Activity Journal Roadmap

We are so incredibly grateful for all our Activity Journal subscribers! Praise God, the platform is growing every day and gaining quite a bit of momentum. As we grow, we always want you to know what we’re up to and what features we’re working on next.

Our goal is for Homeschool Hall to be a comprehensive tool for homeschooling families, and we have a lot of features planned to make your life easier.

Below is our Activity Journal Roadmap, which shows the next features on our list, as well as the Release Notes for every version of the Homeschool Hall platform.

Current Focus

File & Photo Upload

We’re currently working on adding the ability to upload files and photos to Journal Entries. We expect this feature to be available in April 2024.

Future Additions

Here are the features we are planning for the Activity Journal, and many are member requests! We love hearing ideas from our current members about what tools they would love to have in their homeschooling.

Note: The features below are listed in the order we plan to build them, but this order may change.

• Printable to-do lists where you can select a date (or week) and print the activities on the agenda
• Access for a 2nd adult, with permissions similar to the student access settings
• Ability to search for Activities in the Journal by keyword(s)
• More unit & lesson plan features, so members can create re-usable units & courses and assign them to students as needed.

Added Ability to Copy Dates & Better Subjects Management

Additions

• When adding URLs to Entries, if the URL was too long, pushing it to a 2nd line, the URL simply didn’t show because the container was a fixed height. Switched to truncating the visible link so it doesn’t create issues when it’s long.

V_8.9.4 Released 11/25/23 @ 15:33:47

Delete Student Bug

Fixes:

• After deleting your only student, since the student is put in a temporary “scheduled to delete” space, adding a new student led to an error due to the DB thinking it was a duplicate database entry. Added additional workflows on the backend to resolve this.

V_8.9.3 Released 10/10/23 @ 14:04:30

Misc. Changes

Fixes:

• After changing a Subject’s color, the color of the dots for corresponding Entries in the Calendar were not changing.

Additions:

• Per member-request, there’s now a setting to use abbreviated Entry descriptions vs. Subject name for the Calendar.

V_8.9.2 Released 9/16/23 @ 00:15:33

Misc. Changes

Changes:

• Recurring Activities: Duration is now a required field. Leaving it blank was causing some issues with calculations.

Fixes:

• Fixed logout link on mobile slide-in menu.

Misc. Changes

Additions:

• Logout link in top menu from Activity Journal page

Changes:

• Grades can now use decimals.

V_8.9 Released 8/15/23 @ 02:14:53

Entry Popup Enhancements and New Calendar Setting

Additions:

• When editing Entries, members will notice the “created by” listed under the title of the editing window to show who created the Entry (useful for families whose children have Journal access).

Changes:

• Rather than applying the Calendar’s selected date as the default date for new Entries for all accounts, we made this a setting (turned off by default) so members can choose if they want to turn it on.

V_8.8.2 Released 8/12/23 @ 21:51:13

Bug Fix

Fixes:

• Found one case of grades still not getting dates in the DB, so resolved this.

V_8.8 Released 8/10/23 @ 19:57:38

Bug Fix

Fixes:

• At times grades attached to Journal Entries weren’t getting a date assigned. The date field is what the grades calculations use to properly calculate grades for the school year, so this patch resolves this issue.

V_8.7 Released 8/2/23 @ 00:25:59

Bug Fixes

Fixes:

• Fixed a bug preventing students from saving Quick Entries if their parent had Entry Statuses turned on.
• If a user’s first Entry was from a Recurring Activity, it didn’t change their onboard step to trigger hiding the “Create your 1st Entry” banner.
• Backend: Reports allowed an infinite loop searching for Entries in the DB if there were no Entries for that report period.

Student Deletion

Additions:

• Members can now delete students if needed. Deletion requires confirmation and is scheduled for 3 days later, with an option to cancel the deletion, just in case.

Bug Fixes

Fixes

• Fixed issue with some Entries being excluded from stats/grades calculations in rare cases.

V_8.5 Released 6/17/23 @ 00:10:03

Added Ability to Copy Dates & Better Subjects Management

Additions

• Members can now copy all Entries from one date to another date, either for all students or a specific student (member-requested feature).
• Added: Members can now select/deselect which Subjects they want to appear in the Subjects dropdowns (member-requested feature). See Settings > My Subjects.

Changes

• When the platform detects no internet (or weak) connection, we switched to a  banner you can dismiss vs. a full-screen message in case the detection is incorrect.

