PowerTeacher 2.8 and new Gradebook

[Eigger]

Class is going to start real soon. Our Ed-tech dept. requested to add the new Gradebook to Casper as a policy and to Deploy to all Teachers. I downloaded the DMG file from PowerTeacher and I noticed that it has installer.app inside the DMG. Anybody here deployed the New Gradebook before? please be so kind to share your techniques.

[millersc]

Not with any success as of yet. When Pearson gets their ducks in a row, it will be HTML5 and no installer needed. If someone has found a good way, I'd love to hear to also.

[CasperSally]

I made a package with Gradebook and desktop shortcut with FUT/FEU.

It's the worst programming I've ever seen that it installs into the users folder - into a new folder called Applications I think.

The teachers still need to go into PS once to manually launch/activate the shortcut. After that, they can launch Gradebook with the desktop shortcut.

Seems to work fine.

[dmohs]

I built a custom package in Composer. I included...
/Applications/Gradebook.app
/Users/username/Library/Caches/Pearson/pbwebstart.ptg

The file "pbwebstart.ptg" is the preference file that contains school-specific information. By including this file, the teachers need not perform an initial launch via PowerSchool's web interface.

Unfortunately Pearson chose to place the preference file in Caches, thereby causing it to be occasionally erased. As a result, I have placed an ongoing policy in Self Service, enabling teachers to easily re-install.

[hesterd]

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread. Has anyone been able to find a reliable method for this? I cannot get @dmohs or @CasperSally solutions to work. We have at least 400 machines that need the new gradebook installed. Before it was download as an app inside of a dmg. That was simple enough to distribute. Now, the new gradebook installer is an applescript wrapped inside of an app. Here is the contents of the script:

tell application "Finder"
    set homeFolder to (path to home folder as text)
    set appFolder to (path to home folder as text) & "Applications"
    try
        if not (exists folder appFolder) then
            make new folder at homeFolder with properties {name:"Applications"}
        end if
    on error errText number errNum
        display dialog "Could not create ~/Applications directory at: " & POSIX path of appFolder & "/Gradebook" buttons {"ok"}
        return
    end try

    set gradebookFolder to (path to home folder as text) & "Applications:Gradebook"

    if (exists gradebookFolder) then
        set question to display dialog "The Gradebook application is already installed.  Do you want to overwrite it?" buttons {"Yes", "Quit"} default button 2
        set answer to button returned of question
        if answer is equal to "Quit" then
            beep
            return
        end if
        tell application "Finder" to delete gradebookFolder
    end if

    #delete the old alias if one exists
    set desktopFolder to (path to desktop folder as text) & "Gradebook Login"
    try
        delete desktopFolder
    end try

    try
        set inputFolder to ((container of (path to me)) as text) & ".Gradebook.app"
        #display dialog "Input folder: " & inputFolder & " Output folder: " & appFolder buttons {"ok"}
        set theDupe to duplicate inputFolder to appFolder with replacing
        set name of theDupe to "Gradebook.app"
        try
            make new alias at (path to desktop folder) with properties {name:"Gradebook Login"} to file ((appFolder) & ":Gradebook.app")
        on error errText number errNum
            #ignore error if the alias already exists
        end try

    on error errText number errNum
        set myHome to POSIX path of (path to home folder)
        display dialog "Error copying application to: " & POSIX path of appFolder & ", possibly due to having insufficient permissions.  Please Choose a folder to install to." buttons {"ok"}
        set appFolder to choose folder with prompt "Select where you would like to install the Gradebook:" default location POSIX file myHome
        set theDupe to duplicate inputFolder to appFolder with replacing
        set name of theDupe to "Gradebook.app"
        try
            make new alias at (path to desktop folder) with properties {name:"Gradebook Login"} to file ((appFolder) & ":Gradebook.app")
        on error errText number errNum
            #ignore error if the alias already exists
        end try
    end try

    display alert "Your Gradebook Installation Is Almost Complete" message "To complete the installation, you must do the following:


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When the Gradebook opens, your installation is complete.

To launch PowerTeacher Gradebook in the future, click "Launch" in the New Gradebook Launch area, or use the "Gradebook Login" shortcut on your desktop." as critical

end tell

I tried converting this script from .scpt to .applescript but when I run it on a test machine I get an error:

Error copying application to: /Users/username/Applications, possibly due to having insufficient permissions. Please Choose a folder to install to.

Any destination I choose results in an error.

I would really appreciate any help anyone could offer.

[cchichester]

@hesterd I was thinking the same thing as you with regard to installation. After trying a few things, What I've gotten to work consistently is building a .pkg in composer with the following items from a pre-configured local user.

~/Library/Caches/Pearson
~/Applications/Gradebook.app
~/Desktop/Gradebook Login

Initially, I was successful building a DMG and using FEU, but it is not really a clean solution for our case, as that is installing Gradebook into every local account. To install on a per-user basis, I am putting the 3 items above into /Users/Shared and then running a post install script that does:

# Get the Username of the currently logged user
loggedInUser=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $3 }'`


#Remove the old Gradebook and its vestiges

rm -rf /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Caches/Pearson
rm -rf /Users/$loggedInUser/Desktop/Gradebook Login
rm -rf /Users/$loggedInUser/Applications/Gradebook.app

#copy in the new Gradebook

cp -r /Users/Shared/Library/Caches/Pearson /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Caches/Pearson
cp -r /Users/Shared/Desktop/Gradebook Login /Users/$loggedInUser/Desktop/Gradebook Login
cp -r /Users/Shared/Applications/Gradebook.app /Users/$loggedInUser/Applications/Gradebook.app

#fix ownership if necessary
chown -R $loggedInUser:staff /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Caches/Pearson
chown -R $loggedInUser:staff /Users/$loggedInUser/Desktop/Gradebook Login
chown -R $loggedInUser:staff /Users/$loggedInUser/Applications/Gradebook.app

#clean up

rm -rf /Users/Shared/Library/Caches/Pearson
rm -rf /Users/Shared/Desktop/Gradebook Login
rm -rf /Users/Shared/Applications/Gradebook.app

Initial testing has this working well with adding Gradebook only to the currently logged in user.

[CasperSally]

Anyone had any luck moving to the HTML5 gradebook? We can't here because it doesn't have ability to email users which our teachers use daily. Curious if others have migrated or have heard if this functionality is coming.

[millersc]

Still waiting on ISD to get us upgraded. Likely won't happen until summer......

[CasperSally]

@millersc - Could you implement it in your school district without the ability to email teachers from the gradebook?

[millersc]

We were not able to do anything yet. We're still using the "old launcher". Drives me nuts, but at the mercy of other people.