Notifications not working anymore

[SAH0622]

Hi,

I'm using the PowerSchool Mobile App (Version 2.1.5 - 1081 b) on my iPhone (iOS 11.3.1). I have a couple of questions...

1. I can't get the term to change to the current one. My son's school is on the Trimester system and I can't get it to flip from last Trimester to the current one in the Dashboard.
   1. How do I get it to reflect the current term and all its info such as G.P.A.?
      1. Someone mentioned that this might be something the School or the School Dist. has to do on their end. Is this true?
2. Notifications have stopped popping up for grade postings. This stopped after the latest update came through I believe. 
   1. How can I turn them back on?

[ScottS]

Hi @SAH0622,

Thank you for posting in the PowerSchool community!

To answer your first question, the current term setting is controlled by the school or the district. To be able to see the current term data, you will need to reach out to your school district's technical support team and request that they change that setting if policy allows it. If they have issues with changing the setting, they can have an authorized Technical Contact reach out to the PowerSchool Technical Support line so that we can assist in troubleshooting the issue.

As far as your issue with notifications, the behavior that you are seeing is most likely related to not being able to see the current term data, because the app isn't able to see updates to your student's grades, attendance, and other data. However, if the notifications don't start working again after your school updates the setting so that you can see the current data, I would recommend performing the following steps:

1. Log out of the PowerSchool Mobile app
2. Uninstall PowerSchool Mobile from your device
3. Shut down the device and wait 1 minute
4. Start up the device
5. Reinstall PowerSchool Mobie from the App Store
6. Log in to PowerSchool Mobile 

[efitterman]

SAH0622, did ScottS's suggestions work for you? I am having the same issue on my iPhone and I tried uninstalling/reinstalling and it did not work for me.

[mwallace]

my wife and I recently upgraded our iphones to 8s and now our notifications dont work either.

[efitterman]

Interesting. They told me it was my device but I tried reinstalling on an iPhone 6 and an iPad 3 and neither of those received notifications either. And the iPad 3 is not even the new iOS, still running 9.x.

[mwallace]

I did the logout /remove app/ reboot / reinstall. No improvement.

[efitterman]

Yup, I tried the same thing. Nothing worked. 

[kevins]

Hi @mwallace!

Thank you for continuing to bring this to our attention. I am sorry you are still having issues with receiving notifications. I know that can be frustrating.

For those who are having this issue, I would recommend following Scott's initial troubleshooting steps as well as verifying that notifications are enabled for the application in the phone's settings outside of the app as well.

If you are still having trouble with notifications, I would encourage you to reach out to either our Mobile App support or reach out to your School District for further assistance. Our Mobile Support will work with you to try and identify the issue, but it is possible that we may need to work with the School District to verify their setup to see if there could be any issues there. If that is the case, please contact your School District and they can work with us on your behalf if they are unable to resolve the issue from their side.

Below is an article which goes over where you can create a support case with us here through this site if you need to.

https://help.powerschool.com/t5/Announcements-Tips/How-to-get-started-with-the-Case-Portal-in-PowerS...

Thank you again for posting!

-Kevin

[mwallace]

Kevin,

I may be doing it wrong but to open a case i need to be a technical representative of the school, which im not.

So here is where I strand so far.

I have done the logout/remove/reboot/reinstall and relogin.

I have checked all my notification settings in the app and ios.

I have an iphone 8 with the latest IOS.

I have reached out to the parents in my community and i get some still get notification and some who lost them mid may like me, so i dont think its a school issue.

How do i engage app support as a parent?

[efitterman]

I have tried all of these things too and reached out to app support. They ran some tests on their end with my personal login and said they were getting notifications and couldn't figure out why I wasn't.

I just learned today that another student (friend of my son) recently stopped getting notifications as well and he's on an iPhone 7. However, some parents and their children are still getting notifications.

I was told by app support to contact my school administrator...except I have no clue who is in charge of PowerSchool at the local high school but I will do my homework and see if it's something on their end. 

[mwallace]

Im guessing its a problem with the app. Cant be that we all started having problems at the same time and are with different schools.

I'm wondering if prople who dont have the problem, if they have an older version of the app.

It could also be there is something corrupt with the app on our phones. I would assume removing it cleared that but i can say for sure.

[efitterman]

I even went so far as uninstalling the app and not reinstalling for 24 hours because I thought maybe it was the iOS update. But other parents have the same iOS as I do and they are still getting notifications and I'm not.

I'm going to reach out to the school tomorrow to see if anyone else has complained about this issue.

[efitterman]

So here's something that's interesting. I looked at the reviews of the PowerSchool app on iTunes and it seems that since the latest upgrade back in March, people are complaining that grades don't update and they aren't receiving notifications.

The app has 2.2 star review average. Do the PowerSchool techs not read the reviews???

[ScottS]

Hi @efitterman and @mwallace,

It sounds like you are both still having issues with grades synchronizing with your school's PowerSchool. In situations like this, I typically recommend sending an email through your Mobile Device to mobile.support@powerschool.com. The Moible App Support Team can walk you through some of the more advanced troubleshooting steps.

However, it's possible that there is a configuration issue with your school's PowerSchool server. In that instance, I would recommend reaching out to your school's support team for PowerSchool. They may need to see what's happening on your device, and they may also need to set a temporary password on your parent account so that they can replicate the issue. From that point they will be able to reach out directly to our technical support team to create a ticket and troubleshoot the issue from the server side.

[efitterman]

I already worked with mobile support and was told they couldn't replicate the problem on their side. I would need to contact my school.

[mwallace]

So the app syncs the grades but does not send notifications when it gets an update.

Also, would it be a school problem if some other parents do get the notifications? It doesn’t seem to be an all or nothing problem with the patent population at my school. It seems to revolve around new phones or updated apps or a combination of both.

[efitterman]

Something I have noticed is the grades sync on my desktop but when I look at the app, they will not be synced to what is on my desktop, takes a few seconds for the grades to update.

AND I have Background Refresh Apps turned on for PowerSchool so the app should be refreshing on its own.

[joshk]

Good afternoon all!

Thank you for taking time to provide the details of the errors you have been experiencing through the mobile app. I wanted to touch base and let you know that the absence of push notifications is part of a known issue that some users have experienced. At this time PowerSchool is working to correct that across the board to help ensure all users are able to leverage all of the features that the Mobile app has to offer. While there is not yet a timeline for the next release date for the Mobile app, the next release should fix push notifications for those that do not receive them. Please keep an eye out for release notifications within the App Store and Google Play for that fix!

As a best practice, any issues related to the PowerSchool Mobile app should be reported to your school so that it may be forwarded to their IT department. While we certainly encourage both discussions in the Community and submitting mobile support cases through the 'Help' area of the app, reporting issues with the app to your school will help the school's IT department better report patterns of behavior throughout the district which our Support team can identify and correct much faster moving forward.

Best,

JoshK

PowerSchool Community Moderator

[efitterman]

I did report the issue to the school but they have not been experiencing any issues, nor has anyone else contacted them about not receiving notifications.

The admin changed my login and I will see if that works.

[joshk]

Good afternoon everyone! 

I wanted to let you all know that version 2.2.0 was released yesterday with the push notification fix for the mobile app. This version should be available for download at this time. Thank you for letting the Community know so it could be addressed and please let us know if you are successful in receiving push notifications after the update!

Best,

JoshK

PowerSchool Community Moderator 

[efitterman]

Thank you for letting us know! My son and I have updated the app on both of our phones. Today is the last day of school and all his final grades have already gone into PowerSchool. Hopefully next school year, I will start receiving notifications again.