V_8.4 Released 5/20/23 @ 21:09:01

Added Activity Statuses & Various Improvements

Additions

• Members can now set the status of Activities and optionally receive notifications when students change the status of Activities (and you get to select which statuses trigger an email).
• Added the ability to change the status of Activities from List View without opening the Activity.
• Added a Bulk Change tool for changing the status of Activities/Entries, either for a date range or all Activities in a specific Subject.
• Editing an Activity is handled better on refreshing the page, so now the same Activity you were editing will pull up again.

Fixes

• Opening the Activity popup no longer clears List View filters.
• Fixed an issue which prevented students from seeing the names of some subjects created by their parents due to privacy rules.
• For some users who heavily grade Activities, it was taking a long time to calculate grades; we re-worked how these calculations are made (and will be monitoring to ensure this is resolved).
• Some members were receiving duplicate email/text reminders.

Changes

• Reset Password page now redirects to Account page, unless it’s a student logging in for the first time, in which case it redirects to the Journal.

Notes

• We realize sometimes we use the terms Entries and Activities interchangeably, which might be confusing. It’s on the radar to make the language across our platform uniform, likely using the term Activities. Figured we’d mention this. 🙂

V_8.3 Released 3/21/23 @ 16:58:05

Performance Improvements & Milestone Celebrations

• Added: Journal milestone celebrations
• Added: Option to include the entire School Year in the Grades View (similar to Stats View)
• Change: Major performance improvements to improve load speed and server capacity usage to ensure we keep everything stable and fast as we’re growing
• Changed: Some aesthetic changes for greater consistency
• Changed: Account is now on its own page instead of on the Journal page to further speed up the Journal page, esp. for mobile (less HTML and JS to load)
• Fixed: When Multi-Subject Entries was turned on, creating a new Recurring Entry didn’t set the Subject Color Bar for List View. Created workflow to recursively fix Entries previously created, as well, if user’s MSE setting is turned on.
• Fixed: A previous change to email reminders made some of them send on days when they shouldn’t have.
• Fixed: For student access settings, the settings to allow/disallow entering Points Earned and setting up SMS reminders weren’t working properly
• Fixed: Small bug with List View that didn’t show Entries created for the current day for some users

V_8.2 Released 2/2/23 @ 19:03:15

Multi-Subject Entries & Misc. Changes

• Added: In Journal Settings, users can now turn on/off the ability to include multiple Subjects for Entries.
• Changed: AJ Signup process no longer adds default Subjects if the user is a previous Journal subscriber who is signing back up and already has Subjects in their account.
• Changed: Small aesthetic changes.
• Changed: Generated Reports now have an “Additional Subjects” column, which would include other Subjects selected if the user has “Multi-Subject Entries” turned on.
• Fixed: If a Subject filter was selected in List View, clicking an Entry to edit it sometimes reset the Subject filter.

Additions to Recurring Activities Feature & Misc. Changes

• Added: Now members can save changes to Recurring Activities and their associated Journal Entries by applying those changes to either 1) only future Entries or 2) all past and future Entries.
• Added: Now when deleting Recurring Activities and their associated Journal Entries, members can choose to delete either 1) only future Entries or 2) all past and future Entries.
• Changed: In Grades View, the Subjects list now only includes Subjects with at least one Entry that is marked as a graded activity.
• Changed: In Grades View, if a Subject has Entries that are assigned a Points Possible value, but no Entries have been graded in that Subject for that student yet, the Journal doesn’t assign a letter grade (vs. giving an F for 0% like it did before).

V_8.0 Released 1/17/23 @ 00:15:24

New Major Feature: Recurring Activities

• Added: Recurring Activities – save even more time by creating Recurring Activities for the activities you do regularly (e.g., Tennis on Tuesdays for 60min).

V_7.5.0 Released 1/17/23 @ 00:15:24

New Calendar Feature & Small Bug Fixes

• Added: Entries in the Calendar View can now be dragged from one date to another as needed.
• Fixed: When not connected to internet, it seemed like you could still create Entries, but we can’t save them to the database, creating a poor experience if internet got disconnected. We added a prompt to re-connect if users get disconnected to prevent frustration from creating an Entry that can’t save.
• Fixed: At times, clicking Graded/Ungraded “eye” icon didn’t show the Graded/Ungraded Activities list.
• Fixed: When “Include Entire Year” was selected in Stats View, the List View was also affected and List View (Past) was including future Entries, as well.
• Fixed: Calendar was loading slowly for some members (esp. members with several hundred Entries).

