Teachworks utilizes a standardized subject system to ensure data consistency across your entire platform. Depending on when your specific account was created, your system will handle subjects in one of two ways:
Newer Accounts (Created after November 20, 2016): Subjects are recorded in a standardized format. The "Subjects" field appears on student and employee profiles as a clean, uniform dropdown select menu.
Legacy Accounts (Created before November 20, 2016): The "Subjects" fields on student and employee profiles are displayed as open-ended text boxes where subjects must be manually typed out as a comma-separated list.
Why Convert to Standard Subjects?
If you are on a legacy account, converting your text fields to the modern standardized format replaces messy typos and inconsistent spacing with a single, searchable master list. This makes filtering calendars, assigning teacher competencies, and running reports significantly more accurate.
Switching to Standard Subjects
You can switch to the current standardized subjects method by following the steps below:
Download your Employee and Student tables to Excel and view the "Subjects" column. Look at the records carefully to make sure all records contain "Subjects" that are separated by commas. If you need to make changes to any records, go to the employee or student profile and update the subjects field.
Go to the "Employee" or "Students" table and click the "Standard Subjects" option under the "More" button.
In the table, click the "Convert to Standard Subjects" link. The software will then go through all of your student and employee records and will create a standard subject from each comma separated subject in the subjects field. Any duplicates will be combined into a single subject.
Review the Subject Lists table. If some subjects were not entered in comma-separated format, you will notice this in the Subject column of the table. You will be able to correct the subject name and update the subjects field for any employee or student profiles that use this subject.
The "Subjects" fields on employee and student profiles will now display select menus with the employee or student's subjects selected.
Merging Subjects
After switching to Standard Subjects, you may notice some of your subjects that should be the same were named slightly different, for example, you may have "Math" and "Mathematics". You can merge these subjects into one using the "Merge" option, which is the icon that appears right beside the "Edit" and "Delete" option.
By following the example above, if you want to convert the "Math" subject to "Mathematics", click the merge button under the "Math" subject and merge it into "Mathematics". This will combine both subjects to one subject named "Mathematics".
Adding Standard Subjects
You can find instructions for adding standard subjects here: Standard Subjects.