Infinite Campus 101
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Description: This overview is intended to introduce users to basic Infinite Campus functions. At the end of the course, users should be able to:
Access Infinite Campus
Find help and resources for Infinite Campus
Search for student information
Find and run reports
Understand various tab sets and modules
About Infinite Campus (IC)
Infinite Campus (IC) is our Student Information System for Columbus City Schools. It is the primary record to all student data in the District. Because it is web based, it can be accessed anywhere on any device. There is even a portal for students and parents to access their information online.
Where can you access IC?
CCS Intranet > Quick Links
CCS Internet Page> Staff Page
Direct URL: https://campus.columbus.k12.oh.us/campus/columbusCity.jsp
Use your active directory username and password when logging in to IC. These are the same credentials you use to log into a District computer and your Outlook email account.
Accessing the IC Sandbox for this Course
Infinite Campus Sandbox -The sandbox is a test environment for users to practice using Infinite Campus in a safe space that will not affect student data.
Never log in to Infinite Campus more than once IN THE SAME BROWSER!
To log in to the sandbox use the same active directory username and password that you would use to log in to the live version of Infinite Campus. New employees may not have access to the Sandbox for the first 30 days of employment.
User Security
With great power comes great responsibility!
User security is very important in Columbus City Schools. Use your active directory username and password to log in to IC. Keep in mind that tool rights in IC are assigned based on your job classification. There are different levels of access for different employees. Therefore, DO NOT SHARE YOUR PASSWORD WITH ANYONE! If someone needs to complete a task that they do not have tool rights for, they must submit a request for additional IC tool rights on CCSDAS.
Remember to always lock your computer when you are walking away from your work area. The system will time out after 60 minutes of inactivity. It will also lock you out after 5 unsuccessful attempts to log in. For help with this issue, contact the Help Desk at 8425.
Infinite Campus Support
There are four main options to obtain support for Infinite Campus users:
Infinite Campus Dashboard - The Infinite Campus Dashboard is our virtual knowledge base of instructions and information. It was created by Columbus City Schools specifically for our users. It includes instructions and guidelines on how to complete tasks specific to our District and is your primary resource for help. To access the Dashboard, log in to IC, click on the Index tab, click Links, and select Infinite Campus Dashboard.
Campus Community – This is the knowledge center that was created by Infinite Campus. It shows instructions on how to use the core product. There are videos, written instructions and hands-on lab exercises to help users. To access Campus Community, log in to IC, click on the app switcher and select Community. You may have to log in the first time that you enter this site, however, you will never be asked to authenticate again after this instance.
Infinite Campus Support Ticket – if you are still unable to get your question answered, please enter a support ticket with as much detail as possible. You can find the instructions for how to enter a support ticket on the Dashboard, as well as a link.
Student Data Specialists (SDS) - The Student Data Specialist is a source of support and guidance regarding student data and its interactions with IC and associated support systems for various building staff. They visit the schools on a regular basis throughout the school year and can provide on-site training sessions and guidance on the reconciliation of errors identified through Certify and IC reports.
Additional Support Systems
There are additional support systems used with IC to support our data integrity and optimize our workflow procedures. Here is a brief description of each:
CCSDAS - Columbus City Schools provides workflows through the Distributed Application Services (DAS) This tool provides greater information, additional enhancements, and greater ease when completing the following processes:
Withdrawals
Academic Grade Changes
Grade Level Changes
Data Requests
Additional Tool Rights in Infinite Campus
The CCSDAS was designed for use with Google Chrome. Use of other browsers may cause performance issues and a degraded user experience.
Log in to CCSDAS using your active directory username and password.
Certify – Certica’s enterprise data quality solution, Certify, allows districts to automatically monitor, measure and report on data quality and compliance issues – enabling school and district data owners to ensure funding, accountability, and high-quality data. Each IC user receives a scorecard every morning evaluating their data quality. There is an overview video on the Dashboard to introduce users to Certify and its role in our District.
PSW (PublicSchoolWorks) - To provide efficient, specialized, online training, Columbus City Schools contracts with PublicSchoolWorks to offer all staff access to electronic professional development opportunities. PublicSchoolWorks provides more than 400 online training programs, including courses needed to fulfill state and federal mandates. District supervisors and principals determine which courses their staff will be required to take. Required courses can be completed during the workday. Staff are welcome to complete elective courses on their own.
All staff that utilizes the Behavior, Scheduling, and Attendance modules in Infinite Campus are required to complete a knowledge assessment with an 80% or better score. All assessments must be taken yearly to maintain tool rights to enter data into IC. Those who have not completed their required assessments will have security rights revoked from these modules until ALL required courses have been completed successfully.
To access the PSW site, go to the CCS internet page, click on Staff, and follow the directions. To log in to PSW, your username is your first initial and last name. Your password is your Employee ID number. Please do not change your password. If you are not able to log into PSW, please email PublicSchoolWorks@columbus.k12.oh.us with your full name and employee ID number.
Navigating IC
There are four main areas in IC – Action Bar, the Workspace, the Index tab, and the Search tab.