V_7.4.1 Released 1/6/23 @ 16:46:32

Small Bug Fixes

• Fixed: After performance improvements of stats widgets, Home hours remaining was not calculating properly
• Fixed: A couple Quick Stats widgets were sized 10px larger than the others
• Fixed: Filter by Subject was pulling from old Entries source after revamp of how we load the Entries, causing the list of Subjects to be empty
• Fixed: Subject Filter tiles weren’t using the Subject’s color for the left border

V_7.4 Released 1/4/23 @ 15:53:00

New Stats View Toggle & Small Bug Fix

• Added: Stats View toggle to quickly include the entire school year’s Entries in calculations (or not). Only shows when viewing the current school year; otherwise, calculations are always based on the entire school year.
• Fixed: Some users were experiencing issues with the Journal not including Entries from the current date in their Stats & List View (Past).
  • Changed so the platform is now looking for all Entries in the current school year up to today’s date.

Changes to List View & Performance Improvements

• Changed: Reworked all Stats & Grades widgets to calculate more quickly & efficiently
• Changed: All Stats & Grades count up to the current date by default (so they don’t count future Activities/Entries anymore)
• Added: Ability to switch between “Past” and “Upcoming” Entries in List View (both sides include the current day’s Entries)

V_7.2 Released 12/28/22 @ 2348

Filter Entries by Subject & Misc. Improvements

• Fixed: Dropdown for Directory Listings types was showing an empty value as the first option when clicked
• Added: Filter Activity Journal Entries by Subject
  • Click filter icon from List View and select Subject
  • Click a Subject box/tile from Stats View or Grades View
• Changed: Shortened the text in the SMS Reminder message so it only takes up 1 SMS message instead of 2
• Other miscellaneous backend improvements & admin tools

V_7.1.1 Released 11/28/22 @ 1612

Small Bug Fixes & Recurring Activities Feature Progress

• Fixed: In some cases, after checkout when ordering Transcripts, our system wasn’t properly recognizing how Transcripts were ordered.
• Changed: Some small aesthetic consistency changes and backend optimizations.
• In Progress: ~40% of Recurring Activities feature complete now.

V_7.1 Released 11/04/22 @ 12:11

Small Student Access Bug Fix

• Fixed: The Student Access “send invite” button wasn’t triggering student access steps at times

V_7.0 Released 10/26/22 @ 02:09

Non-Subscriber Version of Transcript Builder and LOTS of other changes

• Added: Ability to add an Assignment URL to Activity Journal Entries (only editable by parents)
• Added: Display letter grade in Grades View if the parent has set up a Grade Scale
• Added: Transcript Builder and Order Transcripts pages (stand-alone product for non-subscribers)
• Changed: Made it so Stats, Grades, and List Views are not visible if there are no Entries for the current student & year
• Changed: Improved layout of Transcript Builder year sections (on both pages where it exists) for tablet/mobile
• Fixed: Missing close script tag on conditional script that loads when a specific (rare) condition is true
• Fixed: At times, the Activity Journal subscriber version of the Transcript Builder wasn’t properly saving Credits to Graduate
• Fixed: Deleting a Transcript Course was deleting attached Course Notes even if other courses had the same Course Note
• Fixed: Some small aesthetic changes to the menu on the Directory and Listing pages

V_6.1.1 Released 10/7/22 @ 1725

Additional “My Subjects” controls for students with access

• Added: In the My Subjects area, added the ability to control which Subjects will show in student accounts, in addition to controlling this via the My Children > Student Access Settings area
• Fixed: “Select or Create a Subject” text wasn’t hiding when editing/creating a Subject, causing it to overlap with the Subject form containers

V_6.1 Released 10/6/22 @ 1739

Improved error checks and UX for Transcripts

• Fixed: Grade Scale wasn’t ordering grades properly at times (e.g., adding new grades didn’t add them to the correct place in the list)
• Added: Warning if you are about to delete a Grade from your Grade Scale, and one of your students’ high school Transcripts is using that letter grade
• Added: Signals within Transcript Builder if a Course’s Grade is empty (because it was deleted from the Grade Scale)

V_6.0.1 Released 10/5/22 @ 1618

Subject settings for students with access

• Added: Put in a Subjects area for students who have Journal access so parents can manage what Subjects show in their student accounts
• Fixed: Some students weren’t receiving the access email when parents gave them access to the Journal
• Changed: Conditions for Transcript Download cancellation/refund checkbox wasn’t calculating date properly for some accounts

V_6.0 Released 10/05/22 @ 0026

Initial release of the Transcript Builder! (subscribers only)

• Added: Transcript Builder tool for college-ready high school transcripts!
• Changed: Some small aesthetic alignment/spacing improvements across the Journal

