Home Base Project StatusWeek Ending February 7, 2014

February 11, 2014 Webinar

Weekly Home Base Project Status — PowerSchool

Weekly Home Base Project Status

• Successes and Recent Accomplishments

• Major Attention Areas• Calendar – Future

Updates/Releases• Professional Development and

Training Schedule

Successes and Recent Accomplishments – PowerSchool / Clusters Completed development and quality assurance necessary to promote the following into production over maintenance weekend:•PS Release 7.10.0.1•NC State Compliance Reporting Release 14.1.3.2.0 (includes PMR/GRS, AIG and DropOut)•Additional Staff Roles (updated Code Set)•Enterprise Controller (Added code sets for Course and Sections - Delivery Mode, CTE Level, Third Party Provider, External Provider, Post Secondary Institution Codes and updated sort order for Course Lengths)•Staff Vehicles

Major Attention AreasPowerSchool / Clusters

Attention Area StatusState Compliance Reports PMR/GRS, AIG and DropOut were addressed with February 7

maintenance weekend. Known issues communicated through NCSIS Channels.

Student Transfers Across Districts

Student Transfers across districts currently under development.

Admission status and summarized attendance are coming to NCDPI QA next week.

Pearson core product changes are necessary to resolve known issues with entry/exit codes and historical grade fields.

Full resolution anticipated later this spring (version 7.10.2.0).

Major Attention AreasPowerSchool / Clusters

Attention Area StatusCourse Credit & GPA Added Value

Corrected problem introduced last weekend when course credit and added values for current courses were added to Enterprise Controller.

A script to update GPA added on historical grades was run over the weekend. Course credits are still outstanding and will require a subsequent script.

NC Transcript fixes UNC Minimum requirements not accurately reflected when current year courses are used in place of old year course codes.

Additional transcript issues have been identified and communicated to Pearson.

Major Attention AreasPowerSchool / Clusters

Attention Area StatusReport Cards There are two (2) alternate report cards due to issues with the

standard report card.

Software issues working toward resolution:•When students transfer to a new school, both the current and prior teacher show.•When a teacher in the same school leaves, PowerSchool reports results for both teachers.•Special characters in comments prevent printing.

Process/Data issues:•Districts must work with Pearson IPMs and HBSC reps to address and correct set-up issues (e.g. overlapping exam dates prevent grades from storing)

Black Box (Emergency Contact List)

An alternative solution to provide student emergency contact information was deemed a security risk. Pearson will provide this customization instead.

Auto-Dialer Failed QA and back in Pearson development for correction. Targeting later in February for production release.

Major Attention AreasPowerSchool / Clusters

Attention Area StatusSystem Performance Weekly server restarts (Sunday 12 a.m. – 4 a.m.) are occurring to

proactively address PowerSchool performance concerns. Ongoing monitoring is underway and will continue to ensure service levels are met. At least two (2) districts experienced outages this week.

Outstanding Requirements Finalization

NCDPI finalized business requirements for Syncing UID Student Demographics with Power School.

Lottery requirements review session planned with Pearson team on 2/10.

Pearson will confirm delivery dates for this deliverable after completing requirements review and high-level specs.

NCDPI will complete Military requirements by March. Delivery dates are to be determined.

Calendar – Future Updates/ReleasesPowerSchool / Clusters

Timeframe Component / Feature

February 2014 • PMR/GRS fixes• AIG Enhancements• Initial Dropout Reporting• EDDIE integration turned back on• Course & Section Enhancements • Ongoing Statewide Alternative Report Card • EC CECAS (Phase II)• CTE Concentrator Survey • Auto Dialer

Healthcare Features • Office Visit Enhancement• Medication Log• Accident Injury Log• Student Health Care Plan

Calendar – Future Updates/ReleasesPowerSchool / Clusters

Timeframe Component / Feature

March 2014 • Title X Homeless• LEP/WAPT• Title I ESSR• Athletic Eligibility

April 2014 • Title III Immigrant• EC CECAS (Phase III)• Accountability• SADLS (Driver Eligibility)• Teacher Verification of Course Certification• Phase 3 Test Score Imports

May 2014 • Grad Plans• Black Box

July 2014 • Standards-Based Report Cards (SBRC)• Academically and Intellectually Gifted - Phase 2

2014-15 School Year

• Historical Data Conversion• Historical Transcript/Cum Folder Solution

Professional Development & Training Schedule - PowerSchool / Clusters

PowerSchool Scheduling training is well underway http://www.nc-sis.org/calendar_February.html

Home Base Symposium is February 17-19: http://www.nc-sis.org/symposium14.html. Early Registration ended February 7.

Weekly Home Base Project Status — Schoolnet & OpenClass

Successes and Recent Accomplishments – Schoolnet

• Pearson implemented changes in web caching this week that resulted in marked improvements in Schoolnet system performance. Many LEAs reported that the system was significantly more responsive than it has been in recent weeks. 

