Understanding Advanced Searches

Although searching for a last name like Smith is useful there are many other ways to search in PowerSchool. This article is the starting point for learning about advanced searching. There are also many specific articles regarding searching for students with specific credits, GPAs, courses, etc.

To perform advanced searching there are three important ideas to understand:

1. PowerSchool Fields: The individual data points in PowerSchool
2. Search Operators: The technique used for the search (exact match, partial match, values less than, etc
3. Excluded Student Groups: Some groups are excluded from searches by default.

An advanced search is structured like the following:

A PowerSchool Field Name      +    a Search Operator    +    your input

||                                                ||                       ||

grade_level                                        =                       9

Each of these three key ideas used for searching in PowerSchool are listed in detail below:

PowerSchool Fields: Each point of data captured in PowerSchool is called a field. i.e. A student’s last name, first name, age, grade level, and activity participation are all separate points of data that Glenbard has recorded and are each separate fields in PowerSchool.

1. To find a field name that you do not know click on the View Field List link.
2. Clicking the View Field List link will bring up a list of each student field in PowerSchool.
3. Scroll through the list or to find a field quicker use your internet browser’s Find option.
   1. Typically, press Ctrl-F on a PC or Command-F on a Mac. Or go to your browser’s Edit menu and click Find.
   2. In Firefox, a small find window will pop up at the bottom of your browser.
   3. In the Find search window, type in part of the title of the field that you need to use.
      1. Example: If you know you need to find IEP students but don’t know the name of the PowerSchool field, type IEP.
      2.  Example: If you know you need to look-up students by first name but don’t know the name of the field, type first.
   4.  Click the Next or Find button depending on your browser.
   5.  Your browser will highlight the first place that it finds the word that you typed in. Such as IEP. See figure 2.2.6
   6.  Click Next and your browser will find the next place that your text is listed.
   7.  Continue clicking Next until you find the field that you need.
   8. Click on the name of the field that you need to use.
   9. The field name has now been added to your search bar.

Example: Finding for IEP

1. 1. When typing “IEP” into the Find window, “grd9_IL_IEP” is the first PowerSchool listed in window.
   2. Unless you are specifically looking for grade 9 IEPs, move on and click Next.
   3. Upon clicking Next, “IEP_Date” comes up next in the window.
   4. Unless you are specifically looking for IEP dates, move on and click Next.
   5. Upon clicking Next, “IL_IEP” comes up next in the window.
   6. Stop here. This is the IEP participation that is reported to the Illinois State Board of Education.

Important Note: When looking through the field list, there are a few common prefixes to field names that help give away their purpose in PowerSchool:

• Fields starting with “gc_” are Glenbard clubs such as “gc_fashion_club.”
• Fields starting with “a_” are Glenbard sports such as “a_bgolf” or Boys Golf.
• Fields starting with “IL_” are state reporting fields such as “IL_homeless.”

Search Operators: A search operator is an instruction given to PowerSchool to tell it how to evaluate a particular point of data or field. i.e. One operator is “<=”. Using a <= sign can allow to search for students grades 10 and below (grade_level <= 10).

Search Operators

Excluded Student Groups: Different settings may exclude students from your search.

Inactive Students

• By default, all searches will only return active students.
• If the slash symbol “/” is added at the beginning of a search, inactive students will also be found by the search.

• Example:
  • Searching for “student_number = 10012345” will only return the student with the matching ID, if the student is currently active at Glenbard.
  • Searching for “/student_number = 10012345” will return the student with the matching ID whether the student is currently active at Glenbard or inactive.

Other Schools

• Refer to Know How to Switch Between District and Schools and determine if you are in district mode or viewing PowerSchool as one of the individual high schools.
• If you are currently in district mode, your search will return any student.
• If you are currently under a particular high school, your search will only return students from that school.

• Example:
  • Student 10012345 transferred from East to West.
  • If an East administrator searches for the student, the student will NOT be found.
  • If a West administrator searches for the student, the student WILL be found.
  • If a district user searches for the student while using the district setting, the student WILL be found.