizable and allow you to retrieve a variety of information necessary for the contract process. This includes information about the student and/or the guardians/parents, setting up tuition amounts, setting up payment schedules, collection of fees and tuition deposits, and much more. To view all created contract MPFs or to create a new one, go to Leads > Applications & Contract Setup > Contract MPF Forms (see Step by Step Process for Creating Contracts for more information).
  
  
• Course Templates - Course Templates are the “outline” of a course, and what is used each term when you generate courses. The Course Template is where you will add the necessary information for each course (title, description, and transcript options) so that every term you generate this course it will be set up the way you want it. After creating the course template you will add the template to the appropriate curricula (see Curricula) allowing you to choose the course template, or not when you generate courses each term. Go to Courses > Other > Course Templates.
  
  
• Courses - When a Course is generated, the information for that course is pulled from a course template BUT courses should not be confused with course templates. Each specific term has its own courses generated. Courses are generated each term, and although the course template is used to generate the course, each term has its own distinct courses. For example, the Fall 2016/2017 term has a course named Math - Level 1 and the Spring 2016/2017 term also has the same course named Math - Level 1. Each course was generated from the course template Math - Level 1, but,  although each term has the same course, each course is distinct from the other based on the term it is tied to. The course template was used to create two distinct courses in two distinct terms. Go to Courses > Courses.
  
  
• Courses Table - This is the table that houses all of the courses that are generated each term. By default, when you go to the Courses Table you will see the current term’s courses. You can use the built-in filters to filter for courses by block schedule, by the teacher, by the program, or by term. Go to Courses > Courses.
  
  
• Current Status Box (Student Record) - This is the area of a student record that, as of today’s date, shows the student status, enrollment status, and the matriculation status. This is also where the “change matriculation status” button lives for changing the matriculation status.
  
  
• Curricula - Your curricula, which are tied to a program, will house the course templates you want each program to use when you generate courses each term. For example, your Grade 1 curricula, which is tied to the program Grade 1, will house all of the course templates you want to use for Grade 1 for any given term. When you generate courses for a term you will use the curricula to select from the appropriate course templates to dictate what courses will be used for that term. Go to Courses > Curricula.
  
  
• Custom Form - A Custom Form is used for gathering data that is not natively built into BigSIS. Custom forms can be used with most records in BigSIS, and also with external forms (e.g., inquiry form and donation form) and multi-page forms. For example, a Person Record has built-in fields for what it means to be a person (e.g., first name, middle name, last name, etc.). If you wanted to gather information about a person that is not included in the native fields you can use a custom form to gather this information. The custom form uses a variety of custom form fields that allow you to customize the form to look and act how you want. Some examples of custom form fields are checkboxes, text boxes, drop-down lists, radio button lists, and more. Go to Forms > Custom Forms. For step-by-step instructions on how to build custom forms see “Custom Forms Help Documentation.”
  
  
• Distribution List - This is the list of users that will receive a certain type of Alert. In order to receive an alert, you will create a Distribution List that will comprise a list of users that you want to receive the alert. This list of users will receive an email with information based on the Alert Type that the Distribution List is set up for. You may also set up more than one Alert Type for a distribution list. For example, if you want to receive an alert for “User updated address in the portal” you will create a Distribution List with a name of your choosing. You will add each user that should be updated about this alert and each time someone updates their address in the portal each user in the distribution list will receive an email with the alert information.

• Donor Profile - In BigSIS, the Donor Profile represents the giving unit. A person in BigSIS can have multiple Donor Profiles which allows other donors to receive soft-credit when appropriate. For example, a person can have a donor profile with their spouse and another donor profile with their spouse and their company. Or they can have a donor profile that includes their entire family. The donor gets to choose how they want to give.
  
  

• Email Markers - Email Markers are placeholders you can use in email for the information you have stored in the system. For example, if you send an email to 10 people and use the marker {{Firstname}}, it will autofill the first name of all 10 recipients, making each email personalized automatically. You will have a variety of email markers to use and those markers will depend on the table that you are emailing from. For example, you will have different email markers on the People table versus the Donations table versus the Leads table, etc. Each table will have markers based on the information stored on that table and cannot be used in another table. 
  
  
• Enrollment MPF Forms - Multi-Page Forms are sent from the Enrollments Table to gather information about Enrollments (students) and will be filled out in the portal. This type of MPF can be used to gather a variety of information about students including emergency contact information, household information, health information, and more. See “Step-by-Step Instructions for Setting Up MPF’s” for more information.
  