• Many LEAs reported issues this week getting a “Service is Unavailable” error when attempting to access Schoolnet. Pearson identified and corrected the issue, which was tied to the single sign-on solution (SSO).

• Pearson successfully added 5 additional web servers.• Schoolnet performance has been stable for several days

now. Users will continue to see incremental improvements in Schoolnet performance over the next few months.

Major Attention AreasSchoolnet

Attention Area StatusSystem performance Pearson continues to make infrastructure and configuration

improvements and system code changes to improve Schoolnet system performance. Recent changes include changes to web caching that had a significant impact on performance. Pearson added 50% more webservers (5 more) to the pool this past weekend to increase capacity. Pearson and DPI have performance monitoring tools to monitor system performance and take corrective action. End-users will see incremental improvements over the next few months until system performance and availability comply with our Service Level Agreement.

Calendar – Future Updates/Releases

Timeframe System / Organization Component / Feature

February Schoolnet Addition of 5 more web servers to the pool

February Schoolnet Continued code optimization.

March/April 2014 Schoolnet Schoolnet version 15.4 expected in Production

July 2014 Schoolnet Schoolnet version 16.0 slated for Production.

Calendar – Future Updates/Releases

Timeframe System/ Organization

Component / Feature

Fall 2014 TestNav Summative Assessment

Add summative assessment component (TestNav) to the Home Base suite of applications. Pilot Summative Assessment capability by delivering 10 of the 30 NC Final Exams through the Summative Assessment platform.

March 2015 TestNav Summative Assessment

Field test 3 High School EOC tests

Spring 2015 TestNav Summative Assessment

Pilot remaining 20 NC Final Exams and 3 High School EOC tests through the Summative Assessment platform.

Professional Development & Training Schedule – Schoolnet & OpenClass

For more on professional development and training, please see http://www.ncpublicschools.org/homebase/training/schedule/ and http://bit.ly/12txEvM.

Weekly Home Base Project Status — Educator Evaluation System & Professional Development

Successes and Recent Accomplishments – Educator Evaluation System

Professional Development Tool Pilot #1•Over the last several months, many LEAs have reported intermittent problems getting an “openSAML: Fatal Exception” error. Truenorthlogic identified and corrected the root cause of this issue and continues to monitor SSO connections.•Many LEAs reported issues this week getting a “Service is Unavailable” error when attempting to access the Educator Evaluation System. Pearson identified and corrected the issue, which was tied to the Pearson single sign-on solution (SSO). •Provided the ability for district Educator Evaluation administrators to reset user passwords for the direct login access.•Continued delivery of the second pilot course which runs through March 2014.•General rollout of the Professional Development System to all LEAs is scheduled for April 2014.

Major Attention AreasEducator Evaluation System

Attention Area StatusLog-Ins Provided direct login access to the Educator Evaluation and

Professional Development systems, which allows end-users to access the system without logging in through PowerSchool. This new feature has enabled LEAs to continue to use the Educator Evaluation System whenever they encountered issues with PowerSchool single sign-on (SSO) and when PowerSchool was down for maintenance.

Calendar – Future Updates/Releases

Timeframe System / Organization Component / Feature

February 2014 Educator Evaluation System Deliver improved evaluation screens (to reduce horizontal scrolling required in current screens)

February/March 2014

Professional Development System

Conduct second pilot course “Effective digital strategies for teaching and learning in the K-12 classroom”

April 2014 Professional Development System

Professional Development Tool goes live for all LEAs.

Professional Development & TrainingSchedule – Educator Evaluation System & Professional Development

For more information about professional development and training, please see http://www.ncpublicschools.org/homebase/training/schedule/ and http://bit.ly/12txEvM.

Weekly Home Base Project Status —Home Base Support Center (HBSC)

HBSC - Weekly Performance IndicatorsIncident Management

Weekly Submitted vs. Resolved Home Base Tickets

Outstanding Ticket Resolution - (pre 1/10/14 submissions)

Submitted Resolved % Resolved

445 389 87%

Resolutions (week) Total to Date

81 751

HBSC - Weekly Performance Indicators Call Center

Weekly Calls - % Home Base calls reaching an agent - (HBSC staff answer other telephone support requests in addition to Home Base)

Weekly Home Base Calls – Average Wait Time

Reached an Agent Unanswered (eMail)

89% 11%

Calls Average Wait Time

235 44 Seconds

HBSC - Weekly Performance Indicators

Weekly Backlog 285 tickets waiting to be picked up by HBSC or members of SME groups where tickets are assigned

Top Five Issue Categories for the Week• Marks• Security/Login• Instructional Tools/Content• PowerSchool Reporting• State Reporting

** HBSC staff availability impacted by mandatory training from February 3rd through February 14th. HBSC staff will be facilitating sessions at Symposium, February 17th through February 19th.

New online Weekly Project Status will be live beginning Feb. 17.

Questions?