V_5.3.0 Released 9/29/22 @ 1706

My Homeschool section & misc. changes

• Added: “Save & Add New” button to Journal Entry popup box – makes it easier & faster to add multiple Entries
• Added: My Homeschool section for member homeschool details and grading scale
• Changed: Removed “Log Entry Date” related workflow actions to QEs
• Fixed: Similar Listings Nearby on Listings pages included the current listing (redundant); now they don’t
• Fixed: Listing URLs for websites which have case-sensitive URLs were leading to broken pages because we were changing URLs to lowercase when saving to the database (primarily affected Classical Conversations Listing links because they use case-sensitive query parameters for each community’s page on the main CC website)
• Fixed: Entry Delete icon wasn’t showing for parents when their student created the Entry

V_5.2.3.1 Released 9/19/22 @ 1204
Fixed Calendar “Days of Week”

• Fixed: Calendar in the Calendar View had Saturday as the first day of the week instead of Sunday, making the dates below each day of the week look incorrect.

V_5.2.3 Released 9/19/22 @ 1712
Fixed Subjects Bug

• Fixed: When a user needed help adding a Subject and HH admin added it for the user, the user didn’t have permission to see the HH-admin-created Subject, even when added to their profile.

V_5.2.2 Released 9/19/22 @ 0325
Misc. Improvements

• Fixed: Misc. HH admin tools improvements

V_5.2.1 Released 9/19/22 @ 0157
Fixes for Scheduled Reports, Misc. Performance Improvements

• Fixed: Reports file creation failed if one or more of the Entries contained double quotes (“) in the description
• Fixed: For Reports which only included one child, the email sent before the Report files finished generating, resulting in an email with no file attachments
• Fixed: Small typo in Reports email body/content
• Changed: Performance improvements for HH admin tools

V_5.2.0 Released 9/18/22 @ 0431
New Feature: Scheduled Reports, New Feature: In-App Alerts

• New Feature: Scheduled Reports with weekly & monthly options
• New Feature: Alerts notifications shown in the platform, not just sent via email, for easier access/reading later

V_5.1.0 Released 9/16/22 @ 0435
New Feature: On-Demand Reports, Misc. Changes

• Moved “My Children” section to top of Settings page for easier access of new Reports feature
• Fixed: Removed duplicate Settings icon on Desktop view (from 5.0.1)
• New Feature: My Reports section; has on-demand reports, and scheduled reporting will release 9/18/2022

V_5.0.2 Released 9/15/22 @ 1244
Misc. Improvements & Prep for Exports Feature

• Change: Made Duration an optional field for Entries (small change in prep for scheduling/assigning future activities)
• Change: Redesigned My Family section to get ready for Student Schedules addition
• Fixed: Quick Entries date field was resetting to the current date after clicking “Save”, causing users to have to set the date again between each “Save” click when adding Entries from QEs for other dates
• Staging Server: Completed most backend work for Journal Exports and some frontend work for the export workflows

V_5.0.1 Released 9/9/22 @ 0323
Misc. Improvements 

• Changed: Made a few small changes to improve loading speed of List View when a date has several Entries

V_5.0 Released 9/9/22 @ 0238
NEW FEATURE: Student Access & Misc. Changes 

• Added: Student Access (beta) so students can record their own activities
• Fixed: some small bugs related to resetting passwords
• Changed: A few small aesthetic things and wording on some elements

V_4.2.3 Released 9/3/22 @ 1533
Adding Children & Misc. Fixes

• Fixed: Privacy rules were preventing users from adding additional children to their own account during the account setup process
• Fixed: Clicking the grade container inside a List View Entry didn’t properly display the Entry details in the popup box

V_4.2.2 Released 9/1/22 @ 1827
Minor List View Fixes and Changes

• Fixed: Sometimes changing the date of an existing Entry didn’t show that Entry in the List View after fixing the List View loading bug
• Changed: Made some performance improvements for the List View

V_4.2.1 Released 9/1/22 @ 1758
List View Bug – All Items Loading at Once

• Fixed: List View was attempting to load all the year’s Entries at once, causing the app/browser to freeze due to overload
• Changed: List View now loads 3 days of Entries at a time vs. loading when you scroll to improve performance and load time.
• Fixed: Sometimes Entries were not showing in List View for some users

V_4.2.0 Released 8/31/22 @ 2243
Calendar View Small Change

• Added: Creating a new Entry after clicking a date in the calendar will make the new Entry’s date default to the calendar date clicked
• Potential Fix: List View trying to load all items at once even though it was set not to; will need to test on live version to confirm fix

V_4.1.2 Released 8/22/22 @ 1629
Home vs. Away Entries

• Fixed: Creating a new standard Journal Entry (using + Entry button) with “Away” selected was saving the Entry as Home for some users

