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Why isn't my site visible in my school's/district's network?

If for some reason you are finding that your website is not visible within your school's or district's network there are several things that you can do to troubleshoot what may be causing this issue to occur. 


NOTE: In order to assist you with any troubleshooting issues, we will need screenshots of your DNS settings and any other information that you find out as you troubleshoot if you need to send in a support ticker.




Verify your DNS Setup

The first thing that you can do in troubleshooting this issue, is to check the DNS itself and verify that the entry for www is a CNAME and that it has the value: app.campussuite.com assigned to it. You can check this by either manually going to the DNS if you are able to and verifying it there or by going to Network-Tools (http://network-tools.com/) and using the instructions listed below to find the active DNS setup of your website. 

  • While on http://network-tools.com/ select DNS Records (Advanced Tool) from the left sidebar, and type in your FULL website address into the box the is below that in the left sidebar. 
  • If you find it is not set up correctly and you are able to either edit or add the CNAME record for the www so it has the value of app.campussuite.com assigned to it. After making the necessary changes use the instructions in  to clear your DNS cache and check to see if your site is now visible inside of your school's/district's network.
  • If your site is still not visible in your school/District network repeat the first step that is listed above and take a screenshot of the results that will be displayed in the center panel, and send it to us, along with any other testing info that you might have.

Ping your Website

The second thing that you can do in troubleshooting this issue is to go to the command line on a computer in your school/district and ping your website. This tests the connection with the website from a computer that is inside the network by sending out small packets of information to it which are then sent back to your computer. What this will find is the amount the time it took for the packets to reach the address, and whether or not any packets were lost in the process. The instructions on how to do so are listed below for both Windows and iOS.

  • From Windows
    1. Click Start, run cmd.exe
    2. Type in the following command:
      • Run ping WEB ADDRESS HERE (Ping will show if it's reachable)

      • nslookup WEB ADDRESS HERE (NSLookup will show if the DNS change is working)

    3. Use the snipping tool to get a screenshot of results; this is critical to allow SchoolNow to see how your new website is functioning.
  • From iOS
    1. Open Terminal application (typically found under Applications > Utilities)
    2. Type in the following command:
      • ping WEB ADDRESS HERE (Ping will show if it's reachable)

      • dig WEB ADDRESS HERE (Dig will show if the DNS change is working)

    3. Use the snipping tool to get a screenshot of results; this is critical to allow SchoolNow to see how your new website is functioning.



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