SDS USER,
The SDS Team has put together a newsletter with update news, delicious recipes, and instructions to assist you with your daily work at this time of year.
A note for the Accounts Receivable Department: All SDS Invoices are being sent via email.
If you have a change of staff or email address, please send the updated
information to Sherrie@SchoolOffice.com
.
See the next section of this document, “News Brief”, to get a quick overview of what is included. Simply click on the news you would like to view and it will take you to that area in the document for quick viewing.
We enjoy working with you and hope you find the articles the SDS Team has put together for you to be very informative!
If you have any feedback on this newsletter, feel free to respond to this email.
Jennifer
A. Nielsen
Jennifer A. Nielsen
Email: jennifer@schooloffice.com
Phone: 800-323-1605
Fax: 630-955-1599
Web: www.schooloffice.com
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here.
News Briefs
User
Sessions Posted – SIGN UP TODAY!
Create Cloning Groups to Setup New Employees
Changing a Purchase Order that has been made
Permanent
Financial Reports-Account and Activity/Next
Month
Preparing for the End of the School Year
Web Office Individual Student Course
Registration – The Quick Method.
Web Office Individual Student Course
Registration – The Guided Method
New State Reports for Illinois
Indiana RT problems and solutions
User News
America’s Best High Schools
http://www.usnews.com/directories/high-schools/
SDS supports the best clients in the country. Listed below are some that were recently recognized by US NEWS & World Report:
McClave Undivided High School
Ridgeview Classical
Marissa Junior & Senior High School
University of
Beech Grove
Heritage Hills
Ishpeming
User Sessions Posted – SIGN UP TODAY!
SDS Free User sessions are NOW posted on our website. Only 24 people can attend each session. Register today to get a spot before they fill up by visiting http://www.schooloffice.com/training_user_sessions.htm .
SDSBits Blog
Keep on top of what’s happening at SDS and the most current updates by reading our SDSBits blog on a regular basis http://sdsbits.wordpress.com . If you cannot access an update news post, please contact support and they will assist you.
Need Instructions
SDS has an interactive Help Console in Web School Office and Web Financial Office. It is located in your system at the bottom of the menu tree as “Student Help” or “Finance Help.” Check it out TODAY!
Recipe for March
Shamrock Pie
8 servings
›
30 chocolate
wafers
›
5 tbsp
butter (melted)
›
1
quart mint chip ice cream, slightly softened
›
16
chocolate sandwich cookies, chopped into large chunks
Crust
›
Place
chocolate wafer in resealable plastic bag.
Flatten bag to remove excess air and seal. Finely crush cookies using a rolling
pin. Place crumbs in bowl. Add Butter; mix well. Press mixture into pie pan.
Note: you can purchase your own
shell if you would like to speed up the recipe.
›
Freeze
for 30 minutes.
Filling
›
Fill
shell with softened mint chocolate chip ice cream and top with crushed sandwich
cookies, pat down slightly. Freeze
before slicing and serving.
Finance User
Tips and Tricks
In hopes to make your month go a little smoother, checklists were created for your use! Keep in mind these are very basic checklists and your district may have other procedures that you do as well. Please feel free to modify the list to fit your specific. Please select the link and save the file.
General Ledger V8.5 or Web Checklist
http://www.schooloffice.com/Instructions/Checklists/Checklist
General Ledger V8.5 or Web.xls
Payroll Checklist
V8.5
http://www.schooloffice.com/Instructions/Checklists/Checklist
Payroll V8.5.xls
Payroll Checklist
Web Financial Office
http://www.schooloffice.com/Instructions/Checklists/Checklist
Payroll Web.xls
Don’t forget to make notes for payroll in a payroll notebook! List each payroll date and any changes that would take affect on that payroll. This will make it easier to look for these changes in your reports and any changes in your contracts from one pay to the next.
Cloning saves many steps in creating a new employee record, but have you ever forgotten the name of the employee you wanted to use? No need to remember any more! Create a group(s) that can be used to represent each different category of employees.
1.
