faq and user guide
TRANSCRIPT
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FAQ and User Guide
MiSiS-Charter Weekly Data Processing Error Report
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Version History
Version Date Summary of Changes Author
1.0 09/22/2017 Initial Draft POONAM PETKAR
1.1 02/10/2018 Reformatted. Added TOC / Common Joel Kurtz
Errors / Troubleshooting
1.2 03/02/2018 Added workflow diagram. Removed Error Joel Kurtz
Category section. Miscellaneous updates
per review with team.
1.3 03/14/2018 Updated workflow diagram Joel Kurtz
1.4 05/31/2018 Updated "Known Issues with SIS" in Error Julio Anleu
Classification section.
Contents
About The MiSiS Charter Project .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Frequently Asked Questions: .................................................................................................................................................... 4
1. Why am I receiving an email entitled "For your attention: LAUSD MiSiS-Charter Project Data Error Report”? ……... 4
2. How do I change or add the contact person for my school or Charter Operator? ................................................... 4
3. How do I log in to view my error report? ....................................................................................................................... 4
4. How do I view the error reports? ..................................................................................................................................... 5
5. How do I filter “Error-Reports” by school? ..................................................................................................................... 6
6. How do I fix the data errors identified in this report? .................................................................................................. 7
7. What do the error severity classifications mean? ......................................................................................................... 7
7. Why am I seeing errors that I’ve already fixed? ............................................................................................................ 7
8. How quickly am I expected to correct these errors? .................................................................................................... 7
Understanding Your Error Report ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Undertstanding Error Classifications ..................................................................................................................................... 10
Troubleshooting and Correcting Errors ................................................................................................................................ 11
Contacting the Charter MiSiS Support Team .............................................................................................................. 11
Verify Errors ..................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Report Discrepancies ...................................................................................................................................................... 12
Fixing Errors ...................................................................................................................................................................... 13
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About The MiSiS Charter Project
The MiSiS Charter Project retrieves enrollment and other student related data on a daily basis from LAUSD
authorized charter schools. In order to properly store this data in the MiSiS database and make it available to
authorized users, the data goes through several transformations and validations in order to make it
compatible with the MiSiS Student Information System.
The Certify error reporting process provides weekly feedback to the schools verifying that the data received is
compatible with the MiSiS enrollment process and that the student’s data can be inserted into the MiSiS database in
compliance with the requirements of the Modified Consent Decree. Additionally, the error reports provide a pre-
validation of student enrollment data as many of the required enrollment fields are also required by the California
Department of Education (CDE) for CALPADS reporting. Errors discovered during the MiSiS validation process can then
be corrected prior to submitting CALPADS data, streamlining the CALPADS reporting process.
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Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Why am I receiving an email entitled "For your attention: LAUSD MiSiS-Charter Project Data Error Report”?
You are receiving this email because you have been designated by your school or CMO as the data designee for
the MISIS - Charter Project with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). This means that you will receive
this report on a weekly basis. These error reports will help you identify errors or omissions in recording your
school’s data as collected by LAUSD for the purposes of this project.
Reviewing and correcting your data will help your school be in compliance with the Modified Consent Decree and will also help you prepare your data for CALPADS state reporting, as many of these data fields are state-mandated fields.
2. How do I change or add the contact person for my school or Charter Operator?
Please e-mail [email protected] if you want to change/add a contact person for your
school/Charter Operator. LAUSD has set up an account for each school and has sent an email to the data
designee with login information.
For any login related issues or if your school has not received notification of a data designee, please send an e-
mail to [email protected]. Note that you may designate multiple recipients for this report if you
choose to do so and that every CMO / school must have at least one report designee.
3. How do I log in to view my error report?
Click the ‘here’ link in the email (see screenshot below). You will be directed to the Certify login page.
Sample
notification e-mail from the Certify error reporting system.
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On the login page, use your provided credentials to log in to your Certify account. It is highly recommended that you change your password after you log in for the first time. To change your password click on this link: Change Password Link
Certify Log In Page
4. How do I view the error reports?
Once you have logged into Certify, you will see the following summary:
Click on the severity error you want to see. It will bring you to the error report page (See the screen shot below). For a detailed explanation of each element of the error report see the Understanding Your Error Report section later in this document.
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Certify Error Report
5. How do I filter “Error-Reports” by school?
After logging in, the Scorecard displays all the schools you have access to and groups the errors by Severity. If you
wish to sort the list by a particular school, select School from the “Group By” dropdown box and click on the
“View Scorecard” button to the right of the drop down list. This will resort the list so that all the errors for a
particular school are grouped together.
