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iAccu Quick Start

Don't have time to view this online? Then simply download our iAccu Quick Start Guide (PDF).

In this guide you will learn how to quickly set up Accudemia and your iPod/iPhone devices to work together to collect attendance. The first step needed is to setup an Accudemia account, and load all your information into it. Then you will learn how to install the required software on your iPod and set up iAccu to start tracking attendance.

Signing in to your Accudemia Account

You probably already have access to your Accudemia account, if not request a free trial. Once you're logged in, look the menu on the left and you will find lots of options to see your account information.

Centers and Classrooms is a good point to start. Click on the menu and the click the Create New button in the tool bar. There you can choose whether to create a center or a classroom, it´s important to know the differences and pick the right one. Creating a center, will allow tutors to create their own schedule and students to create appointments with specific tutors; also both students and tutors will be able to sign-in to the center so you can know how long they were in. Classrooms are intended for normal classes instead, where you can schedule regular courses that take place every week at a certain time and all enrolled students can sign-in when the class is taking place. Remember to hit Save Changes once you have entered all the information.

Next, click on Terms (or Semesters) on the left. Create a new semester, so students can be enrolled to classes in that semester. There's information such as user accounts, centers and subject areas that do not change overtime; but there's other things such as student enrollment, tutor schedules and appointments that are defined per semester. Every time a new semester starts users will have to update such information.

Now, the only thing left is to load the Students, tutors and classes. If you are just testing, you can go to User Accounts or Subject Areas and manually create such information. Otherwise, you might prefer to import the data; to do so, please review the Data Exchange - Importing and Exporting help.

Setting up an Apple Device

To start tracking attendance in your device, you need an Apple iPod, iPhone or iPad with the operating system updated to iOS 4.0 or later. Once you have your device updated to the latest version, you can download iAccu for free from the Apple website using iTunes or directly from App store on the Apple device. If you have the device connected on your computer, click on the following link to download it: Download iAccu

Once iAccu was installed, you can launch the application and sign-in using your Accudemia credentials. The device needs to have Internet at this point. Enter your user ID, the password and the domain. The domain is what you type to access Accudemia, without the accudemia.net part. For example, if you access Accudemia by typing http://myschool.accudemia.net, then you just need to use your school info for the “myschool” in the domain.

As it is the first time that the device connects to Accudemia, you need to login to Accudemia in your browser and activate the device. To do so:

  1. Click on Sign-In Stations → iAccu on the left menu.
  2. Then select the device and click on Activate.

After it's done, go back to your iPod and click on Sync, or sign-out and sign back in. Downloading the data might take a few minutes, depending on the amount of data you have loaded in your account.

Capturing attendance

After you launch the iAccu application, you can click on either Center Attendance or Class Attendance, depending on what you whan to track. Remember that center attendance will allow tutors to create their own schedule and students to create appointments with specific tutors; also both students and tutors will be able to sign-in to the center so you can know how long they were in. Class attendance is intended for normal classes instead, where you can schedule regular courses that take place every week at a certain time and all enrolled students can sign-in when the class is taking place.

Then you have to select the center/classroom where you currently are and the other information the application might request to make sign-ins faster. Then, you can start swiping your ID cards if you have purchased a card reader, otherwise you can just type in the student IDs.

The final step is to Sync your device again to upload the recorded data to Accudemia. Remember iAccu works offline so you can carry it with you and track attendance everywhere you are, so you have to manually sync the device when you have Internet access.

Customizing your iAccu Device

After you sign-in, click on Settings to customize the way the device will track attendance. There you will see several options you should explore before start recording sign-ins:

  • ID Management: Lets you choose how to extract the id that is saved in the card. Click on Show raw swipe first so you know what is stored in the card. Then go back and change the options ID start and length so the ID is trimmed. Using the Show edited swipe lets you see how the ID will be taken from the card; it must be the same that you have loaded in Accudemia for the students.
  • Clear database: It lets you reset your device. It's usually not necessary unless you want to start from scratch.
  • Sync: Select whether you want to download the profile pictures so you see the photo of the user when they sign-in.
  • Enable Sounds: Enable if you want to hear a beep when someone signs-in.
  • Lock Screen: If enabled, you will be prompted for a password to get out of the sign-in station mode. This way, you can give the device to students and be sure they won't change other settings.
  • Center based: Here you will find a bunch of options regarding center attendance tracking, where you can define selection defaults, enable comments, and setup automatic sign-out.
  • Class based: These options allow you to control how sign-ins to classes are recorded, and what happens when a student which is not registered signs-in.
  • Unknown Person: Choose whether unknown users will be able to sign-in, or will be rejected.
  • Require Confirmation: If enabled, users will have to confirm before signing in. It adds a simple step at the end of the sign in procedure to prevent wrong sign-ins.

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