Whoopsie Daisy - You've finished Lexia

MYSTERIOUS ERROR MESSAGE IN LEXIA...

If your student receives this "Whoopsie Daisy" message when logging into Lexia, it means that they have finished Lexia. 

We encountered this with a 5th grader from Mrs. Gonzales' class at Riverbank and thought it was a log-in or password issue. 







Upon further research we discovered that the student is listed as "finished" in the status area - see the image on the left.

This is a new one for us!  We asked the teacher to consult with the other 5th grade teachers on her campus to see if they have faced this issue before.  According to the Lexia helpdesk, the student's progress can be reset so they can continue, but they will no longer advance - they'll just be doing more of the same work until they finish it again.

Have you experienced this before?

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #29

Do you ever write an email in advance but schedule it to send in the future?  For example, I wrote this email  AND sent this email yesterday, even though it wasn't actually sent until 6:00 a.m. this morning!

Gmail now offers Scheduled Send.  Here's how.

1. Compose your email
2. When you want to Schedule Send, Click the down arrow next to the Send button.
   
3. Choose one of the selected times or, pick date & time.
   

If you want to see any of your scheduled emails before they are sent you can select the Scheduled Label "Folder" and see any scheduled emails.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #28

New Feature Alert! More Options now available in Gmail via Right Click (or 2-finger Click on a Chromebook)

You now have even more options for managing your emails straight from your Gmail inbox.

Here's how.

1. Go to your inbox and hover over an email on the list and right click on your mouse.  Or, if on a Chromebook, do 2-finger click on the touchpad.
2. You'll see an updated menu showing new options such as responding, deleting, moving, applying labels, searching and lots more without even opening up the email.
3. Make your desired selection and you'll be managing your inbox with fewer clicks.

This new update is rolling out to all accounts in our domain.  If you don't see it first thing this morning, check back later to enjoy this new feature.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #27

Have you noticed and tried Google Hangouts yet?

Hangouts is a text and video chat application that provides an alternative mode of communication beyond email.  It lives in your Gmail under the labels on the left sidebar menu. A quick question via hangouts text can sometimes prompt a quicker response than an email.  You can also create groups in Hangouts for easy group chat communication.  Hangouts also offers video options, including screen sharing which can be a great option for live, remote communication with up to 25 people.  

Ready to give Hangouts a try?  Here's how.

1. Click on the + Next to your name.
    

   
2.  Type the name of the person you'd like to communicate using Hangouts with and Invite.  If you're practicing Hangouts for the first time, I'd recommend partnering with someone nearby.
3. This will send that person an invite that will appear as a pop-up message that you would like to chat with them.
4. Once, they accept the invite, you can type your message for real-time text communication.

All the people and groups that you regularly use hangouts with now appear on a list on the bottom left of your Gmail labels for future communications.  If you want to learn even more about Hangouts, check out Google Hangouts Support.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #26

 

Have you checked out GSuite Training recently? It lives in all Google products in the top right corner when using Chrome and provides short, personalized tutorials on various topics relevant to the Google app you are in. It has a search feature and is the go-to place to not only find answers to your Gmail (or other Google app) questions but will also walk you through step-by-step how to complete the desired task.

You may have experienced one of these tutorials in previous daily tips but if you're new to GSuite Training, here's an overview of Gmail (0:28) that will provide you a taste on how GSuite Training works.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #25

Who hates getting an email with a Google Drive file link, only to click on it and have to request access?

Sharing Drive files within Gmail easily prevents the frustration.

Here's how to share Google Drive files using Gmail.

1. Start a new email
2. Click on the Google Drive Icon at the bottom of your message


3. Add the Google Drive file you wish to share.
4. Hit Send

Google will automagically check the sharing permissions for you. If your recipient(s) don't already have access to the file, you'll see the following prompt and be able to choose the needed level of access prior to hitting the send button again.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #24

Did you know you can create Calendar events straight from your inbox?

It's as easy as 1, 2, 3. Try it out with this email.

