Troubleshooting FAQs

As of Monday 13th December 2021, the platform was upgraded. The correct links to use now (for any assessment apart from Exact) are shown below:

For teachers: https://www.testwise.com/platform/

For students: https://www.testwise.com/platform/code

For Exact: https://www.testingforschools.com/ (this assessment has not yet moved to the new platform)

If using the same device to access the account as a teacher/admin, please make sure to logout of the account before accessing the student’s login page.

How to logout of your teacher/admin’s account:

• On the top right corner, you should be able to see the user’s name and an arrow pointing down:

• After pressing the arrow, a few options should be available, including the ‘Logout’ button, as shown underneath:

• You should now be able to access the student’s login page (https://www.testwise.com/platform/code), that will look like this:

Alternatively:

A student can login to their assessment from the teacher/admin’s login page (https://www.testwise.com/platform/login), by clicking on ‘Have a student access code?’, which can be found underneath the ‘Login’ and ‘Forgotten your password?’ buttons:

1. Wrong website address
2. Browser reverting to incorrect link/URL
3. Wrong access code being used (depending on the assessment it is for)

Exact needs to be accessed on https://www.testingforschools.com/, as this assessment has not yet moved to the new platform.

Exact guidance can be accessed here. 

• Go to ‘Sittings’ and click ‘Progress’ on the right of the sitting in question:

• You should see a list of students that were allocated to the sitting and an ‘Edit’ button to the right of each of the students’ names:

• Once this button is clicked, the following box will appear, which will allow you to enter values for Typed Dictation, Written Dictation, upload evidence of the written work and add comments for Exact:

The difference between CSV and XLS file formats is that CSV format is a plain text format in which values are separated by commas (Comma Separated Values), while XLS file format is an Excel Sheets binary file format which holds information about all the worksheets in a file, including both content and formatting.

1. Excel (XLS/XLSX)
2. CSV 
   CSV consumes less amount of file size when the user is importing data; it is a much faster format compared to excel. CSV does not manipulate data and stores it as-is. Excel also allows the user the add-in feature. Therefore, should any issues happen when trying to import the template as an Excel, we advise changing it to CSV and see if the same problem occurs.
3. Legacy Excel (XLS/XLSX)
4. Legacy CSV

If you have student import templates in the old format and wish to continue using these, download one of the legacy templates above.

Ethnicity can include several characteristics, such as race, language, and religion. Nationality usually implies that a person is from a specific country, or a territory dominated by a certain ethnic group. Therefore, we have introduced the ‘Nationality’ field to our import templates for schools to be able to differentiate between the two. On our Excel templates, a guidance sheet is contained within that explains which values can be entered for these fields, depending on what values the school has entered prior to the platform upgrade. Set SEN values can also be seen on this guidance sheet.

Example below:

A full copy of this guidance sheet can be found here.

On the new platform, headers for student’s profile information and the details entered are dependant on the region and location of the device and browser. This can sometimes cause issues when importing pupils if the information is not set correct or doesn’t match between the device and browser. Below is some information on how to change this if validation errors occur:

Change the language of the most popular browsers:

• Google Chrome https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/173424?hl=en-GB&co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop
• Microsoft Edge https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/use-microsoft-edge-in-another-language-4da8b5e0-11ce-7ea4-81d7-4e332eec551f
• Mozilla Firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-firefox-another-language 
• Safari https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/intl163/mac

Change the region settings depending on operating system:

• Windows 7/10 OS https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-windows-regional-settings-to-modify-the-appearance-of-some-data-types-edf41006-f6e2-4360-bc1b-30e9e8a54989
• Apple MacOS https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/intl163/mac
• Chromebook OS https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1059490?hl=en-GB
• Android OS https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7431675?hl=en-GB&co=GENIE.Platform=Android
• iPad OS https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201389

Unique IDs is the field used to sync each student’s profiles to their test results. The value entered must be unique to each student (100 characters max). Normally, schools choose to use a pupil’s UPN or admissions number, but anything can be entered in the field, as long as it’s unique to each student. Should a student be already registered on the account and a new unique ID is entered, then this will create a duplicate profile, rather than updating the information of the current profile for this student.

To update students’ information in bulk, the best way would be to export all the students, update their information on the file type selected and then importing it back onto the website.

