Setting Up Dynamic Links for HAC and TAC

You can set up dynamic links to enable users in Home Access Center (HAC) and Teacher Access Center (TAC) to access external resources offered by either PowerSchool, your district, or websites on the Internet. These links can be added on the Dynamic Links panel on the following building configuration pages:

• HAC Building Configuration (menu path: Administration, HAC Setup, Setup, and then select HAC Building Configuration)
  
• TAC Building Configuration (menu path: Administration, TAC Setup, Setup, and then select TAC Building Configuration)

In addition, you can create macros on these panels as shortcuts for setting up the links.

• In HAC, dynamic links are displayed on the School Links page.
• In TAC, dynamic links can appear on all pages or selected pages, depending on how the configuration is set up.

The dynamic nature of the links stems from the fact that they may be defined based on contextual information provided by the applications. For example, you can use system-defined macros to pass parameters such as the Student ID. You also can create your macros to provide customized access to additional information.

When a dynamic link appears in a HAC or TAC page, moving the mouse pointer over a link displays the link's description in the bottom left corner of the browser window. The URLs associated with the descriptions will be identical to their URL definitions, except every occurrence of an embedded macro will be replaced with the actual value.

The Dynamic Links panels of the HAC and TAC building configurations include two sections:

Macros Section

The Macros section allows you to enter symbolic names that will be expanded in the links to the values you assign. This can be useful if you have many links that refer to shared drives or IP addresses. If the resources to which the links point are relocated, you only need to change the value of the macro instead of updating all the links individually.

Macros are defined by entering a symbolic name in the Name column and the corresponding value in the Value column. Symbolic names may contain alphanumeric characters as well as the underscore character. When you enter a macro, a blank row automatically displays for the next entry. Selecting the Delete checkbox for a row removes a link when you click Save

Macros may be embedded in URL definitions using the syntax ${macro-name }, where macro-name is the macro's symbolic name. Symbolic macros have been pre-defined for HAC and TAC to pass values that are based on the page's context.

Macros Available for HAC

Following are the pre-defined macros that can be used in a URL in HAC:

${District} - to pass the district number.
${ServerName} - to pass the server name.
${ServerPort} - to pass the server port.
${HACLogin} - to pass the parent/student's HAC login.
${StudentID} - to pass the student ID.
${Grade} - to pass the grade of the student.
${Building} - to pass the building number

Macros Available for TAC

Following are the pre-defined macros that can be used in a URL in TAC:

${District} - to pass the district number.
${ServerName} - to pass the server name.
${ServerPort} - to pass the server port.
${TeacherLogin} - to pass the teacher's TAC login.
${StudentID} - to pass the student ID.
${Grade} - to pass the grade of the student.
${Building} - to pass the building number.
${Course} - to pass the course number.
${Section} - to pass the course's section number.

Note: Depending on the information available on a page in TAC, not all macros will be able to pass information. For example, a course cannot be selected when the teacher is on TAC's My Home page, so a URL for this page should not include the Course macro.

Example:

Follow is an example of a URL for TAC that includes macros:

http://$\{ServerName}:${ServerPort}/dynamic_links/${District}/${Building}/${TeacherLogin}/homepage.html

If the URL references these values...

...then the URL would translate to:

http://tacserver:80/dynamic_links/1/7/MILESDON/homepage.html

Links Section

The Links section in HAC or TAC building configuration is used to enter the links for display in the following pages:

• School Links page in HAC.
• Selected pages in TAC.

Fields

Some of the fields in the Links sections are unique to HAC and TAC, while others are used in both building configurations.

Common Fields

The following fields are displayed in the Links sections of both configurations

• URL - defines the actual link. URL definitions are subject to macro expansion when they are calculated in the context of a given page. For more information concerning macro expansion, refer to the introduction to the Macros section.
• Description - allows you to enter the link's title.
• New Until - accepts a date. On any date before this date, the link's description will include **NEW** to identify it as a new link. If a date is not entered, the description is not affected.

• 

   (Delete) checkbox - enables you to delete links from HAC or TAC. Select one or more checkboxes, then click Save to delete the links.

Unique Fields

The following fields display only in the Links section of the building configuration indicated.

Parameters

You can add parameters to a URL to pass certain values to the external site, for example, a HAC login or student ID. Following are the basic rules for adding parameters:

• The first parameter passed must be preceded by the ? character
• With multiple parameters, each subsequent parameter must be separated by the & character.
• You can use any letter to define a parameter, as long as each letter is unique to the macro you create. For example, you could use g to define the parameter for Grade, which would be expressed as g=$(Grade) in the URL.

Example

In this example, "h" and "s" are used as parameters in links set up for HAC.

• To pass the HAC Login of the current user, append the following to the website address: h=${HACLogin}.
• To pass the Student ID of the student currently being viewed, append the following to the website address: s=${StudentID}.

To pass the HAC Login and Student ID to the MyHACApp.com website, enter the following in the URL field:

http://MyHacApp.com?h=$\{HACLogin}&s=${StudentID}

If the current user's HAC Login is AustinThom and the student's ID is 135791, the URL would translate to:

http://MyHacApp.com/AustinThom/135791