As the new school year begins, here are a few quick setup tasks to help your district run smoothly in Mastery Connect. Throughout this document, there are links to further resources to show you how to complete each of these tasks.
Verify School Assignments
Mastery Connect data gathered by teachers and viewed in reports by school and district administrators is organized and filtered by the teacher’s school location. By making sure a teacher is assigned to the correct school before creating their trackers, you can ensure the data is reported correctly.
How do I check which school my account is assigned to?
- To check which school your account is assigned to, select your account menu and click the Profiles option. Then click the My Profile link.
What should I do if my school assignment is incorrect?
- If your district is providing school assignments via a nightly sync with an SIS, please work with your district/administration to make sure the school assignment is correct in the SIS.
- If your district is not syncing with an SIS (or the school assignment in Mastery Connect needs to be different from what is provided via the SIS), any user with the District Administrator role can change the school assignment from their Manage Teachers tool (and prevent the school from changing with a sync).
Check and update our grades and subjects
- In addition to your school, your account will also show which grades and subjects you teach. This is set and can be edited by each teacher.
Making Correct Selections when Creating Trackers
After confirming that your account is assigned to the correct school, the next step is to create trackers. There are several factors to consider, but here are a few:
- If your district is using Canvas, then we recommend creating new trackers for the school year directly from your Canvas course. This is the most efficient way to ensure your Canvas course is properly linked to your Mastery Connect tracker.
- If your course was copied from a previous school year or semester, you may find Mastery Connect assignments already listed in your new course before your tracker is created. We recommend removing these assignments (with the Mastery Connect icon) before creating your new tracker from the course. This will ensure that the previous years’ assignments do not appear for students in their portal and avoid confusion between previous and current assignments.
Choose Your Rostering Method
Knowing which method to use when adding students will ensure that your student lists stay updated, that students have access to assessments and to data via the student portal, and that the data you collect is visible to the school and district via Mastery Connect’s reporting tools.
- Canvas/SIS - This is the recommended method if your district is utilizing Canvas. During the tracker creation process you may be asked to manually select the corresponding sections.
- Mastery Connect only (no Canvas) using sections - This is the recommended method if your district is not using Canvas but is uploading data from a SIS via a nightly sync. If this is the case, you may have sections available to use. When connected to a section, we’ll update the rosters automatically overnight.
- Mastery Connect only (no Canvas) searching individually - If you would like to manually select the students in your tracker rather than using a district-managed list, you can use the student search to add students individually from your SIS.
- Type-In and Import CSV - These options are intended for free users without access to the SIS options above and are not recommended for use. Students added via this option will have limited access and visibility to data in the tracker and the collected data will not be visible in school or district reporting.
Know Whether to Use Curriculum Maps or to Create a Tracker from a Standard Set
A Curriculum Map acts as a template from which trackers can be created and updated. These can be shared by district administrators to specific schools or by grade levels and subjects taught. Know whether your district wants you to utilize curriculum maps, and make sure to update your profile information to ensure maps can be shared with you. If you are using “Standard set” and your district has District Approved cores active, the core will be populated automatically based on the selected subject.
Note: To edit your grades and subjects, visit How do I edit my Mastery Connect profile?
Missing Sections or Students
We understand that it’s important for rosters (sections) to reflect the correct student lists. Here are some common things to check if you are missing students or sections:
- Is your tracker connected to a section?
If not, students will not be added automatically. You can edit a tracker to link to a section. - Is your tracker connected to the correct section?
It is often the case that multiple sections are provided with the same or similar titles. If you are missing students, make sure you’ve selected the correct section. - Confirm with your SIS administrator, is the student included in a different section?
If you’ve confirmed that your tracker is connected to the correct section, it is possible that the student was added to a different section than was selected. - Was the student added recently?
Once the student is added to your district’s SIS and is configured to be visible to Mastery Connect, the student should be uploaded to or updated in Mastery Connect with the following nightly sync. - What if I am missing entire sections or if students are still missing?
Once you’ve confirmed your tracker is connected to the correct section, and have worked with your SIS administrators to confirm that the student is included in the section, the student and sections are properly configured to share with Mastery Connect, and that they were added more than 24 hours ago, please reach out to Mastery Connect support team for additional review.
Help with Setup
- Check Help Documentation
Many common questions and concerns are answered in our Mastery Connect Community guides on various topics. - Refer to your District’s Processes
Your district may have specific contacts who are assigned to work on and with Mastery Connect. If your district has a specific process in place, please refer to those processes first. - Utilize the District Contact in the “?” Icon
If your school or district has a specific technical contact in place, it may already be listed in the “?” help icon in the top, right-hand corner of Mastery Connect. - What information do I provide when reaching out to support?
If you encounter an issue that needs to be addressed by Mastery Connect, our Mastery Connect support team is available to help. To best expedite your request it is best to specify the problem, and provide any error messages received, screenshots of the problem, as well as 1 or 2 examples of the issue (specific students, specific teachers, specific tracker, etc.). For security we ask that you only provide student names, and not ID numbers, when submitting your request.