The Action Bar is the bar at the top of the screen that includes:
Year - View historical data by choosing another school year from the drop-down menu. Make sure you are in the current school year when entering data.
School (choose a specific school)
Schedule/Calendar – some schools have additional calendars attached to them, such as K-8 schools.
App Switcher
Campus Community/Campus Passport
Campus Instruction
All Attendance must be taken in IC.
All HS and MS teachers enter assignments in IC – no other grade books allowed.
New grade book module for ES teachers.
Log Off
The Workspace is the central area of IC where work is done. On your initial log in, the following information shows on the workspace:
Notices
District Notices
School Notices
Process Inbox – messages sent specifically to you-not an email system.
Toggle - Click the Toggle Button to hide the left panel containing the Index, Search, and Help tabs. Once hidden, click the Toggle button again to return the tabs to view.
The Index tab holds all the tools in campus organized by modules that show along the left side of the page. Modules can be expanded to show additional folders. All functionality in IC is performed through use of one of these two tabs. Index – displays all the modules of the Infinite Campus system, according to Tool Rights.
Name at top will bring back to home page (Breadcrumb).
Click on the name to expand the module.
The Search Tab allows users to perform a search in Campus for a Student, Person, Staff, Household, Address, etc. according to tool. A full description of each search option is in the next section.
Searching IC
Infinite Campus provides two main search types:
Search Tab - Quick searching, based on the filter selected in the Search for a field and the criteria entered by a user.
Advanced Search - Advanced searching based on additional criteria, as chosen by the user.
Search Tab – This tab contains drop-down menus for different types of searches - enter specific criteria, when possible. The Search tab will also appear automatically when a user selects a module from the Index that requires additional information be entered to filter records. Here is a list of the different search options:
Student - Returns students based on the entered last name or last name/first name combination. Results are based on the following:
The current user's tool rights.
An enrollment record within the selected school year.
The year/school/calendar/section displayed in the Campus toolbar.
Students displayed in black font are actively enrolled; students displayed in red font are not actively enrolled in selected school.
State ID - Returns students matching the State ID entered.
Staff - Returns staff members based on the entered last name or last name/first name combination.
Staff members displayed in blue font are actively employed.
All People - Returns staff, students and other people entered in Census.
Accepts the following search criteria: Name, Student Number and Staff Number
Students that display in red when searching for all people are withdrawn from the district.
Course/Section - Returns course names or course numbers related to the school/calendar displayed in the Campus toolbar.
Address - Returns address information based on street number or street name.
Do not enter directional values or specific street descriptions (i.e., Rd., Dr., North, South).
Household - Returns names of households, persons with the name who are members of the household and street names.
Can search by student number.
Advanced Search - The Advanced Search link on the Search tab allows users to enter more specific criteria by which to search, including Ad hoc filters when applicable. Advanced searching allows users to continuously narrow a set of results by stacking additional criteria on each set of search results. For example, an advanced Student search for females will return all enrolled female students. Then, if the user enters a grade level of "10" and searches again, only tenth-grade female students will be returned.
Using Wildcard Methods While Searching IC
Utilizing wildcard methods when searching may increase and improve search results. Wildcard searching can be used in the following areas of Campus:
Search Tab
Advanced Searches
Ad hoc filters
The following are used as wildcards:
The percent sign (%) can be used at the beginning of or surrounding a character string will return strings in which the criteria is contained:
%06 and %06% will both return 114680633, 062839 and 8906.
%man and %man% will both return Goodman and Mansfield.
%Math and %Math% will both return 100341 Elementary Math, Exploratory Math Lab, Mathematics 1293.
% at the end of a character string will return the same results as entering the string by itself:
Math% will return Math.
12345% will return 12345.
Student Information General Tab Set
The Student Information General tab set is the most common tab set in IC. This tab set contains tabs for entering student data such as attendance, schedules, enrollment records, graduation records, grades, transcripts, and uploading student documents. The following is a list of the tabs most commonly viewable by all users in this tab set. Keep in mind that the tabs you will see in IC are based on your user tool rights.
Student Information located across the top of the screen.
Nickname
Flags (alerts)
Grade
Student number
DOB
Gender
Summary Tab - The Summary tab lists basic student information to provide a quick look at student data. This is a read-only tab that displays data entered in Census tools.
New View for 2019 SY – can share feedback about new look and functionality.
Print Person Summary Report with or without picture.
Print single mailing label or envelope.
Generate report of a student’s demographic information.
Profile Tab - The Student Profile tab displays a current snapshot of the student's grades, attendance data, behavior incidents and course work. This is a read-only tab, but users can view detailed information from this tab.
Documents Tab (Electronic CUM Folder)
Personal Student Documents
Central Enrollment – Registration
Grade Level Change Forms
Withdrawal Forms
Behavior Letters
Enrollment Tab - The Enrollments tab displays all occurrences of a student’s enrollment in the district. Enrollments are listed by enrollment start date. To reorder the list of enrollments, click the blue hyper-linked headers in the Enrollments Editor list. The list of enrollments can be sorted by Grade, Calendar, Start Date or End Date.