V_4.1.1 Released 8/21/22 @ 1502
Journal Setup Wizard Fixes

Activity Journal Setup Tool

• Fixed: Duplicate “Create Subject” button showing during Journal profile setup
• Fixed: Journal setup didn’t require any children to be added before proceeding, creating a poor UX if you went through the rest of the steps and arrived in the Journal

V_4.1.0 Released 8/19/22 @ 2214
Journal Improvements & Misc. Directory Fixes

Activity Journal

• Added: For Quick Entries (QEs), there’s now a setting to either show all QEs in the Quick Add popup or only show QEs for the current student selected
• Fixed: Clicking Graded activities opened Ungraded activities in slide-in panel
• Fixed: Quick Add popup had unnecessary horizontal scroll

Directory

• Fixed: Homeschool Consultants (new category) breadcrumbs text was empty
• Fixed: Pasting text into the Listing Tab Editor at times included text highlighting from original copied source text; this is removed now
• Fixed: Create Listing form for the Directory didn’t add http/https when it was missing, causing links to work improperly at times

V_4.0.3 Released 8/8/22 @ 2318
Grade Book Improvements & Misc. Fixes

• Fixed: Desktop Directory menu link didn’t work from Listing pages if user has AJ account
• Added: Quick Entries can now have a date set instead of forcing today’s date
• Added: From Grades View, clicking on Graded/Ungraded containers in widgets shows those respective filtered Entries (for the currently-viewed child) for easier grades management
• Changed: Better horizontal alignment of Grades fields on Entry Details popup on mobile/tablet
• Changed: Made it more obvious from List View which Activities have grading enabled (whether a grade is recorded for the current child or not)
• More backend work prepping for High School tracking structure & ensuring a smooth transition from current subject/hours structure

V_4.0.2 (Patch) Released  8/4/22 @ 1300

• Fixed: Users couldn’t scroll the My Subjects area on desktop when using a mouse without a scroll wheel; added scrollbar for desktop to container

V_4.0.1 Released  7/29/22 @ 1958

• Fixed: Changing points possible of AJ Entry didn’t change the points possible of Entry’s Grades
• Fixed: adding/removing children from Entry didn’t properly add/remove Entry Date from List View
• Fixed: Listing pages Directory icon on mobile not doing anything if user has AJ account
• Added: Can see Grades for Entries when looking at List View

V_4.0 Released 7/23/22 @ 0215

• Added grading to AJ Entries
• Added Grades view to AJ

V_3.1 Released 7/20/22 @ 2041

• Fixed: Hitting the back button from the subscription checkout page made a couple of elements hidden that should still be visible.

V_3.0.9 Released 7/9/22 @ 1334

• Fixed: Activity Popup not displaying correct Home/Away value, so saving appeared to change all Entries
• Added: Support for Home/Away with Quick Entries

V_3.0.8 Released 7/9/22 0211

• Fixed: Users didn’t have permission to change Quick Entry Name
• Aesthetic consistency with QE fields in Settings
• Switched AJ Account panel structure for better UX
• Fixed: Account panel in AJ sending to Directory page Account panel with certain actions
• Added: Home vs. Away setting, stat widget, and Entry record option
• Added: HH Admin notice email for AJ subscribers & user notification settings

V_3.0.7 Released 7/6/22 @ 0328

• Added: Quick Add / Quick Entry feature

V_3.0.6 Released 7/4/22 @ 0013

• Rejecting a Directory Listing now hides the page from Google

V_3.0.5 Released 7/1/22 @ 2305

• Removed admin notice on index & /l pages about missing Listing images

V_3.0.4 Released 71/22 @ 2259

• Fixed: Listing Images not displaying because images were marked as private

V_3.0.3.1 Released 7/1/22 @ 1251

• Fixed: AJ page load workflow was disabled for troubleshooting and wasn’t properly loading the start date for stat calculations

V_3.0.3 Released 7/1/22 @ 1251

• Fixed: Create 1st entry prompt showing upon page load, then disappearing, even if onboarding was complete
• Made Entry popup aesthetic changes for better UX

V_3.0.2 Released 6/28/22 @ 1229

• Fixed: Clicking “login” from AJ signup page didn’t show login screen, so user couldn’t get into the AJ

V_3.0.1 Released 6/27/22 @ 2336

• Fixed BETA group bugs

V_3.0 Released 6/22 @ 1251

• Released Activity Journal Beta (for Beta users ONLY)
• Fixed: Signup process fails because user is already in email subscriber list
• Fixed: index and Listing pages header menus not responsive on Tablets