Probably the biggest one-time update we've ever released.
People and Profiles
We gave the Profile a complete overhaul... new navigation, improved presentation of information, social networking, and lots of other things. Here's a post all about it from the Populi blog.
Overall: Tab navigation, accessible via top-level navigation (alongside Home, Files, etc.), improved presentation and handling of Roles and Tags, Utility button for exports (like ID Card, Transcript, etc.).
Activity Feed: Shows Scheduled Communications, Notes, Sent Emails, and person-specific To-Dos.
Bulletin Board: Upgraded to become a light social networking feed. Post and leave comments on others' bulletins; follow people and have them follow you.
Info: Contact info, basic information (gender, race, etc.), and relationships.
Faculty: Instructor Profiles (Faculty and Teaching Assistant) get course histories and some basic course stats.
Student: Complete student academic histories, including Transcript, Degree Audit, Course Mapping (GPA by Program); courses, degrees, student info, awards, and discipline.
Registration: We moved the Registration interface to a student Profile tab; we also simplified Registration Locks.
Admissions: We moved the Admissions interface to a tab; it works more or less the same. Don't forget that the Activity Feed was designed to help Admissions staff with Prospects.
Advisor: The Advisor interface is now a tab on Advisor profiles.
Financial: Three tabs: Dashboard (formerly Current), By Term, and History, which shows a filter-able list of all of the student's past transactions. Now you can pick and choose which pending charges to invoice, plus some other minor improvements and bugfixes. Also, a new Financial Lock.
Integrations
Google: Our new SAML server enables Single Sign-on, which means we can (and do) integrate with things like Google Apps! If your college has an existing Google Apps account or gets a new one (accredited institutions and non-profits get it for free), a quick and simple set-up will route Populi Email and Calendar to Google Mail and Calendar.
iTunes U: Link your courses directly to your college's iTunes U content right from your course pages.
Communications
We split out Communications from Admin and gave it its own tab. Now mailing lists and templates are all found in Communications... in addition to a few new things.
Communication Plans: Structure your correspondence with anyone in the system (we had Prospects in mind, but you can do this for Donors, current students... anyone, really) by gathering Email, Printed Letter, and To-Do templates into Communication Plans. You create them in Communications and add them to people in the Activity Feed. Here's a blog post with more info and a video.
Mailing Lists have been improved, and now feature a History which shows what you've sent them and when (and for Emails, how many people opened it). You can also send Printed Letters to your mailing lists. Quick Lists work the same, but are now called One-time Lists.
Templates: Improved templates for Email, and new Printed Letter and To-do templates.
Print Queue: A filter-able list of all pending print jobs, plus reprint options for past jobs, and envelope and mailing-label printing.
Page Layouts: Customize your Printed Letters with your own Page Layouts. They work with Open Documents (which work with MS Word and Open Office), so you can make your Populi-produced printed materials look however you want them to.
A few major changes to Email (besides Google Apps integration):
People: It's now optional to give someone an email address when you add them as a user.
Navigation: Email's in the high-level navigation now; if you use Google Apps, then that link takes you to Gmail.
Activity Feed: Email visibility settings let you plug them right into the Activity Feed or keep them private.
Academics
The new profile improves how you find and use student Academic information. In addition...
Custom Transcript Layouts: Now you can use a custom Page Layout (see above) for your Official Transcripts. Get a hold of us to get started.
Schedule: A new view in Academic Term shows you the Term's master course schedule in a week-view Calendar. This replaces the Enrollment report view, which is now included as an export option in the Students Table.
Grade and Transcript Locks: Easily apply them on student profiles.
Admissions
New My Prospects view lets Admissions Staff keep track of specific Prospective students. The Activity Feed and new Communications features will also enhance Populi Admissions.
Courses
In addition to iTunes U integration, we updated Forums to included nested replies and added a new Teaching Assistant user role.
Incomplete Students: You no longer need to unfinalize a course to enter grades for an incomplete student.
Reset tests: Faculty can now reset tests for students who need to re-take them or missed them due to illness, etc.
Lessons: While fixing an IE8 display bug, we updated the text editor in lessons; it does a better job of handling copy-pastes from programs like MS Word.
And Miscellaneous Updates, Enhancements, Bugfixes, etc.
Added Financial data to search box: now when you're in the Financial app, you can search for individual transactions, invoices, and credits by number.
Numerous little fixes to dumb ol' Internet Explorer and its myriad display issues.
Fixed an issue where "E" grades counted as "0" in the Gradebook's calculations.
Registrars now get an email alerting them of pending transfer credits.
Fixed the Email People link on Tag pages.
Added official transcript exports to Change Log.
Fixed some issues with fees applying to student accounts when courses were unfinalized and then finalized again.
Added some (hopefully very helpful) text to the Bookstore checkout page.
Grade reports now show course grade as a percent (in addition to the letter grade).
Added email notifications for online payments received.
Registration Lock data added to Data Slicer.
Cleaned up user role collision between Advisors and Registrars for granting degrees.
Specializations show on transcripts now.
Fixed an issue with Degree Audit course group exceptions not applying properly.
Advisors can now print transcripts.
Pass/Fail option added for transfer credits.
Fixed up some display problems on Financial Aid Alerts.
Catalog year option added to student Degrees panel.
Instructor added to course schedule export.
Fixed an issue where students could see files for courses they weren't enrolled in or auditing.
Upgraded date inputs for Custom Info fields.
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