  
• Enrollment Query Tool - This is a filtering tool used to filter for Students and/or Guardians. This tool can be used from the People Table, the Students Table, and the Enrollments Table. This tool has a combination of built-in parameters that allow you to filter Students and/or Guardians By Academic Year, By Term, or By Date depending on which table you use it from. You can further narrow the results by filtering By Program or By Program Group. Finally, you can further filter for active or inactive students By Attrition Status. See the help video for “Enrollment Query Tool” for further instruction on how to use this tool.
  
  
• Enrollment Records - Enrollment Records can be found in the Enrollments Table as well as in an individual student record. A student receives one Enrollment Record for each Term that they are enrolled into. For example, if a program uses one term per academic year then the student will have one Enrollment Record per year. If a program uses more than one term per academic year, like Fall and Spring Term, then the student will receive one Enrollment Record for each term: one for Fall and one for Spring. Enrollment Records are also where the courses a student has registered for, and are eligible to register for, are stored. Go to Students > Enrollments to see all Enrollment Records and use the filtering to retrieve what Enrollment Records you need. Or, go to Students > Student Records > edit a Student Record and go to the Enrollments related tab to see all the Enrollment Records for an individual student.
  
  
• Enrollment Status - This is part of the Current Status box of a Student Record. The Enrollment Status will include the most recent enrollment for a student including information about the date, the program, the academic year, and term of the enrollment.
  
  
• Enrollments Table - This is where all Enrollment Records for each student will be stored. This table has various filters available, including the Enrollment Query tool, to allow you to filter for enrollment records. Go to Students > Enrollments.
  
  
• Evaluation Matrix - An evaluation chart that your school will create and will be tied to courses. Each Evaluation Matrix can use matrix items (what you are rating the student on), and Evaluation Matrix Scales (the rating scale used for evaluating the student). You can access and create evaluation matrices by going to the Evaluation Matrixes table. Go to Courses > Other > Evaluation Matrixes. See “How to Set Up an Evaluation Matrix ” video tutorial for more information.
  
  
• Evaluation Matrix Scales - This is a scale that your school can create and will be used in conjunction with an Evaluation Matrix (above). The Matrix Scale is what you will use within an Evaluation Matrix to rate the student. You can access and create these scales by going to the Evaluation Matrix Scales table. Go to Courses > Other > Evaluation Matrix Scales.
  
  
• Families Table - This table stores financial information related to each individual family. If a student has two guardians who are separated, each guardian will have their own family record with the student included in each family. 
   
• Generate Courses - This is the tool you will use to generate your courses each term. This tool allows you to generate all courses for a program for a specific term. For example, if you have 10 courses for the 8th grade, the generate courses tool will allow you to generate those 10 courses for a term of your choosing all at one time. Go to Courses > Other > Generate Courses.
  
  
• Graduation and Bulk Attrition Tool - This is a tool used to graduate or set the attrition status for more than one student in the same program, at the same time. This tool also allows you to set alumni records at the same time if desired. Go to Students > Other > Graduation and Bulk Attrition Tool. See “Step-by-Step Instructions for How to Change Matriculation Status for Students” for more on how to use this tool.
  
  
• Leads - This is a term used to describe all students that are inquiring about your school. Lead Records are created in two ways: when a prospective family fills out the External Inquiry Form, or when you enter in a record manually in the Leads Table. All new Leads will be trackable from the Leads Table. All Re-enrollment Leads will be trackable from the Re-enrollment Leads Table.
  
  
• Leads Module - This is a module used for tracking all new Leads. This module consists of all the tools you need to track new inquiries from start to finish; from the initial inquiry, through application and contract, and finally, enrollment. This module will also assist you with tracking re-enrollment as well. Helping to track your re-enrollment process and to assist with issuing and tracking of contracts when using BigSIS contracts.
  
  
• Leads Table - The table that all leads, whether made using the external inquiry form or entered manually, will be stored in. This table will be used to track and move all new leads from the initial inquiry stage, through application and contract, all the way to enrollment, or anywhere in between. Go to Leads > Leads.
  
  
• Lead Enrollment Configuration - This is the central component used to control your leads process. You get to dictate and control how each program will handle leads for a given academic year, including applications, contracts, and much more, and this is all done from the lead enrollment configuration. Go to Leads > Enrollment & Inquiries Setup > Lead Enrollment Configuration.
  
  
• Lead Phase - While you move your leads from initial inquiry through to enrollment, you will be able to track them using lead phases. These phases will tell you the current status of the lead and will help you know exactly where in the process a lead is at any time. During the leads setup process, you will also establish tasks to complete during each phase to help customize the process to your real world tasks and to help all team members with their assigned responsibilities during the entire leads process. An In-depth discussion of lead phases is conducted throughout the leads training process.
  