Filter error report.
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6. How do I fix the data errors identified in this report?
All data errors should be fixed in your SIS. Priority should be on fixing Critical errors and then warnings. Once you make the change in your source system, it will reflect in the next report LAUSD will send you.
For example, if you see the following error, which indicates that the student’s race code is missing, you should
update the Student Race Code in your system for the indicated student (eg: student id 12345) in the indicated
school (eg : schoolid 123). Please see Troubleshooting And Correcting errors on page 11 for more details on
how to verify errors and report discrepancies.
Error detail from Certify report
7. What do the error severity classifications mean?
The Certify error reporting system currently supports 3 error states. These states indicate the severity of the
error. Correcting errors at the earliest possible convenience is to your advantage as many of these errors are
related to CALPADS reportable data. Correcting the data sooner rather than later will mean less work when
generating your CALPADS reports. For a detailed explanation of each severity classification, please see the
Understanding Error Classifications section later in this document.
7. Why am I seeing errors that I’ve already fixed?
When errors are corrected in your SIS, the data is updated in the MiSiS Charter system as well. Error reports, however, are only processed once a week so there may be a time gap between the time you fix the error and the fix shows up in the Certify report.
Additionally, the update process includes clearing errors in the MiSiS log for the corrected records. If the error
report shows records that have already been corrected in your system, it’s possible that the error flag in
Charter MiSiS has not been reset. You should report such occurrences to the Charter MiSiS team as outlined in
the Troubleshooting section on page 11 of this document.
8. How quickly am I expected to correct these errors?
It is the responsibility of each independent charter school to maintain accurate, up-to-date and complete student data. Therefore, your timely attention to correcting errors is required.
Please ensure that Severity 1 / Critical errors are corrected within ten business days of receipt of this report. If you need assistance or clarification on any Critical errors in your weekly Certify report, please contact [email protected].
Schools that are non-compliant with these reporting deadlines may receive follow-up from the Charter Schools Division through appropriate tiered intervention, including but not limited to: Phone call, email, a Notice of Concern, or a Notice to Cure.
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Understanding Your Error Report
The Certify error report contains several columns to help you and the MiSiS Charter team identify specific
errors and the student(s) they’re associated to. This information can help you identify the student record in
need of correction as well as provide a point of reference for the MiSiS Charter team to investigate
discrepancies in the error report where errors generated by the MiSiS data retrieval process are out of sync
with the data in your system.
Sample error report showing critical errors.
Below is a list of columns in the error report and a brief description of each column:
Field Name Description
School_ID This is the unique ID of the school in MiSiS.
School_Number This is the school ID from the source SIS.
CMOName This is the name of the CMO. If a school is not a member of a CMO, a
CMO name is assigned for purposes of identifying the school data in
MiSiS. This data is only used for processing by the MiSiS Charter team.
EnrollmentSchoolName This is the name of the school as it is received from the source SIS.
StudentID This is the unique student ID received from the source SIS.
SourceStudentNumber This is an alternate student ID received from the source SIS. Some
systems have multiple IDs for students. If this value is [NULL] then your
system only provides a single student ID.
StateStudentID This is the California state ID from the source system. If this value is
[NULL], then the student has probably not been assigned an ID yet
from the state.
Error_Severity This is the criticality for the error and indicates the priority for fixing
the error. Please see ‘Understanding Error Classifications’ for more
details.
ErrorCategory This is the subsection of the enrollment data in which the error
occurred. This helps the Charter MiSiS team identify where the error
occurred when research questions related to the error.
ErrorSource This is subset of the ErrorCategory and helps the Charter MiSiS team
identify where errors occurred in the data.
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Field Name Description
ErrorMessage
This is the actual error encountered in the data migration /transformation process. We’ve attempted to make the messages as concise and clear as possible. Please contact the team if any error messages you receive are unclear or ambiguous.
ReportedDate
This is the date the error is first reported to the school via the Certify error report.
ErrorOpen_Since This is the number of days the error has remained unfixed based on the initial reported date of the error.
Error_Type This is the name of the school as it is received from the source SIS.
IncidentUniqueId The “IncidentUniqueId” column is only applicable for the Discipline Data Set. It identifies the discipline record for which the error occurred.
AttendanceDate
The “AttendanceDate” column is only applicable for the Attendance
Data Set. This column indicates the date of individual student
attendance record for which the error occurred.
