What's New in Classroom 9.0 - May 2023

What’s New in Classroom 9.0

New Features & Enhancements

New Native Windows Agent for Classroom

With the introduction of a native agent for Windows, teachers can now see a student’s entire desktop without needing a browser extension. This gives teachers more visibility and control over student devices and helps them keep students focused on lessons. This also allows Securly Classroom to start running as soon as Windows starts, instead of when they open their web browser.

If students use a browser, both Edge and Chrome are fully supported to view tabs, block websites, and push classroom content to keep students engaged.

As part of our ongoing commitment to excellence, we are currently beta-testing this feature. If your district or school is interested in participating, we invite you to contact your dedicated customer success manager.

Enhanced School Scheduling Capabilities

Districts now have the flexibility to define unique school hours tailored to individual schools or groups of schools. This empowers districts to accommodate diverse scheduling requirements efficiently and effectively.

To ensure a seamless transition, we have migrated your existing schedule to the 'Default Schedule' section, automatically assigned to all schools within your district. This ensures continuity and minimizes disruption for your staff and students.

By simply clicking the "Add new schedule" button, you can easily define a schedule, assign it a relevant name, specify the hours, and seamlessly assign it to your desired school(s).

Integration with Securly Observe

Securly Observe is the latest addition to our comprehensive suite of student wellness solutions. With the integration of Observe, teachers can easily document observations about students' health and safety and share the data with those who need it.

This integration enables teachers to submit observations directly from Classroom without the need to access Observe separately. Observe is currently in beta and available as an add-on for Securly Aware. To explore the functionalities and benefits of Observe in more detail, click here. 

Educators can navigate to the thumbnail or tab view within the platform and simply click 'Report with Observe.' 

This action opens a form where teachers can add detailed notes about any observed student wellness and safety concerns. By doing so, teachers provide crucial contextual information to student services teams, enabling timely actions to address the identified issues.

New Password Reset Feature

With this new feature, teachers can provide timely support and help students regain access to their Google accounts. Administrators must reauthorize Classroom's permissions to the Google domain to enable this feature, granting the necessary permissions for password changes. 

The reauthorize link can be found in the Settings/Google section within the Google Directory Sync area.

To activate the feature within Classroom, administrators must enable it in the Permissions area of the platform.

Once enabled, users granted this permission will have access to the password reset option conveniently located on the student record under Rostered Students.

Product Updates

New URL for accessing Classroom and MDM

Before version 9.0, both Classroom and MDM could be accessed through the same URL, deviceconsole.securly.com. However, with our latest release, Classroom and MDM now have independent URLs for a more streamlined user experience. Please make a note of the updated URLs:

Classroom: deviceconsole.securly.com/classroom

MDM: deviceconsole.securly.com/mdm

Please update any bookmarks or links for accessing Classroom or MDM to ensure a smooth transition.

Additionally, the current URL, deviceconsole.securly.com, will continue to function temporarily. However, it will automatically redirect users to the appropriate Classroom or MDM URL based on your district's licensing. 

The default forwarding will direct users to Classroom in districts where both products are licensed. Users can easily switch to MDM, if needed, by accessing the App Switcher (located at the top right corner) within Classroom and selecting MDM.

Updated Terminology: Locations Renamed to Schools

The term ‘Locations,’  previously used to refer to individual school sites, has been replaced with ‘Schools.’ This change aligns Classroom with the standardized terminology used across other products Securly offers.

In addition to the change from ‘Locations’ to ‘Schools,’ related terms such as ‘Location Admin’ and ‘Location Access’ have been updated to ‘School Admin’ and ‘School Access,’ respectively. 

You will notice these changes reflected throughout the product interface, reinforcing the use of standardized terminology and improving overall user understanding.