  
• Lead Task - Lead Tasks are the real world jobs/tasks that each team member must complete during the leads process. During the leads training process, you will establish your tasks to dictate, in the real world, exactly what you and other team members need to accomplish during each phase of the leads process. Lead tasks will be exhaustively discussed throughout the Leads 1 and 2 training sessions.
  
  
• Lead Workflow Configuration (Enrollment) -  This is the workflow that is used to determine what phases and tasks are used for new leads for each program during the leads process. It helps to guide your entire team by letting each person in the team know what to do and when to do it during the entire process. This will be discussed in depth during the Leads 1 and 2 training sessions. Go to Leads > Enrollment & Inquiries Setup > Lead Workflow Configuration (enrollment).
  
  
• Lead Workflow Configuration (Re-enrollment) - This is the workflow that will determine what phases and tasks are used for each program during the leads process for re-enrollments. It helps to guide your entire team by letting each person in the team know what to do and when to do it along the entire process. This will be discussed in depth during the Leads 1 and 2 training sessions. Go to Leads > Enrollment & Inquiries Setup > Lead Workflow Configuration (Re-enrollment). 
  
  
• Master Courses - Master Courses are used only if you have a year-long course that is split into two or more distinct semester courses (e.g., math fall semester, math spring semester) but which you prefer to represent as one single year-long course on transcripts (e.g., Math 9th grade), with or without their grades averaged together. Master Courses allow your year-long courses to be displayed under one single label on transcripts. By default, when you don’t use a Master Course, courses are listed on transcripts one line at a time for each term they are offered, along with the respective grade earned during that term.                                                   
  • If instead, you would like to list courses that span multiple terms on the same line, then you must create a Master Course list the relevant courses for each term under the same master course. For example, you may create a master course titled ‘Math 9th Grade’ (or perhaps just Math) and then list the Fall math course and the Spring math course and the Spring math course under the same master course and this will yield the following on the transcript.                                                           
    
• Matriculation Status (current status box of student record) - This is the overall status of a student at your school; whether a student is currently active, or not. The Matriculation Status of a student can be found in the current status box of Student Record and will include the original admission date, program, and term for a student as well as the current matriculation status for the student. A student’s current Matriculation Status will be represented by one of the following attrition statuses: currently active, graduated, expelled, leave of absence, on exchange, and withdrawn/left.
  
  
• Matriculation Status (how to change) - The Matriculation Status for a single student is set from the current status box of a Student Record and includes the statuses currently active, graduated, expelled, leave of absence, on exchange, and withdrawn/left. Matriculation Statuses for multiple students can be set in bulk from the graduation and bulk attrition tool. For more information please see “Step-by-Step Instructions for How to Change Matriculation Status for Students.”
  
  
• Multi-Page Form (MPF) - These are forms used to gather information from users in the portal. Once created, MPFs will be sent to users in the portal where they can fill out and complete the form. The form will then be trackable on the admin side of BigSIS in a variety of ways depending on the type of MPF used. These MPFs consist of Application MPFs, Contract MPFs, Enrollment MPFs, and People MPFs. Each type of MPF will be used to gather different types of information but will be created with the same principles in mind. Application and Contract MPFs will be discussed in depth during the Leads 3 and 4 training sessions. Enrollment and People MPFs will be discussed in depth during the Multi-Page Form/Request for information training session.
  
  
• Pages (MPF) - When created, an MPF will consist of two parts; the page and the page item. Your MPF can have as many pages as you choose. Each page will have page items added to it which will customize the look and feel of the page.
  
  
• Page Items - Page Items are what you will add to each page of a multi-page form (MPF). You can add as many or as few page items to a page as you want, and this variety of items are what allow you to customize your MPF and retrieve the information you need. Each type of MPF (Lead Contracts, Lead Applications, Enrollment MPFs, and People MPFs) will share some page items but each will have unique page items based on the context of the MPF. (See specific instructions for creating MPFs, Applications, or Contracts for more information on each page item.)
  
  
• People MPF Forms - Multi-Page Forms sent from the People Table to gather information about people and will be filled out in the portal. This type of MPF can be used to gather a variety of information about people including health information, address, phone number, email address, and much more. Please see “Step-by-step instructions for setting up MPFs” for more information.
  
  
• People Records - All person records will be stored in the people table regardless of role(s).
  
  
• Programs - Programs are the grade levels of your school, and therefore, how you track attendance and how your school directories will be organized. Each student will be enrolled in a program, like Grade 1, and it is in virtue of this enrollment that you will be able to take attendance and produce school directories. In some cases, a program may be the grade and classroom used when a program has more than one classroom. For example, your Kindergarten may have two classrooms, a Marigold classroom, and a Daisy classroom. In this case, you would have multiple programs for Kindergarten: Kindergarten - Marigold and Kindergarten - Daisy. Thus allowing you to track attendance and directories based on each classroom. Go to Students > Other > Programs.
  
