Special Education FormMatrix

All student records are contained in the Matrix.USR file that resides in the SE FormMatrix folder.

Export files created by SE FormMatrix are not meant to be opened in other programs such as Word. They are encoded and only can be read by SE FormMatrix when you import them into the program.

You can easily separate out the two sets of student records. When you enter new student records, make sure you indicate each student’s service school. After doing this, when you want to work on student records at Jefferson School for example, go to a form that includes the Service School field, click Find from the menu bar, select Jefferson in the Service School field, and press Enter. Only student records for Jefferson will then be visible. You can go to the Student Roster to see all of them in a table or go to any form and scroll through the students using the Ctrl and Up or Down Arrow keys. If you want to work with the student records for your other school, first press the Ctrl and J keys so that all of the records are available, then go through the previous find procedure and enter the other school’s name in the Service School field.

It is a good idea to save records for students who have moved out-of-district or been dismissed from your program in case any of the students returns to your school or again needs services. For example, if a student named Matthew Johnson moved out of the district, you could create an export file for him. First click Find and type Matthew Johnson in the Student field on the Student Data Sheet. Click Find again to display his records. (If only his name then appears in the Student Roster, you have performed the find procedure correctly.) Then export the record. Name the export file MatthewJohnson and be sure that the file type is FileMaker Pro Runtime Files (*.USR). After creating the export file, you can delete Matthew’s records from your main database. If you later need the information in his records, you can import the file you previously created.

The old IEP information is erased. If you think you will need the old information, you can first duplicate the record, give it a different name (e.g., Jane Doe-old), export it to a file, and then delete it from your main database.

You cannot attach a SE FormMatrix form to email using the program itself. Unlike Microsoft Word in which each form is a separate file, Special Education FormMatrix forms are all part of a large database file. You can, however, install a pdf print driver on your computer (there are a number of them that are free and can be downloaded from the Internet), and select the print driver when printing a form so it will create a pdf file. The pdf file can be attached to an email message.

The records have been erased. When you reinstalled SE FormMatrix, it replaced all of the program files, including the one containing student records. If you must reinstall the program, first export all of your student records into a file in another folder, and import the records after you have reinstalled the program.

To print out the entire list, click the Print button and then select Records being browsed from the Print window. Remember to change the print option back to Current record when printing other forms.

Export the records you create at home into a file, then either email the file to yourself at work or copy the file to a floppy disk or portable flash drive and take it to work. Once you are at work, import the records from the file into the SE FormMatrix program you use at work. Important – if you import new student data and already have information about the student in your program file, the import file will overwrite the old information unless you specify the fields to import.

This printing issue can happen when the Windows default printer has been changed or a new printer has been added. If you specify a different printer in the File > Print > Print dialog box, it will change the printer for that print job but will not change the default printer. To change the default printer for printing from SE FormMatrix, you must select File > Print Setup. In the Print Setup dialog box, for Name, choose the printer you want to be your default, then click OK.

In some cases you can fix a damaged file. Use the following procedure: Press the Ctrl and Shift keys while double clicking the SE FormMatrix desktop icon. Hold the keys down until you see the Open Damaged File window. In the Look in window browse to the folder containing the FormMatrix files and select the Matrix.USR file. The repair program then will rename the file Matrix Old.USR and create a repaired Matrix.USR file (if possible).