Creating a Report Template from Scratch

Hero has provided report templates to use as starting points, however you may like to create your own report template from scratch to best suit the needs of your school.

This help article covers how to:

• CREATE A NEW TEMPLATE
• CUSTOMISE THE REPORT SECTIONS
• ADD A NEW SECTION
• ADD SECTION CONTENT
• EDIT YOUR TEMPLATES

CREATE A NEW TEMPLATE

1. Navigate to the Customise Hub and select Report Templates

   

2. Click Create New

   

3. Choose to create a template from scratch > click Create

   

4. You can set the theme of your report template. Select the theme to preview.

   

5. By default the template is active, meaning staff can view this template. Click DEACTIVATE to hide from teachers.

   

   Click ACTIVATE to make it available to teachers

   

6. Click Template attributes to reveal the template attributes settings. Here you can edit the name of your template and add a description if you wish.

   Note: teachers and caregivers will see the name of the report template.

   

7. Review the time periods for reporting.  By default it will be set to mid-year and end-of-year with the cut-off months being June and December. You are able to edit or add more reporting periods (milestones) as needed.

   

 

CUSTOMISE THE REPORT SECTIONS

Customise the Report Header

1. Click on the Header section box

   

2. By default you will see the school name and logo, and Student name and avatar (profile image).

   To customise Student name and avatar click the arrow next to this component

   

   Select to include their preferred or legal name, and use the checkboxes to show the student’s class or year level. 

   

   Click Back to Header to continue to customise.

3. To add further information to the header, click + ADD A COMPONENT

   

   Click on a section element to add:

• Paragraph: add some static text that will display for all students, e.g. an explanation or introduction to the report.
• Student detail: display any other specific student fields from your software on the report.

4. Click the Back to report template overview to continue editing your template sections.

   

ADD A NEW SECTION

1. Click + ADD A SECTION

   

2. Select what kind of section to add:
   • Attendance - include an attendance summary
   • Content - include elements such as assessments, teacher comments, next steps
   • Information Page - include a static text based element that will appear here on all student reports. This is unable to be edited by teachers in the report writing process.
   • Leadership Comment - include a space for comment from the leadership team. This section will not count towards the completion of writing reports.

The type of section will dictate the options available below.

Customise Report Content 

(This is where you decide on what subject content you wish to appear on your report.)

CONFIGURE DATA TRIANGULATION (Content Sections)

You must set up the Data Triangulation to ensure the correct curriculum content, evidence and assessment data pulls through to inform your teacher judgements.

1. If you have curriculum content you wish to show on the report for this subject  (e.g. school values) use the drop down menu to select the goal subject.

2. Click the yellow Data triangulation button to add various content to support teachers when making their informed decisions and comments if relevant. Such as next steps, posts and assessments.

   

3. To add a subject to support triangulating data in this section of the report click + ADD SUBJECTS 

   

   Select the relevant curriculum subject for this report section and click DONE

   

4. To add a page to support triangulating data in this section of the report click + ADD PAGES

   

   Select the relevant pages and click DONE 

   

5. To add assessment data to support triangulating data in this section of the report click on + ADD ASSESSMENTS

   

   Choose the relevant assessments and click DONE. 

   

6. Click CONFIRM TRIANGULATION to save

   

ADD SECTION CONTENT

You are able to customise what content will show on the report and how it will be presented.

7. To edit a section title, click to edit.

   

8. To add a new component click + ADD A COMPONENT. 

   To add Descriptor or Visual components, use the dropdown menu to add a subject to the section. Skip this step if you don’t need these components in this section of the report.

   

   Click on a component to add to the report. You will see components available for this section (only have one of each component in a report section except for a paragraph)

   

9.  Possible components and how they can be edited are:

• Teacher Comment, Next steps and Help at home

  These are spaces on the report for narrative

  

  Edit each of these to give a custom label to change the heading if required

  

• Strand/Element Visual

  

  Edit this to change the visual layout from Slider visual (default), Table view with effort or Table view without effort.

  

• Progress Visual

  

  Edit this to change the visual layout from the Table Layout (default) to a Line chart

  

• Progress Descriptor and Effort

  

  Edit these to alter the wording before the label, and to select if the background colour will be the school’s progress colours (eg. blue), or white background for all values.

  

• Assessment Data

  

  Edit this to add assessment modules to display on the report and to choose to display this as Table View (default) or Card view.

  

• Paragraph

  Static text that will be displayed on every report

10. Edit Attendance component

    

    Edit this to change the component title, and choose from the Chart (default) to a table view.

    

11. Continue to add report sections and components to your template then click ACTIVATE to make it active for teachers to begin writing with. See the help article Writing Reports for more information about this process. 

EDIT YOUR TEMPLATES

To edit a finished template later, navigate back to Customise Hub > Report Templates.

Click the template you want to edit, scroll down to the sections, change wording, headings, or components, and click save.

Any changes made will show on reports already being written with this template:

• Reports currently being written: any changes will be shown and new sections will need to be completed to be able to mark the report as ready for review.
• Reports ready to review: when reviewing the report, complete relevant sections that were added after the report was drafted.  
• Reports ready to publish: changes to the template will be updated on reports that are ready to be published. To fill in gaps, click Publish reports > select the reports > change status to Ready to Review. Review the report to edit.

• Reports already published: no changes to the template will be shown on published reports.