If you logged into School Jotter this morning, you might have noticed a few changes. Or perhaps not, a lot of what we’re doing is behind the scenes and designed to make School Jotter run better than ever.

System Changes

• The way we display graphs has improved in our Surveys, Spellings, MIS Portal, and Merits apps.
• Stability, performance and security changes.

Dashboard

• The School Jotter app store can now be accessed via the blue + at the bottom right of the dashboard.

Why not try a new app to enhance the functionality of School Jotter? Many are available on a 30 day, no-obligation FREE trial!

Office 365 Integration

• Synchronisation has been improved when using multiple Office 365 calendars.
• Word, Excel and Powerpoint shortcut tiles display when that user has logged in with an Office 365 account.

Does your school use Office 365? Ask your account manager about our School Jotter / Office 365 integration.

Site App

• Slideshow captions can contain special characters and there is no limit to their length. (If your school’s website doesn’t support customisable header slideshows then call us to discuss getting a theme redesign. We can refresh, update, and modernise your school’s image at the same time!)
• Improvements to site search security and performance.
• Changes have been made to help improve SEO.
• An issue that prevented some of February’s webstat data from loading has been resolved.
• An issue that affected private page permissions has been resolved.
• An issue where apostrophes were occasionally shown incorrectly in emails that were sent out has been resolved.
• An issue where accordions could have an incorrect layout has been addressed.

Have you tried inserting an accordion to your website? It’s great for FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions.)

Broadcast App

• Reliability of sending SMS text messages has been improved.
• A character count has been added when composing SMS text messages.

Learn App

• Admin users can view and manage all learning sites.
• An issue with the styling of Wiki Resources has been resolved.
• An issue with the display of Animated Sequence Resources has been resolved.
• An issue with saving Link Resources in the resource manager has been resolved.

SIMS Integration

• Users that are disabled in SIMS will now also be disabled in School Jotter upon the next sync.
• Admins can now choose not to sync email addresses from SIMS for certain user roles. This is really useful if you store parent emails against student records in SIMS.

Purple Mash Integration

• Single Sign On (SSO) will now work for users that do not have their firstname and surname saved in their School Jotter profile.

Picture Logins

• An issue where incorrect picture login passwords could be generated has been resolved.

Address Book

• The address book will now show a count of how many contacts have been selected.

Don’t forget to press the ? icon to the right of your username at any time to bring the help sheets and videos up in an adjacent tab, this is especially useful for the All Apps Help section!

“Phishing” is what happens when someone manages to get control of your username and password through pretending to be in a position of authority. It can take many forms, from fake phonecalls to emails inviting you to a website where you’re told you need to “re-enter username and password”, and all it does is report these back to the phisher.

We’ve talked in the past about staying safe online, but phishers use tactics specifically designed to get around the defences you build up. Here’s our top tips for avoiding getting caught out:

Set up a call to discuss your digital marketing goals

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Welcome back to the new year – here’s your first tips post of 2016!
There are many reasons you might want to add a private page to your website. Perhaps you’d like a hidden section for governors’ meeting minutes, or a repository of information to a specific class, or a form that only parents can access – the possibilities are endless.
Luckily, creating a password-restricted page is easy. First of all, enter Edit mode on your site and click Manage then Pages.

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Coming to you slightly early this month so as to keep you company over the frosty nights, the Webanywhere Podcast this month takes a look at Christmas traditions around the world, the PiZero & online security. So pull up an armchair, pour yourself something mulled and enjoy this month’s podcast:

As the UK’s largest provider of school websites, website security is of course an issue of utmost importance to us, and your security as customers is paramount. Here’s a list of our recommended tips to help keep you safe online!
1. Never give out your password to anybody.
This is the single most important piece of advice we can offer. It doesn’t matter how strong or weak your password is, keep it to yourself. Never send it in emails or store it in text files on your PC. And remember, Webanywhere staff will never ask for your password!

2. Make sure you know where you’re entering your password.
Ensure the website you’re using is the correct one at all times – sometimes login pages can be “spoofed”, so you might be taken to paypal-com-log.in, rather than paypal.com/login. These are sites designed to capture your username and password.
3. Use a different password for every site.
If you use the same password on every website, don’t. Don’t do this. Often, attacks on websites are “dictionary” based, meaning they’ll take existing lists of usernames and passwords from other hacked websites and try them on new ones. If you use the same password for everything, this makes all your accounts vulnerable if one of them is compromised.
4. Use a password manager.
In conjunction with point 3, a password manager can help generate and store secure, unique passwords for every site you visit. We can recommend LastPass for this.
5. If you see something, say something.
If you think your account has been compromised, contact us as quickly as possible on either helpdesk@webanywhere.co.uk or 0800 862 0131 (free from landlines and mobiles). Similarly, if you get an email asking for your password, let us know – again, official Webanywhere emails will never ask for your password! Students can also report problems using the Jotter Safety Shield button.
It’s important to always be careful what you’re doing online – the Internet can be a potentially dangerous place, but by following these tips you should be able to keep yourself safe from the vast majority of attacks out there. If you’d like more information, please contact us at education@webanywhere.co.uk.

Those of you who logged into School Jotter recently might have noticed a new button in the top right of your dashboard – a shield.

This is Jotter Safety Shield – our latest tool to help you, your students and your staff deal with potentially harmful or offensive content. It’s a free update, included with all relevant School Jotter products, and you won’t have to do anything to activate it – it should have already appeared in your dashboard!
So what does clicking it do?

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