  
• Program Groups - After you create your programs you can group any combination of programs together. These groups are created by you and can consist of as many, or as few as you need. Program Groups can be used for a variety of purposes including to filter for a group of programs at one time, to take attendance for a specific group of programs, or to run certain reports for a specific group of programs. For example, you may have a program group called “High School” that consists of grades 9-12. In all locations in BigSIS where you can filter, run reports, or take attendance by program group you will be able to filter by “High School” to group these programs together. 
  
  
• Parent Programs - This is a way for schools to influence how certain programs appear. Terms like "Nursery" and "Kindergarten" are used instead of the different classrooms they have for those programs. So instead of Bluebell Nursery and Apple Blossom Nursery appearing on an inquiry form Nursery will appear because Nursery is the parent of Bluebell and Apple Blossom.
   
• Report Viewer - A tool used for all of the canned reports used in BigSIS. Each type of report is represented in its own window and will have one or more varieties of reports available. Each report variety will have parameters, based on the type of report, that will allow you to customize the report. Each report variety will also let you save the selected parameters as a template for future use. Go to Favorites > Report Viewer.
  
  
• Re-enrollment Leads Table - The table that all Re-enrollment Leads will be stored in when using leads for re-enrollment. This table will only be used for Re-enrollment Leads all new inquiries are stored in the Leads Table. This table will be used solely for Re-enrollment Leads but shares the same principles as the Leads Table and will include phases and tasks associated with your school’s re-enrollment process. Go to Leads > Re-enrollment Leads.
  
  
• Request for Information (RFI) - The tool used to send Enrollment and People Multi-Page Forms (MPFs) to users in the portal. RFIs are sent from either the Enrollment or People table and will allow you to send an MPF and an alert email for the user all at one time. After an RFI is sent, each submission of the RFI will be stored in the RFI submission tables (see Request for Information Submissions). NOTE: RFIs should not be confused with MPF’s. RFIs are the method for sending out MPFs, and MPFs are the actual form you are sending out. Although they will be used in conjunction they are considered two separate tools. See “Sending a Request for Information and RFI Submission Tables” for more information.
  
  
• Request for Information Submission Tables - Each Request for Information sent from the Enrollment or People Tables will have a submission once the form has been sent. These submissions will be stored in the All RFI Submissions, Enrollment RFI Submissions, and/or People RFI submissions tables. The All RFI Submissions Table will have all RFI submissions. The Enrollment and People RFI Submissions tables will have all of the enrollment RFI’s and all of the people RFI’s respectively. Go to Forms > Multi-Page Forms > Multi-Page Form Submissions > select from one of the three above submissions tables. 

• Resources - A Resource is anything (a classroom, a bus, a projector, etc.) that can be reserved for an event. Resources are explained more in-depth in the Calendars training. 

• Tags - Tags are a sort of label that you can add to Person Records and then filter by. You can add any Tag to any Person Record. For example, if you want to filter for the entire soccer team you can create a “Soccer Team” Tag and tie it to every person on the soccer team. 

• Task Calendar - A calendar used to track all users’ tasks associated with the Leads process. The task calendar defaults to showing only user's tasks, but will allow you to show tasks from other users as well. You may also enter tasks, ad hoc, as needed for any type of task you may need to track. This calendar is only seen on the admin side of BigSIS by admin users and is discussed during the Leads 1 and 2 training sessions. Go to Favorites > Task Calendar.
  
  
• Task Template Spreadsheet - A spreadsheet used to establish the appropriate tasks used for each Lead Workflow Configuration. This spreadsheet is discussed exhaustively in the Leads 1 training and will be filled out by you, the client, to reflect your and other user's real-world tasks to follow during your entire leads process.
  
  
• Terms - Terms are part of your Academic Year. They are what courses are tied to and where you will set up assessment periods for assessing students. Each term will be a specified period of time during the Academic Year and will begin and end based on your needs. For example, each year, you will have an Academic Year and you will set up as many terms as you need for the Academic Year. You will then generate courses (see Generate Courses) for each term and each term will have as many assessment periods as needed (see Assessment Periods). To further the example, some schools will use one Term that will run the full length of the school year, and that Term will have all of the courses and assessment periods used throughout the year. Other schools may use more than one Term, like semesters, and will use a Fall and Spring term. In this case, each Term will have distinct courses and assessment periods based on the specified dates of the terms. Go to Students > Other > Terms.