1. Open your email. 
2. At the top of the email, Click Meatballs > Create Event
3. Add details to your event and click Save

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #23

Who hates clicking on a link in an email only for it not to work? 

Gmail makes it easy to test your links in advance to prevent this from happening to your users.

Here's how.

1. Type the descriptive text for your link in the body of your email, such as District Website
2. Highlight the descriptive text.
3. Click on the Link icon on the bottom menu (or use Control + K Keyboard Shortcut)
4. Add the URL (web address) for your website
5. Click Test this link. This will test your link in a new window. If it works, click OK. If it doesn't work, make the necessary changes in your URL.

BONUS : Test Your Tip of the Day Knowledge!
Take this short quiz that will test your Tip of the Day Knowledge regarding Gmail and Calendar. Submit your answers before Tuesday, Close of Business (COB) and be entered to win some random prizes. Random winners will be announced in Wednesday's Tip of the Day.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #22

Happy February! Since it's the first day of a new month, today's tip is about Google calendar and how to customize your view.

When you visit calendar.google.com, you can change your view using the drop-down menu at the top next to the gear.

Buy why scroll and click, when you can use keyboard shortcuts! Give it a try. These shortcuts allow you to quickly toggle between different calendar views and easy to remember.

• D - Day
• W - Week
• M - Month
• Y - Year
• A - Agenda/Schedule View
• X - Next 5 days

You can further customize your calendar view under settings.  

1. Visit calendar.google.com
2. Gear > Settings
3. Scroll down to View Options > Select desired options 

• 

Give them a try. You can always return to settings and change it back!

As always, if you are experiencing any technical issues related to Gmail or Calendar, please complete a helpdesk ticket.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #21

Did you know you can customize which labels/folders you see on your left menu? If you are tired of scrolling on the left menu to click more and having to scroll more up and down to locate your SPAM or Trash or another Label, then this tip is for you!

Here's how you can personalize exactly what you see on the left menu bar.

1. Visit the Gear > Settings 
2. Click on the Labels Tab
3. Under Systems Labels, click Show for any Labels you want to appear at the top of the left menu OR click hide for any labels you don't want to appear at the left menu. (Anything you hide means you'll have to click More and scroll to find that label)
   

For experienced users, I would show any label you use frequently. It will save you time and energy as you navigate your email. If you don't use a particular label frequently, click hide. This will preserve your menu real estate for your most frequently used items.

For new users, show them all and try it out for a week or two and then decide which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to hide. Remember hiding doesn't delete anything, it just means you'll have to click more and scroll a bit to find that label.

If you are experiencing any technical issues with Gmail or Calendar, please complete a helpdesk ticket and remember all these tips are archived on the WUSD Tech Blog.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #20

Since Gmail has been live for several weeks now, have you had the experience of clicking on an email link within Aeries, a website, or another program only to have Outlook open?

If this has happened to you, this means you need to update your default email application to Gmail.

Here's a help document that walks you through how to make your default email Gmail on Windows 10 machines. (Substitute WUSD Account anywhere you see FNU Account in this help document.)

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #19

Gmail does not offer a native real-time spell check.  It does offer the option to check your spelling by clicking on the meatballs at the bottom of your message and choosing Check Spelling.

Will you remember to do this for each email you send?!?!?

I recommend installing the Chrome Extension Grammarly instead. This is a freemium extension that provides real-time spelling and grammar check within Gmail and anything else within Chrome. Once you install and sign-up using Google, you will get an occasional email from them encouraging you to upgrade for a fee.  This is not necessary.  Enjoy the free features like spell check and when you see the red line choose the appropriate suggestion that shows you what you meant to type initially.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #18

Did you know you can snooze an email, almost like an alarm clock? What's even better than an alarm clock is that you can customize the "snooze" period for each snoozed email. This is a great feature for those emails that require action sometime in the future, perhaps when you have additional information or closer to a deadline. When you snooze an email, it will disappear from your inbox and appear at the top of your inbox as unread at the date/time you set.

Give the snooze feature a try, using this email! Here's how.

