Q.   I started Grades and Plans and all that is visible is a blue bar that says Grades and Plans.   Help?

When Grades and Plans is terminated it saves the size of the window so that the next time you run the program it will be displayed at that size rather than the default.  However, when the program abnormally ends for some reason (e.g., power failure, program error, etc.) the size of the window cannot always be saved correctly.  A similar problem may occur if you change the resolution of your display.

Resolve the problem by placing your cursor on the bottom edge of the blue bar... the cursor should change to a double arrow.  You may then click and drag the window downward to enlarge it vertically.  Place the cursor on the right or left side and do likewise to expand the window horizontally.  Remember that Grades and Plans is best viewed when it's window nearly or completely fills your screen and your display resolution is 800x600 or greater.

Q.    I'm unable to register Grades and Plans.   What do I do?

Make sure you are entering your Name and the Registration Number EXACTLY as it appears on the document you received.   (Note - if you purchased the software via the Internet, the email you received may have called it a "Serial Number".)  Pay particular attention to spelling, upper/lower case, punctuation marks, spaces, etc.  Be doubly careful when entering the Registration Number... it's quite lengthy (30+ characters) and must be entered exactly as given to you. If you continue to have problems, contact us and supply the name and registration number you received... we will contact you with instructions promptly.

Q.    I would like to install my copy of Grades and Plans on both the computer in the classroom and on my computer at home.  Am I allowed to do this and how do I do it?

Yes, you are allowed... the Grades and Plans License you agree to when registering the program specifically allows you to install up to three (3) copies FOR YOUR USE ONLY.   While you can install them on the machines of your choice, our thought was that you might like to install the program on a PC in your classroom, on your laptop, and on a PC at home. You install and register each copy in the identical manner.

Now, the hard part... the database.   As you move from machine to machine, you must also move the database files, which are located in the 'C:\GPData' folder, from machine to machine with you.   If you are fortunate enough to have all of the machines you wish to use on a network, simply copy the database files between PCs via the network.  Otherwise, you will have to transport the files on removable media (e.g., floppy).  Databases are often larger than will fit on a single 1.44Mb floppy disk.  Thus, you will need to use a compression utility (such as WINZIP).  The general procedure is to: Enter your initial data on the machine you will use most... then, when you want to work on another machine, compress/copy the file to your floppy(s), move to the other machine, uncompress/copy the file from floppy(s) to hard disk, enter data on that machine, compress/copy the file back to the floppy(s), move to the next machine, etc.  The weak link here is remembering to copy and/or which direction to copy. If you forget, you will have a potential disaster on your hands, so be extremely careful.

Q.   Why does report generation take so long? How can I speed it up?

The length of time it takes to generate a report is directly proportional to the amount of data contained in the database.  The best advice we can give is to keep as little data in your database as you need (typically, this is the data for one year).  If you need reports for a small number of students, it is usually faster to run a report for all students and then selectively print just the pages you need than it is to run separate reports for each student.

Q.   I have entered the Classes, Students, and Categories.  I am now ready to enter grades, but when I display the Grades Screen and select a Category tab, either no students are listed, or one of the students is missing.  What's wrong?

The Grades grid displays a list of Students and Items for the selected Class in the selected Category.  If NO Students appear, most likely, you have either not entered any Item(s) in the selected Category (perhaps when you entered the Item(s) you selected a different Category than the tab you selected?).  If a list of Students appears, but a particular Student is missing from the list, check that the Student is assigned to the selected Class... do this by opening the Student screen and double-click the button preceding the Student's name, then make sure there's an asterisk in the row containing the Class in question.

Q.    In Version 2.0.1 there seems to be a problem with the calculated composite grades when there are excused grades (ie, "X's"). Is there a bug?

Yes there was a bug. The reports have been corrected in installs 201a and above. Download and install the latest upgrade.

Q.    In Version 2.0.1 I sometimes erroneously get a message indicating 'no data was found which matched my conditions' when running Grade reports.   For example, I often get this if I select a specific GP, Class, and Student.

The problem has been confirmed and a fix is available. The problem only affects reports when the Student name-sort preference is set to "first mi last". Ver 2.0.2 corrects the problem.

Q.    When running the database conversion for Ver. 2.0.x I get a Run Time Error 13 when converting the StudentData file.

This problem sometimes occurs when the Student ID field is blank. A correction is included in Version 2.0.2a.

Q.    Detailed Grade reports in Ver. 2.0.x don't seem to properly sort the categories after the first page.

This problem is resolved in Ver. 2.0.2b.

Q.    Plans I entered some time ago now display garbage, e.g.the edit window displays something like

$%&'()*+,-./.123456789:;<=>?@ABC.EFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ [{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deftab720{\fonttbl{\f0\ fswiss MS Sans Serif;}{\f1\froman\fcharset2 Sy).

Are my Plans lost forever?   Isn't there something you can do to help??

Versions 2.0.1 thru 2.0.4 fell victim to a bug in the database manager used in Grades and Plans.   Under certain conditions involving the deletion of Plans/Templates followed by a Database Compress, the Plans database is corrupted.   There may be other scenarios which also trigger the problem.   The vendor has since corrected this problem and we've included their fix in Grades and Plans Version 2.0.5.    Unfortunately, plans that have been corrupted are unrecoverable from your current database.    However, if you were keeping backups (ALWAYS a good idea!!) we may be able to help... email us!

Q.    I noticed in my Grades&Plans2 folder there are a number of subfolders and files which weren't there before.   What are these and are the necessary??

Grades and Plans maintains a number of backup strategies to help insure data integrity.    Each time you run the "Database Compress" function, prior to compressing the data your existing database folder (GPData) is saved in a folder GPData"X" (where "X" is a number between 1 and 1000)... much the same as if you had copied it to a floppy.   You may also notice some files appearing with filenames starting with "x" (eg, "xPlans_dbfile.dbf").   These are old versions of data files which were converted by Grades and Plans during an upgrade.   You may safely delete these folder(s) and/or files to recover disk space, but we recommend you keep at least the latest version of each as a safeguard.

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