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Understanding Error Classifications
Each error logged in the transformation process is assigned a classification to indicate the severity of the error
and the action, if any the school should take with regard to correcting the error. Classifications allow prioritization
so that appropriate resources can be devoted to fixing errors in a timely manner. Many of the errors captured in
the MiSiS integration process are the same errors that CALPADS captures. Fixing these errors when reported by
MiSiS can simplify your CALPADS reporting process.
Severity Description
Critical: These errors are considered critical and must be corrected within 10
business days per LAUSD policy. Critical errors prevent associated student
records from successfully being recorded in MiSiS. Per the terms of the
consent decree, all students (including charter students), must be trackable
through MiSiS.
Warning: These errors should be addressed once Severity 1 critical errors are
corrected. These errors will not stop student records from being recorded in
MiSiS, but will flag the record for follow up. Warnings are usually related to
student contact information, such as an invalid student address or partial
parent/guardian information. These records should be corrected as soon as
all severity 1 records have been dealt with.
FYI: This error category is solely to provide notices For Your Information. This
category is often used to inform you when some change has been made to
non-critical data, such as setting a default value for a field where no data
exists in your SIS, such as the Twin flag, or where a non-critical value in your
SIS, such as an Entry Code, could not be directly translated to an existing
MiSiS value. FYI messages do not require any action on the part of the
school.
Known Issues with SIS: Items in this category correspond to critical errors that are caused by a
known bug in your SIS or a known bug in the LAUSD data retrieval process.
These issues will remain unresolved until the SIS vendor or LAUSD has been
able to update the software to rectify the issue. For items flagged as a
‘Known Issue’, no immediate action is required on the part of the school.
However, the error may require attention once the software has been
updated by the vendor or LAUSD and the school has been notified of the
update.
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Troubleshooting and Correcting Errors
Contacting the Charter MiSiS Support Team
When contact LAUSD regarding this project, please contact the Charter MiSiS team at [email protected]. Using this e-mail address insures that the appropriate team member will receive your e-mail. Every attempt will be made to respond to e-mails the same day.
Error Verification & Troubleshooting Workflow
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Verify Errors
Step one of correcting errors is to verify the errors in the report against the data in your system. Each
error contains your system’s internal schoolID and the studentID of the student for whom the error
occurred. Each error record also contains an error message describing the error. This information
should be enough to find the record in your SIS, from which you can verify that the error is valid and
requires correction.
Report Discrepancies
Occasionally, Certify may report errors that conflict with the data that’s currently in your system. There may be a number of reasons why these situations occur:
• Data in your system may have been updated after the Certify error report ran. The Certify error report runs at 4AM so while this scenario is unlikely, it is possible.
• Data in your system may not have been retrieved correctly during the nightly data extract. This may be due to an error in the Charter MiSiS data processing or could be an error in the vendor’s queries on which the MiSiS Charter processing relies.
• Other unknown errors requiring further investigation by the MiSiS Charter team could be the cause of discrepancies between the Certify report and your SIS data.
If you discover a discrepancy between the Certify report and the data in your system, please report the discrepancy to the Charter MiSiS team via the [email protected] e-mail. When reporting discrepancies, please include the following information to help the Charter MiSiS team resolve the issue:
• The school name and MiSiS schoolID from the Certify report.
• The StudentID (your system’s internal studentID from the Certify report.
• The StateStudentID (if available).
• The error message from the Certify report.
• The data value in your SIS that conflicts with the error message in the Certify report.
For example, if the Certify report indicates that you have a student that is missing a race code but your
system indicates the race code, please contact the Charter MiSiS team and include as much of the above
information in your e-mail as possible: The schoolname, studentid(s), error message and the race code
value in your system. Please DO NOT INCLUDE any personally identifiable student information in your e-
mail to protect the privacy of your students.
Once the Charter MiSiS team receives your e-mail it will be assigned to a team member for analysis. The team will contact you to verify receipt and to follow up once the issue is resolved. If the error in question is a Critical item, the 10-day window to correct will be waived while the team investigates.
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Fixing Errors
Individual error correction
If the number of errors in your report is minimal, the simplest method of correction is to update each individual record via your SIS’s user interface. If you need assistance in updating or correcting records, please contact your vendor’s support desk.
Multiple error correction
If your report contains a substantial number of errors and all the errors are the same (for example, you
have a few hundred students missing race codes), it may be possible to do a single update in your
system’s database to correct the errors. If you need assistance with such an update, many vendors can
do this for you, provided they have a clear understanding of the issue. If your vendor needs assistance
or clarifications on doing a mass update to correct any data issues identified by the error report, please
have them contact the MiSiS Charter team at [email protected].
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