> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zionapp.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Generating and distributing report cards

> How administrators, supervisors, and monitors bulk-generate a term's report cards, clear readiness warnings, preview a student's card, and send cards to parents

Report card generation turns a term's PACE grades, test scores, attendance, Goal Check completion, and parent-safe character notes into a batch of report-card PDFs. Administrators, supervisors, and monitors run this from **Admin > Report Cards**. Supervisors and monitors are restricted server-side to their assigned centres even if the centre picker shows more.

## Select the scope

<Steps>
  <Step title="Choose a term">
    Pick the academic term you want to generate cards for.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Narrow by centre (optional)">
    Administrators can select a specific centre or leave it on all centres. Supervisors and monitors only ever see and generate for their own assigned centres.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose a template (optional)">
    Pick a non-default template if the school has more than one. If you skip this, generation uses the org's default template, or a built-in default if no template has been created yet. See [Report card templates](/features/report-cards/templates).
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Term-readiness warnings

Before you can generate, Zion checks every in-scope student for five possible warnings:

| Warning            | Meaning                                                    | Blocking? |
| ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------- | --------- |
| No grades          | Zero finalized test scores exist for the student this term | Yes       |
| Incomplete grades  | Finalized scores exist, but none of them are passing       | No        |
| No attendance      | No attendance records for the term                         | No        |
| No Goal Check      | No Goal Check data for the term                            | No        |
| No character notes | No parent-safe character notes for the term                | No        |

Only the no-grades warning blocks generation. If any student has it, the **Generate report cards** button stays disabled until you check the acknowledgement box confirming you want to proceed anyway. The other four warnings are informational: they tell you a section of that student's card will show "No data for this term" without stopping the batch.

<Note>
  PACE "Completed" counts on a report card are labelled **Completed (overall)** because they are all-time counts, not term-bound. Test scores, attendance, and Goal Check data on the card are scoped to the selected term.
</Note>

## Preview a student's card

Once a term is selected, pick a single student from the readiness list to preview their compiled report card before running the full batch. Use this to confirm a template change looks right, or to check a student flagged with a non-blocking warning before you decide whether to proceed.

## Generate

<Steps>
  <Step title="Click Generate report cards">
    The job moves through queued, then running with a processed-of-total counter, then complete.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check the failed list">
    If any individual student fails to generate, they appear in a per-student failed list. A failure for one student does not stop the rest of the batch.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Distribute to parents

Once a term's cards have generated, the distribution panel offers two actions.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Download all (ZIP)">
    Mints a ZIP archive of every generated report card for the term (and centre, if narrowed). Use this to keep an offline copy or hand cards out through another channel.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Send to parents">
    For each student, Zion resolves their accepted parent invitations and sends a report-card-published notification (in-app and email) to each linked parent. A row is written to a delivery ledger per recipient with one of these statuses:

    | Status  | Meaning                                      |
    | ------- | -------------------------------------------- |
    | Sent    | Notification delivered                       |
    | Queued  | Waiting to send                              |
    | Bounced | Email delivery failed after acceptance       |
    | Failed  | Delivery attempt failed                      |
    | Skipped | Student has no accepted parent email on file |

    A student with no linked parent email is recorded as skipped rather than failing the whole batch. Once a card has been sent, its status flips to published, with a published and sent timestamp recorded. The email links to the parent's in-app report card archive, never to a direct file link.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## What parents see

Parents access their children's cards at **Report Cards** in the parent portal. They see only published report cards, grouped by child. Cards still generating or not yet sent never appear.

Each card has a **Download** button. Clicking it mints a short-lived signed download link (valid 10 minutes) at the moment of the click rather than exposing a permanent public URL. This is a read-only archive: parents cannot edit, regenerate, or delete a card.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Report cards overview" icon="file-lines" href="/features/report-cards/overview">
    What a report card contains and how term data is compiled.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Report card templates" icon="sliders" href="/features/report-cards/templates">
    Build and manage the sections and logo on a report card template.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Permanent record" icon="book" href="/features/report-cards/permanent-record">
    The multi-year academic record separate from term report cards.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Your child's progress" icon="chart-line" href="/guides/parent/your-childs-progress">
    How parents follow a child's academic progress across features.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>