If a student uploaded their QuickBooks Online export and says the score never appeared, the grade almost certainly exists. It is being held for you. When a class has Smart grading for graded exercises switched off, every submission is still checked against the rubric the moment it arrives, the result just waits in your queue at awaiting review until you release it. Until you do, the student sees a confirmation that their work was turned in, and no number.
- Where to look
- The class in the Teacher Dashboard → Needs you tab
- Most likely cause
- Smart grading is off for this class, so the grade is held
- The fix
- Expand the Held grade row and press Release grade
- Watch out
- Correcting a check with Override does not release the grade
What each of you is seeing
The gap is deliberate and it runs one way. You see the machine's verdict as soon as the file lands. The student sees nothing until you post the grade, because the promise the class made them is that a person reviews their work.
| Screen | What it shows while a grade is held |
|---|---|
| The activity in the e-reader, straight after upload | A Turned in badge and "Sent to your teacher", no score, no pass or fail, no rubric |
| The student's dashboard and My Classroom page, under Your test results | The activity's row is there, with a dash where the score goes and an Awaiting review badge |
| The student's record in your Teacher Dashboard, the Smart grader card | Only released work counts, so the held attempt does not show yet |
| Your Needs you queue | A Held grade row marked Needs release; expand it for the score, integrity flags and the uploaded file, and Open submission for the rubric |
Release the grade
Open the class
Open the class in the Teacher Dashboard. It opens on the Needs you tab, the Review queue.
Filter to Submissions
Pick Submissions. It carries a count, so you can see at a glance how many are queued across the whole class. Held rows carry a Held grade badge.
Look at the work, if you want to
Click the row to expand it. Open submission shows the rubric breakdown and Their file downloads the exact workbook the student sent. Neither of these changes anything.
Press Release grade
In the expanded row, press Release grade and confirm. The student's score appears immediately, and if they passed, the activity's points are awarded.
The trap: overriding a check does not release the grade
This is the one that catches people out. On the per-attempt review page you can flip an individual rubric check with Override and type a reason, and the attempt's score recalculates on the spot. It is easy to read that as finishing the job. It is not. The attempt stays held, and the student still sees nothing.
There is no Release grade button on the per-attempt review page, and the page does not show you that the attempt is still held. The score and pass/fail line at the top are the machine's verdict, not something the student can see. After you have corrected whatever needed correcting, use Back to Needs you, expand that row and press Release grade.
If releasing did not help, work down this list
Look for Upload failed
In the same Needs you queue, a row with an Upload failed badge means we could not read the workbook at all. There is no score to release, because nothing was ever graded.
Ask which screen they mean
"My score is missing" describes an in-reader practice quiz just as often as a QuickBooks upload, and those are governed by a different setting. See the next section.
Confirm they are on your roster
Open the By student tab and check the student is listed without an Invited or Awaiting approval badge. A submission is attached to a class at the moment the student presses Start, using their active memberships, so work begun before they joined is not in your queue.
Check the class setting itself
Open Class settings on the class page and open Smart grading. If it is on, new submissions are scored instantly and nothing should be waiting. Which points you back at the earlier steps.
The practice quizzes are a separate setting
The practice quizzes inside the reader have their own control: the Chapter quizzes dial in Class settings. A new class starts on Graded: Best attempt, unlimited retakes with the answers shown after each submission and the best score on record, so a missing quiz score usually means no attempt was submitted.
The held-results state is the dial's Graded: First attempt position. There, a student who submits still sees their percentage and whether they passed, because a student who needs 80 has to know where they stand; what stays with you is which questions they missed. You can hand back another attempt, or the answers, from the student's page, for one student or for the whole class.
Two other reasons a score can be missing
We could not read the export
The smart grader reads a real Excel export out of QuickBooks Online and compares it against the activity's answer key. It never connects to QuickBooks itself, and it is deterministic rubric matching rather than anything AI-driven, so if the workbook does not parse, there is nothing to score.
The student sees this immediately as "We couldn't read that export", with the specific reason and a reminder to use Export → Export to Excel rather than copying cells into a new spreadsheet. Usually the report was not customized to the settings the activity asks for. They can upload a fixed export straight away; every attempt stays in your queue, so you can see the whole trajectory.
The submission is not attached to your class
A submission is matched to a class when the student presses Start, from their active group memberships. If one of those classes uses the same textbook, it goes there. If they belong to exactly one class, it goes there. If they belong to several and none of them uses that textbook, the submission is deliberately left unattached rather than guessed into the wrong teacher's queue, a submission in the wrong gradebook is worse than one you have to go looking for.
The student still has their work and can resubmit once they are on your roster, and that new attempt will be attributed correctly. There is no self-serve way to move an existing unattached submission into a class, contact support with the student's name and the activity if you need one recovered.
Questions we get about this
- Can I release several grades at once?
- No. Each held submission has its own Release grade button in its Needs you row, and each one asks you to confirm. Filtering to Submissions puts them all on one screen, which makes working through a batch quick.
- If I turn smart grading back on, do the held submissions release themselves?
- No. The setting decides what happens to work submitted from that point on. Anything already held still needs you to press Release grade.
- The student can see their score but I cannot see one on their student page. Why?
- The Smart grader card on a student's record only counts released attempts, so a held attempt does not show there yet. Open the Needs you tab, or the need you link beside the student's name, to see the number.
- Does a held grade stop the student finishing the chapter?
- No. Graded QuickBooks work never holds a chapter open. Chapter completion depends on reading the chapter through, ticking its in-software steps and passing its practice quiz. The reader lists a graded activity as available optional practice that earns points, and the student's chapter check does not wait on your release. What does wait is the score, the pass, and the points, which is why the activity keeps showing as not yet passed until you release it.