Grade Passback is available for districts who utilize Skyward as their Student Information System to transfer points-based assessments and scores nightly from Otus to Skyward. The following sections outline the steps necessary to successfully use Grade Passback.

❓ Are you an administrator interested in setting up this feature for your teachers? Check out our Skyward Gradebook Passback Guide for Admins.

Ensure Membership in the Skyward Grade Passback Group

Ensure that you are a member of the Skyward Grade Passback teacher group in Otus. If you are not already a member of that group, please contact your district's Otus Admin to request to be added to the group.

❗️ In order for grades to pass back to Skyward, the user who has assigned the assessment must be a member of the Skyward Gradebook Passback teacher group. This applies to any teacher, co-teacher, or administrator who may be assigning assessments in Otus — not just the primary teacher of the class.

Assessments assigned directly to a class from an Otus Administrator (who is not in your SIS) will not passback to Skyward. This assessment should be assigned to the class by the teacher or co-teacher who is a member of the Skyward Grade Passback teacher group.
When a teacher is added to the Skyward Grade Passback group, eligible assessment scores sync retroactively to the start of the current grading period or the grade passback start date (aka effective date) established by your district in Otus, depending on which is later. Scores will not sync to closed grading periods.

Create a Points-Based Assessment

Create an Otus assessment using a Points Grading Scale. Only assessments created using a Points Grading Scale will pass back. If you select a Standards Based Grading Scale for your assessment, the data will not pass back to Skyward. The image below illustrates how to select the correct Grading Scale when creating your assessment.

💡 Tip: The selected Assessment Type in Otus will be sent to a specific category in Skyward that has been defined by your administrators. Teachers can change the category in Skyward once the grade has been sent.

Assign the Assessment

Specify a Due Date when assigning the assessment, as Skyward requires a Due Date for the scores to pass back. If you do not specify a Due Date, Otus will automatically calculate one by adding 7 days to the assessment creation or assign date. Please note that this auto-calculated date may fall outside of your current grading period in Skyward, which would prevent the assessment from passing back.

❗️ IMPORTANT: Assignments with Due Dates outside of the current grading period in Skyward will not pass back. Please keep this in mind when approaching the end of a grading period.

“Include Score in Final Grade” is checked as a default setting when assigning an assessment in Otus. If "Include Score in Final Grade" is not checked, the assessment and scores will not pass back to Skyward.

Plus (+) Assessments

When adding plus (+) assessments to the Otus gradebook, please note these slight differences from other types of assessments:

The "Include Score in Final Grade" is a toggle that must be toggled ON for the scores to pass back.
Add a Due Date in the appropriate field. If a due date is not specified, Otus will calculate the due date by adding 7 days to the Submission Date.

➡️ Click here for additional information on assigning assessments in Otus.

Grade the Assessment

After the assessment is submitted by a student, questions that were set to auto-score will already have grades, but be sure to grade any ungraded items so that the assessment has a status of “Graded” in Otus. If you see a status of “Turned In,” that assessment score will not pass back until all ungraded items are graded.
After all items in your assessment are graded, you can expect scores to pass back with the nightly sync which means the scores will be visible in Skyward the following day.

Otus scores will not pass back to a closed Skyward grading period. Make sure your Otus assessments are graded before the close of a grading period for your scores to pass back.
An asterisk (*) will be present in Skyward in place of a student’s score if any of these situations are true:
- The student did not complete the assignment and therefore Otus has no score to pass back.
- The assignment was not assigned to that student but was assigned to another student in the same class/gradebook (linked Skyward gradebooks).
- The score did not post successfully to Skyward via the passback process.
If the student did not complete the assignment and you wish to eliminate the '*' from the Skyward gradebook, you may grade the assessment in Otus (including entering a 0 in Otus) or enter a 0 score in Skyward.

Additional Considerations

The status of the assignment (e.g., Excluded, Excused, Missing, etc.) will not pass back to Skyward. The assignment status can be manually adjusted in Skyward.
Grade weighting should be done in Skyward; weighting in Otus does not pass back.
While individual student scores can include a decimal, the total points possible for the assessment must be a whole number.
- Example: A score of 8.5/10 will sync correctly but 8/10.5 will not.

A score will not pass back for a student until a score has been recorded in Otus or the assessment's due date has passed.
If the due date has passed and the student has not submitted the assessment, it will pass back to Skyward with a score of 0 (zero).
Otus sends two separate data sets to Skyward — assignment data (title, assign date, due date, category, total points possible) and score data (student scores). Each data set is only sent once unless a change has been made in Otus:
- Assignment data will resend if you edit the Assessment Title, Assessment Type, Due Date, or any other assignment-level detail. Changes to assignment data will overwrite the existing entry in Skyward — a duplicate will not be created.
- Score data will resend if a student's score is changed in Otus or a score is entered after the due date.
- If you adjust an assessment's settings to "Include Score in Final Grade" after the assessment has been assigned, the assessment and scores will be sent to Skyward after the next nightly sync.

💡 Tip: Changes made directly in Skyward to assessments and scores that have passed back, such as adjusting a category or editing a score, will NOT be overwritten by the nightly sync unless the corresponding data is changed in Otus.

How does Otus know whether to overwrite or create a new assessment in Skyward?
When an assessment is assigned in Otus, it is given a unique ID that is exchanged with Skyward to link all associated assignment and score data. This means that any updates made in Otus, such as changes to the assessment title, type, or a student's score, will overwrite the existing entry in Skyward rather than creating a new one.

The only scenario in which a duplicate assessment would appear in Skyward is if a teacher unassigns and reassigns the assessment in Otus, as this breaks the original ID chain and generates a new one.