View current/previous enrollments
Enrollment Types:
Primary enrollment-Main enrollment for the student
Secondary enrollment-Used for students that have a secondary enrollment at another school.
Examples: VCAP, Gifted, Options for Success, Career Center, Columbus State Community College, Global Academy, Juvenile Detention Facility.
Charter/Private Schools-These are transportation requests, entered by the parent through the CCSDAS.
Enrollment Start and End Dates
Add or end an enrollment for a student.
Enter and view state-mandated data elements for reporting purposes.
Schedule (Must have the correct school selected to see information on this tab) - The Schedule tab allows users to view and print the student's scheduled courses in multiple formats. The student's schedule can be used to find where the student is during the day, to determine which courses the student should be taking in future years and to print the student's schedule.
View Schedule
Every Student MUST have a schedule a course scheduled for every period of every day.
Schedules hold attendance and grades!
Modifying a schedule incorrectly will delete attendance and grades!
Deleting a schedule
Schedule changes are effective the next day.
Course Start and End Dates
How changing a schedule can affect attendance.
New Walk-In Scheduler for 2019 SY
Attendance (Must have the correct school selected to see information on this tab) - All attendance data for each student is displayed on the Attendance tab. This information is given at the detail level for each day. Summaries are available both by term and course. Attendance events are color-coded according to the key at the top of the tab.
View daily attendance by school or student.
Hover over to view user/date entered.
Absent Note Coding
Edit or add an attendance record for a student.
Generate Attendance Reports
Flags - The Flags tab indicates to a user that a student has special information on file in the office, has certain living requirements or may be involved in a special program that uses flags (like allergies or family alerts). There is no limit to the number of flags that can be assigned to a student.
Assign a flag to a student.
End, Delete, or Modify a flag for a student.
Grades (Must have the correct school selected to see information on this tab) - The student's Grades tab lists the grades the student received for each grading task or standard assigned to the course, including grading tasks and standards that are assessed one time throughout the student's school career.
Editing Grades/Required documentation.
Post Grades to Transcript.
View assignment scores for a particular teacher’s course.
Run single report card or grading reports.
Transcript - A transcript is a historical record of a student's performance in a course that awards credit to the student. This is not the Columbus Custom Transcript – that can be found on the Index tab, under Grading and Standards, Reports.
Behavior - The Student Behavior tab provides a history of the student’s behavior events. This collection of student information can be used to review an individual's participation in behavior incidents, such as in a conference with parents. Information about other participants is not included in this tab. Behavior records do not lock and can be edited at any time. Incidents appear in date order grouped by the calendar of enrollment.
View individual student events (incidents)
View Resolutions
Entering Behavior
Bullying
Suspensions
Expulsions
PK – 3 Codes
Assessments - Student test scores can be viewed, manually entered and/or imported to the student Assessments tab.
Contact Log Tab – A log of contacts initiated by school staff to the parent/guardian of students in their building are all recorded in the Contact Log. This log will allow the user to log multiple forms of contact such as text, phone, Zoom, email, and in-person meetings.
Other Tabs
Transportation
Fees
Student Miscellaneous
Acceptable Use Policy
Code of Conduct
Internet Safety
Census Tab Set
The census tab set is found under the Census module on the Index tab. The following tabs are located here:
Demographics - Contains specific details about the person - name, birth date, student or staff number, race/ethnicity, and state student id number (SSID).
Identities - Notes previous existence of a person with different name or birth date.
Households - Notes where the individuals address and specifies other members of the family in that home. Also contains information on emergency contacts.
Relationships - Indicates linkage to other people in IC such as guardian and siblings.
Index Tab Extras
Custom and Canned Reports – there are a numerous number of reports in Infinite Campus under each module. Running reports does not affect data in any way, so we recommend you take time to run different reports.
Ad Hoc – Ad Hoc Reporting tools provide users with the ability to filter, display and report specific database information based on defined criteria. Ad hoc filters can also be used in conjunction with many reports throughout Campus to further filter results to a specific set of data or students.
Filter Designer - The Filter Designer provides a tool for the end user to select certain fields located throughout the product and place them in one central report. Filters are a selection of data (student, census/staff, courses/section) used to generate other custom reports, report cards, mailing labels, etc. Filters that have been created previously and saved will appear in the Saved Filters box on the left-hand side of the screen. When selected, users can choose to Search, Edit, Test, Copy, Delete, or Export the filter. Filter Designer allows users to build reports three different ways:
The Query Wizard allows users to create a filter by selecting specific data fields from within the product.
The Selection Editor allows users to manually select a group of students for whom a report can be run. This editor is for creating student filters only.
A Pass-Through SQL Query allows users with basic SQL and Campus schema knowledge to build their own queries on student information.
Data Export - The Data Export tool allows users to view the results of Ad hoc filters in multiple report formats and files. All Ad hoc filters created via the Filter Designer can be exported via the Data Export tool.
Can download as an Excel file (CSV) or a PDF
Other Tabs directly related to your job.
Related articles
Department of Accountability & Other Support Services
Division of Information Management