Clever: Technology Staff Guide
Basic information about Clever that is helpful for Technology Support Staff to better understand and troubleshoot issues with Clever.
Troubleshooting
The best way to troubleshoot a student issue with Clever is to impersonate the student and access their Portal to see if you can replicate the problem.
Go to the Dashboard and search for the student. Their page in the Dashboard will list all the apps that have access to their data. Please note that this does not include Links. Links are found only on the Portal page. Click on the "Access Portal as user" button. On the next page, click the "Start Portal session". You will see the student's Portal and be able to login to those resources.
Look for the app or link that you need to test. Click on it to test. When finished, click "End Portal session".
What is Clever?
The first paragraph of an article in Clever's Help Center answers this question with the following:
Clever automates the secure transfer of student rosters to authorized parties. This enables continuously updated roster information in learning programs. Clever also offers single sign-on access for students and teachers via the Clever Portal.
- What is Clever?
Four things are highlighted in that article:
- Secure Sync
- Single Sign-On (SSO)
- Clever Portal
- Clever Library
Secure Sync
Secure sync helps us roster our students with third-party vendors. Before Clever, every vendor had their own data file format and SFTP server. Now, we just search for their app in Clever. If they have one, we share our data through the Clever Dashboard. Easy.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Single Sign-On allows students to login one place and not worry about accounts and passwords for third-party vendors. Students login to Clever with their Google credentials. When they go to their Portal and click on the app for the resource they need to work with, they are automatically logged into that resource.
Clever Portal
When each staff or student logs into Clever, they are taken to their Portal. The Portal consists of a bunch of icons that look like apps on an iPad. These icons are either apps or links.
Apps connect to third-party vendors with which we are sharing data. We can either share data for rostering or SSO or both. Staff and students will not see an app unless their data has been shared with that third-party vendor.
Links are just that: links to other resources. They can be any website. They do not provide rostering or SSO, but they can be shared with everyone or with certain groups (e.g. school or grade). One example of a link is Think Central.
Clever Library
I think this used to be called the Clever Menu. We refer to it as the TTSD Digital Resource Menu. It lists apps that we are actively using in Clever or resources that we can use.