Powerschool | Multi Select Tool

Selecting by hand...ain't nobody got time for that

"Multi Select" is a great time-saving tool that is my new favorite Powerschool feature! I love it even more than creating groups and working with groups, which is saying a lot because groups really made life easier. I don't know when Multi Select showed up, but I sure am thankful for it. 

Let me tell you why you're going to love it too...

So what does this do?

This tool allows you to select multiple students at once just by typing or pasting text. It is much faster than the Select By Hand feature which I find to be rather annoying due to the miniscule scroll box it provides. Multi Select is useful when you have a random group of students to select, especially if you only know partial first or last names. I'll explain how to use it and share a few examples of how I've found it to be helpful. 

To find this feature go to the start page and click Multi Select in the options below the main search bar. It is right next to the Stored Selections button, which you're probably familiar with for working with groups.

The Multi Select tool will appear in a pop-up window with 4 search options: 

Student Number
Student State ID
LastName FirstName
FirstName LastName

You'll also notice 2 check box options:

Case Insensitive (slow): Checking this box allows for additional search options which I'll explain more later.

Include Inactive Students: Checking this box makes your search results include students who are no longer actively enrolled at your school.

How to Enter Search Text

For any of the search options you choose you will utilize the big open text box to type or paste the text for your search. Enter each new student on a new line. You can type, delete, cut, paste and do just about anything else you normally would do in a text box. If you fill up the screen a scroll bar will appear. You can also click and drag the bottom right corner to make the box view larger if needed. 

Student Number

The first search option is student number. One way that I have used this is to quickly select a group of students who I have saved in a spreadsheet. For example, I track attendance interventions in excel and often want to run reports in Powerschool for several students based on some criteria already saved in my spreadsheet. I can sort my spreadsheet by any criteria such as students who have received 6 day attendance letters or students whose parents I have not yet contacted. I then select and copy (Ctrl+c) the Student ID column in my spreadsheet. 





Next I go to Powerschool and click on the Multi Select button as pictured above. Choose Student Number in the drop-down menu and then paste (Ctrl+v) the ID numbers that were just copied into the text box. 

for this purpose I usually deselect the Include Inactive Students as I'm not interested in looking at data for students who are no longer enrolled at my school. 

Click Search and wait for the magic to happen. The students you entered will now become your current selection...





Ta-da!




From here you can do anything that you might usually do with a selected group of students. For example, choose any feature under Group Functions such as print reports (including the Attendance Tracking Report) or click Save Stored Selection for a quicker way to create a group rather than through other more tedious selection methods. 

Student number is just one of the selection methods that the Multi Select tool provides. Let's look at the other 3 options...

Student State ID

This refers to a student's Unique Statewide Identifier (UID) for North Carolina DPI. I suppose this may be useful if you had a UID number for a student coming from another county. I haven't used this data point myself, but you can learn more about it here. Do you know where to find a student's UID or how it is useful? 

LastName FirstName

Here comes one of my favorite things about this feature. When using this selection option you can enter student names in the format above, but there is also a great deal of flexibility that helps if you want to search using multiple incomplete names. No punctuation is needed, but you still enter each child on a separate line. You can also use the wildcard symbol @ in many different ways.  

Here are some examples of variations on search entries that will work just fine in the LastName FirstName option:

• Howlett James
• Howlett j
• H James
• howlett (will select all students with the last name "Howlett")
• How (will select all students whose last names begin with "How")
• H (will select all students whose last names begin with "H")
• Ho@ (will select all students whose last names begin with "Ho" regardless of any hyphens, etc.)
• @-@ (will select any student with a hyphenated last name)

To be clear just how versatile the options are, here's an example of a combination of entries and what the selection might look like:

Search box entry:

Parker Peter

batson B

W Slade

Marko

way

Mu@

R

Result: 

Billy Batson

Cain Marko

Ororo Munroe

Matthew Murdock

Peter Parker

Jim Randall

Jaime Reyes

Reed Richards

Martha Roberts

Steven Rogers

Jack Ryder

Slade Wilson

Bruce Wayne

you can copy and paste lists of names from a spreadsheet or other document to make student selection in Powerschool as quick as a few clicks or keyboard shortcuts. This really is as great as it sounds!

FirstName LastName

Just like above you have all the same options only in reverse using this selection option. You can start with first name instead of last name, which is useful if you don't have last names and want to look up several students. Here are examples of search options you could use here: 

• James Howlett
• J Howlett
• James h
• james
• Jam (will select all students whose first names begin with "Jam")
• J (will select all students whose first names begin with "J")
• Ja@ (will select all students whose first names begin with "Ja" regardless of any hyphens, etc.)
• @-@ (will select all students with a hyphenated first name)

Update Selection

Here's an extra special tip that makes these options even more flexible. What if I want to select 3 students and I know James's first name but not his last, Murdock's last name but not his first, and just the first 2 letters of Or...Oro...Ortho, what was that kid's name again? 

Using FirstName LastName here's what you can enter in the search box to get what you need: 

Or@

@ Murdock

James

Your selection results may likely include some other James, Murdocks, Orlandos or Orvilles that you didn't mean to select. To remove them all you need to do is click on Select By Hand then uncheck the box next to the name you want to remove and click on Update Selection. 

Important Note:

When using either the LastName FirstName or FirstName LastName search option I recommend that you ALWAYS check the box Case Insensitive (slow) as this will ensure that all the creative search options you use will work. If you are positive you have the spelling just right and don't want to bother with weeding out names you didn't mean to choose, then leave the box unchecked and your selection will be just right. 

To whoever created this feature I want to say a big thank you! I am so happy to see an option for selecting students that actually works the way our brains function. The reality is that when you are serving 1500+ students you might not always remember everyone's full name and you certainly don't have time for all that box checking. If you can relate I hope this tip helps save some time and brain power!