To do this, go to the ‘Students’ section from the home page:

At the top, select ‘Export students’ and select the file type you want:

This will download a file with all the active students on the account, which will need to be updated before importing. Any field can be changed apart from the ‘Unique Identifier’, as doing this will create duplicate students.

After all the information has been updated, you may now import the students’ file onto the platform, using the ‘Import students’ section found next to the ‘Export students’ button:

When adding a new student please focus on the ‘Group’ section first, this is so we can avoid any errors occurring before starting to fill in any other field, if you wish to use this field. As you start typing a name an ‘Add’ button will appear and you need to press it, if no results are found, as shown below.

If results are found, you’ll need to click the result you want instead of the ‘Add’ button.

Once you’ve pressed either, it will create a grey tag underneath that looks like this:

After this you will be able to fill in the rest of the mandatory fields and should have no further issues.

This is most likely caused because either the service/product on the account has expired or you’ve used all the credits available on the account.If this is regarding Exact, then please ensure that you’ve logged in to the account using the following link:

https://www.testingforschools.com/

When a test has started, a student has logged in or completed an assessment, then the option to edit a sitting is no longer available. This means that the date range set can’t be changed, students assigned to the sitting can’t be removed, no new pupils can be added to a sitting, etc.

When a sitting expires or is closed, one of two things will happen for each student individually: 

1. If they have not started the test at all, you will be reallocated that credit which you can then use on another sitting 
2. If they have partially completed the test, they will be given an extra 30 days to complete the sitting using the same access code 

 In situation 1, you will need to create new sittings using the re-added credits and distribute new access codes. 

In situation 2, if these 30 days pass you would need to use a new credit and create a new sitting to start from the beginning again.

For students using Apple Macbooks, they will need to ensure that autoplay is enabled for https://www.testwise.com/platform/and https://www.testingforschools.com/, as well as pop-ups.

Below are instructions on how to do this:

1. Click on Safari > Preferences on the top menu.
2. Click on the Websites tab at the top.
3. Click on Auto-Play in the left column.
4. In the section to the right called Allow websites below to automatically play media. choose Allow All Auto-Play

If a test or subsection of a test is showing as ‘Marking’, then this means that the results were most likely saved, but for some reason the marking process wasn’t completed. In most cases the students will not have to retake the assessment, although you will need to contact Tech Support for an investigation to be done. Only then will we be able to confirm if a student needs to retake their test.

The status of a sitting can be checked by following the instructions here.

Normally at the end of a test or part of an assessment, this is when the results are sent to us and then saved on the system. On rare occasions, if the minimum system requirements aren’t being fully met or the school’s network/firewall prevent the results to be sent, one of two things will occur:

1. The page will buffer for a few minutes and then an error sending results will appear on screen with instructions of what to do.
2. The buffering of the page continues indefinitely.

Scenario 1:

Press the ‘Copy to clipboard’ button and email us the code data along with the school name, postcode and assessment name. 

This is so we can verify which account and platform to upload the results into. The clipboard function is a built-in feature of the device you’re using, which lets you temporarily copy text and images from one place to another. This is normally used with the following keyboard shortcuts:

Ctrl+C – to copy data from the current program

Ctrl+V – to paste copied data into a different application

Scenario 2:

Unfortunately, in this instance, the only solution is to refresh the page, as it seems that the test player has either timed out or gotten stuck. Doing this means that the student will need to retake the full test or section of the assessment that this happened on.

If students have been deactivated on the account, you’re still able to select these students when creating repots and choosing which students you want to include. This can be done by ticking the following box, during the student selection process:

The student will be able to carry on with the assessment. However, if no internet connection has been established by the time the student tries to end the test and send the results to us, the following message should appear on the screen:

The student or the invigilator will then need to follow the instructions on screen and send us the test code data in order for us to be able to manually submit the raw data on the account, so that the student doesn’t have to retake the assessment or a certain section of the test.

This will make the pupil retake the whole assessment or section of the test they were on, if the assessment has more than one section, using the same access code given, as no results will be saved and the test/section will restart from the beginning.

If the student didn’t log off correctly or logged out too early, then it’s most likely that no results were saved, the test status will say ‘In Progress’ and the pupil will need to retake the whole assessment/section from the beginning. 

If an invigilator suspects that the results aren’t correct because the pupil might’ve skipped questions or something similar, then you would need to get in contact with us and explain the reasons behind what has happened. Depending in the situation, we might reallocate a credit on the account so that a new sitting can be created for the student if we deem this to be appropriate.