2023.6.0

6/9/2023

 Fixes/Updates

Student

1.  The field "Special Education" has been added as drop-down field with Yes and No on the choice list. The field is at the student Education tab/Education panel and is available at the view manager and search.  The choice list for this field is not user-modifiable. 

Intake

1. Future intake dates from today's date are no longer allowed for Students, Tutors, Contacts, Donors, and Volunteers.

PoPs

1. Current Year PoPs were not being created if a student had a prior year PoP, then a 90+ day gap, and then an additional activity. This has been corrected.

WIOA

1. A PED friendly Table 6 has been implemented for users without the "Private Employment Data Manager" role. These users can now drill down on non-employment information in Table 6. The table is available at the student area grid under Searches > NRS > NRS Table 6 > Replace. The is only applicable to clients who have opted in for Private Employment Data.

2.  A update was made to count students on Table 4 in column F instead of column E if the student earned an SSD after a posttest level gain but then posttested again at the same EFL.  In this scenario, the student made an EFL gain prior to attaining the SSD, so the SSD is the later activity.

3. An update was made to count the total number of PoPs on Table 5, row Attained any credential (unduplicated), columns E and F in the following example scenario:

   • Student has two PoPs with exit dates that are in the range to count on Table 5 in the same reporting year.

   • The SSD outcome is met in one PoP, and the Attain PS Ed Outcome is met in the second PoP. 

   • Because the outcomes were met in different PoPs, columns E and F will display the total number of PoPs - in this scenario, both columns would display 2. 

Note that if both outcomes were met in the same PoP, columns E and F would display 1. 

New FY Summary Functionality 

The FY (fiscal year) summary process has been updated and the changes implemented as part of the release. This functionality is primarily an update to the database back-end, and allows FY summaries to calculate and generate much faster than the previous process. FY summaries are records that capture pertinent student or staff data as it existed at the time the summary record was created. For example, the FY summary may show that a student had 25 hours of instruction at the time the summary was created, but the student has since earned 10 additional instruction hours. The FY summary record must be updated to capture the additional hours. NRS tables run from FY summaries, so it is important that FY summaries are up-to-date, especially as ABE agencies are preparing their data for federal reporting. 

Prior to the release, FY summaries were automatically run in ABE clients on a schedule set by the state - indicated on the client's user news page - which was typically once a week, twice a month, or every other weekend.  Independent literacy clients did not have an automatic FY summary schedule since typically most literacy agencies do not report to the NRS.  With the new process, all student and staff FY summary records in all ABE and independent literacy clients are updated on a nightly basis, which eliminates the need for each ABE client to have a specific FY update schedule.   

Since FY summaries will now be updated nightly for every student and staff,  you will see a current FY record even if the student or staff person had a gap in FY summary records from a prior FY to the current FY.  For example a student or staff whose last FY summary was in the 2019-2020 FY will now also have a current FY summary record.  Literacy agencies with students and staff who never had FY summary records at all will now see records. It is important to note that FY summary records have no impact on data entry in agencies that do not report federally, so most literacy users can ignore FY summary records if they choose. 

Where are FY summary records?

Student FY summary records are at the student History tab/Fiscal Year panel. Staff FY summary records are at the staff History tab/Fiscal Year panel. Additionally, student FY  summary records display at the All FY Data area. The All FY Data area now only displays 3 years worth of data in the SEA. However, if you do a search for data more than 3 years prior, the data can be exported to Excel (even though it does not display in the grid.) FY summary records may be opened to display read-only rows of the captured data points.

Manual  FY Summary Creation/Update

FY summaries may still be manually created by users but there are a few changes to the manual process. 

• FY summary records are scheduled.  User-scheduled FY summary "jobs" start every 5 minutes on the hour.  (Ex.:  5 minutes after the hour,  10 minutes after the hour, etc.)

• FY summaries may be scheduled in subsets up to 3000 records instead of the previous 500 record limit. 

• An email will be sent to the user who scheduled the summaries to notify the user that the summaries have completed.  The email includes the account name of the person who scheduled the summaries, the agency name, and the number of students or staff records being updated. 

Scheduling FY Summaries

1. Subset the student or staff records you wish to manually update. 

2. At the student or staff area, click the down arrow on the More toolbar. 

3.  Select "Create Fiscal Year Summaries."

4.  Click the Schedule button. 

5. A message will display letting you know that the summaries were scheduled and that an email will be sent upon completion. 

6. Check your email.

7. Once the FY summaries are updated, open the student or staff record and navigate to the History tab/Fiscal Year panel. 

8. You will see that the FY summary grid includes the columns:

   • Last Update - the date the FY summary was updated.  

   • Creation Date - the date the FY summary record was first created.  This date will not change. 

Remember that it may not be necessary to manually update FY summary records unless you need to immediately verify that students are counting on the NRS tables. 

Why do user-scheduled  summaries only run every 5 minutes?

5 minutes may seem like a long time, but the previous process to manually update FY summaries in subsets of 500 students or staff could take up to 8 minutes to complete.  Once the user-scheduled FY summary job starts, the time to complete the summaries is seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the number of subset records.  The length of time to update user-scheduled FY summaries is actually less than before. 

 Last update: 6/9/2023