Intuitive User Interface
Many Overseer sales to schools are the result of a transition between secretaries. The out-going secretary may have had a collection of computer documents containing all of her information on families, students, classes, committee members etc., but the in-coming secretary struggles to learn the patchwork school information “system”. The intuitive user interface of the Overseer applications is recognized as a much more organized way of managing information – and a sale ensues!
Overseer Admin, the application designed for office staff, has a simple, consistent way of managing information on classes, students, teachers, bus routes, families, children, adults, groups, committees and organizations.
When any of these entities is chosen, either by a menu selection or by a toolbar button, a sorted list of all database entries for the chosen entity will appear in a list box. For example, a list of all students may be invoked via the Session | Students menu option. One of the filters and/or optional constraints may be used to select a subset of students (e.g. students in grade: 6).
A particular student may be highlighted with the mouse and the Details button may be clicked to display the Student detail tabsheets for that student. The user may browse the available student data by clicking on the relevant tabsheets. Most tabsheets support editing of information by clicking an Edit button, then End Edit at the close of editing. Alternatively, navigational hot-buttons may be clicked to open related data of a different entity type (e.g. family information for the selected student).
A Print button below the listbox provides access to all individual reports for the selected student, as well as to all group reports for all students listed in the student listbox. Most reports may be previewed on the screen before printing.
A Count window (Cnt) reports the total number of items in the listbox. Depending upon the entity type, there may be additional buttons, e.g. for adding or deleting listbox member records.
All data entries are validated before acceptance. If two persons or organizations have identical names, one or both of them must be assigned a unique qualifier to distinguish them in lists.
Overseer LAN has similar appearance to Overseer Admin, except that listboxes are only available for students and classes taught by the active teacher.
Overseer Grades uses spreadsheet formats for the display of student marks and test scores based on the currently selected class file, subject area file or term summary file.
Overseer Reports uses a single form to organize and represent the full specification of a report card design template. Data may be viewed or edited via a set of tabsheets within the form.
Context sensitive on-line help is available from every screen of all Overseer applications to provide explanatory information about the active screen and/or instructions about using or editing the displayed information.