1. At the top of this email, click the snooze button (it looks like an alarm clock).
2. Choose the date/time you'd like the message to appear at the top of your inbox. Note: that it will suggest some dates/times for you or you can customize by picking your own date/time at the bottom.
   
3. You're done! The email is now snoozed and will reappear at the top of your inbox at the time you selected. You can easily find any snoozed emails before they reappear in your inbox by clicking the Snoozed filter on the left menu bar
   

Please note: The Snooze feature only appears if you have conversation view enabled. If you disabled conversation view, you won't see the snooze feature.

If you are experiencing any technical difficulties with Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #17

Today's tip focuses on the appearance of emails within your inbox.  The default is conversation view.  This means that your emails will be grouped together as a thread.  As people reply to an email, those responses will be grouped together in your inbox with the most recent email response appearing at the bottom of the conversation thread.  If you are a fan of your email responses grouped together as a conversation, there is nothing to change.  

If you prefer to see your email in the order it is received, regardless of topic, and not grouped together as a conversation, you can turn conversation view off.  To turn off conversation view, visit the gear > settings and in the general tab, scroll down to conversation view > turn off and save changes. 

Bonus Tip for Conversation View Fans!

If you don't like how conversation view puts the most recent response at the bottom of the conversation you may want to install and try out the Gmail Reverse Conversation Chrome Extension.  This will reverse the order of emails within a conversation and put the most recent response on top.  Try it out and if you don't like it, you can always uninstall this extension by following the steps on this support page.

If you are experiencing any technical difficulties with Gmail, please submit a helpdesk ticket.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #16

Your contacts (think Address Book) lives in the Waffle. As you continue to use Gmail, your contact list will expand as people are automatically added to your contacts as you email them. 

But also within Contacts, you can create your own groups by assigning labels to your contacts.  It's worth the time to create labels within contacts for people who you regularly email, send calendar invites, or share Google Drive files with.  Google released a major redesign of contacts last week so those familiar with contacts will notice a refreshed look.  Once desired contacts are labeled, these labels function similar to groups and are only accessible and visible to you.

Here are some steps to get started with contacts.

1. Visit contacts.google.com (Also accessible via the waffle and the Contacts icon)
2. Under Labels at the bottom of any existing labels choose + Create Label
3. Name your Label > Save
4. Go to your Contacts > Select the Contacts you wish to add to the Label > Manage Label > Choose Label > Apply
5. Now when you are in Gmail, Calendar, or Drive, you can type the Label Name and it will auto-populate with a list of names.

If there are people you wish to add to a label who are not yet in your Contacts, you can use the search feature to find them or locate them in the Directory.

Visit the GSuite Learning Center to learn more about Contacts.  Note: The redesign is referred to as the In Contacts preview within the GSuite Learning Center Materials.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #15

Yesterday, you learned how to apply labels on your emails. Today, I'll show you how to create filters to automatically apply labels (and more!) to your emails for even greater organization and customization to meet your needs. Filters function like Rules in Outlook. If you had Rules established in Outlook, those will need to be recreated as filters in Gmail.

I like to think of filters as a 2-step process. First, you tell Gmail what to look for and then, you tell Gmail what to do once it's found what it's looking for.

Here's how to create a filter in Gmail. Practice filters using this email.

1. Open the desired email that you wish to filter. (I recommend this one for practice) 
2. Click the meatballs > Filter messages like these
3. Step 1: Tell Gmail What to Look For: Emails from me (moliver@wusd.k12.ca.us) AND Subject Tip of the Day > Create Filter. Note: If you don't add the subject, it will automatically filter ALL emails from me regardless of topic.
   
4. Step 2: Tell Gmail What to Do with Emails it Found: Mark Apply the label and Choose Tech Tips (if you created this label yesterday) and Mark Also apply to X matching Conversations (at the bottom). Failure to check this box at the bottom will only apply a filter to current and future emails and NOT historical emails.
5. Create Filter.
6. Now all my future Gmail/Calendar Tip of the Day emails can automatically be found using the TechTips Label.

There are lots of options when creating filters both in what to look for and what to do once Gmail finds it that will allow you to automatically manage incoming emails. Try them out and see how they function for your workflow. You can view/edit any existing filters by visiting the Gear > Settings > Filters Tab > Locate the Desired Filter > Edit.

Want more about filters? Take the guided tutorial on filters offered by GSuite Training.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #14

Organize your Inbox with the help of labels!

Labels help with organization by grouping emails together, similar to folders. If you used Folders in Outlook to organize your email, those folders transferred over to Gmail as Labels.  Labels in Gmail function like folders with one big added benefit...you can attach multiple labels to a single Email!  If you didn't use Folders in Outlook, Labels in Gmail are an easy way to begin organizing your inbox by topic, sender, and/or project.

Here's how to attach a label to an email.  Feel Free to practice using one of the daily tip emails. 

1. Click on the label icon (looks like a tab flag)  at the top of the email
2. Choose Create New
   
    
3. Type desired Label Name.  For this email, I used Tech Tips.  Advanced Label Users: Note the option to Nest label.
   
   
   
   
    
4. Click Create
5. Note the new labels on your email. 
   
    
6. You can now locate any emails labeled Tech Tips by clicking on the TechTip label on your left menu.
   
    

You can also see this tip as a guided tutorial from GSuite Training. 

BONUS TIP:  You can color-code your labels by highlighting the label on the left menu, clicking the meatballs, and choosing your desired label color.

Tomorrow, I'll show you how to use automate the application of labels to your emails.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #13

Did you know you can set Out of Office reminders in BOTH Gmail and Calendar?  

Here's how in Gmail

1. Go to mail.google.com
2. Click on Gear > Settings
3. Under the General Tab, scroll to the very bottom and locate Vacation Responder.
4. Type your desired Out of Office Message
5. Set Parameters: Date to turn on/off. Choose whether to send to people in Contacts and/or people in WUSD
6. Turn Vacation Responder On
7. Save Changes

Here's how in Calendar.

When you create an Out of Office Event in Calendar, it will automatically decline any invites you may receive for that time period. 

1. Go to calendar.google.com
2. Single Click on the day/time that you desire
3. Choose Out of Office 
   
4. Make any adjustments on the date/time as needed
5. Customize your decline message (if desired).  
6. Save

You can find a video tutorial of this tip on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist and archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog.    

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #12

Now that you are accessing your email via the Chrome browser, you may have a number of tabs open throughout the day and it's easy for Gmail to get lost in a sea of tabs.  What's the solution?

Pin your Gmail Tab!

Here's how.

1. Using Chrome, visit mail.google.com
2. Hover over your Gmail Tab and Right Click (or 2 finger click on Chromebook)
3. Select Pin Tab

This action moves your Gmail tab all the way over to the left and makes it much smaller and very difficult to accidentally close.  If you want to unpin your tab, right-click on the tab and choose unpin.

BONUS TIP:

Make your pinned tab even better with an Unread Message Icon.      

The Unread Message Icon will give you a subscript number that will indicate how many unread messages you have.  It's an easy way to see if you have any unread messages without ever leaving your current tab.

You can enable the Unread Message Icon by visiting the Gear > Settings.  Click on the Advanced Tab, scroll down for  Unread Message Icon, Choose Enable and Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #11

When you compose a new email, a pop-up window appears in the corner of your screen.  Depending on the screen size of your device and your workflow, this pop-up may be too small for your liking.  You can expand the compose email window by clicking on the arrows in the corner.

This will both enlarge and center your compose screen.  If you prefer this size and view, you can make it your default size by completing the following steps.

1. Within mail.google.com, click +Compose (or C if you've enabled keyboard shortcuts)
2. Click the meatballs at the bottom of the screen 
3. Choose Default to full-screen 
4. Note: You'll need to close the compose window and start a new one to see this in action.

Now every new email you start will be full-screen instead of small and in the corner.

BONUS TIP: 

If you have keyboard shortcuts enabled, type D and this will start a new email in a new tab!!  Give it a try.  If this doesn't work, that means you don't have keyboard shortcuts enabled.  Check out the previous tip to learn more about keyboard shortcuts.