Select
Human Resources.
2.
Select
Employee, Contracts, Deductions/Benefits, etc.
3.
To add
a New Cloning Group click on .
4.
In the
Select Employee to Clone box, select an employee close to the type of Cloning
Group you are creating.
5.
Enter
the Group Name under Employee Name, this
will have to be in FirstName, LastName format ie: Teacher, _
6.
Click
on Get Next ID#.
7.
Select
to
save.
8.
Review
and enter/edit required information of Retir TIN, FICA, Marital Status, Tax
Table, etc. Review and enter/edit the items in the Deductions
and Benefits for a standard user in the Cloning Group.
Next time you need to setup a new employee, select the Group Category closest to the new employee you are adding, then add your new employee. Enter/edit the required information of Retir TIN, FICA, Marital Status, Tax Table, etc. Enter/edit the items in Deductions and Benefits.
For more information on setting up new employees, refer to
If you have made a purchase order permanent and need to change the account number or the amount of the item that is being purchased, simply follow these steps and you will be able to make your changes.
1. Open Administrative Utilities.
2. Select SDS Web Office Settings.
3. On the option Allow PO Adjustment Change the selection to a Y.
4. Select the Save Changes button.
5. Click on another menu item or log out of the system and then log back into the system to refresh your changes.
6. Open Purchasing.
7. Select Request for Purchase Entry.
8. Select the Vendor.
9. Select View/Edit on the purchase order you need to adjust.
10. The purchase order will preview.
11. Make the necessary changes to the quantity, price or account number, etc.
12. Select the Request is Complete, Exit button.
13. You have successfully changed the purchase order.
When running any of the reports under the Financial Reporting option, you may have a need to run a report that shows all accounts and activity. In the past the report has included any entries that have been entered for the Next Month. While these detail entries for Next Month were displayed on the report, they were not included in the totals for the report being printed. If you have updated your system as of Mid February, you will notice that the Next Month entries are not being displayed any longer as a part of the detailed activity. In the future, the reporting options may include a choice of including these next month entries on the report, but as of this update, the report will not display the Next Month entries.
Want to save time
when entering Manual Entries?
Utilizing Quick Pay
Adjustments provides you with another time-saving tool that works in
conjunction with the Manual Time Card Entry.
To utilize Quick Pay Adjustments, there are some items that need to be
in place before getting started.
1.
In the
Employee Demographics (All Fields) the account numbers and rates items 1-4 will
need to be filled in.
2.
Gross
Pay Codes can work to your advantage if you can use the GPC to help organize
the entries.
3.
Utilizing
the “Who Can Be Paid” feature under Quick Pay Adjustments allows the user to
sort by certain columns to make it easier to organize the entries.
If you are interested
in trying this feature, you may want to consider scheduling a webinar with one
of the Finance trainers.
Below is a quick overview of how Quick Pay Adjustments
can be utilized:
Quick Pay Adjustments
This is an option that has many different selections that allow you to
select and edit your time cards as quickly as possible. You can clone (copy)
manual time cards from previous payrolls and quickly make adjustments to the
hours and rates of pay. If the Account One (Two, etc.), Rate One (Two, etc.),
area is utilized in the Employee Master, you can quickly select employees to
pay from these groups. You can edit all the time cards selected for the current
payroll in the easy to use horizontal grid with one save, saving you time. You
cannot change account numbers on this screen.
1. From the Menu
Tree, Select Payroll Processing |Activate Open a Payroll.
2. In addition to
the normal payroll process and Contract Selection Option:
·
Select the Hourly Time Card Cloning Option.
·
Select the Gross Pay Codes you want to
Process. These Gross Pay Codes are
dependent on what area is selected in the Quick Pay Adjustments. Gross Pay Codes are kept in both the Employee
Demographics (All Fields) area or they are pulled from the Prior Pay Time Card
entries.
·
From the drop down, select the previous Payroll
Date you wish to clone (copy) the time cards from.
·
Activate/Open the payroll.
·
From the Menu Tree, select Quick Pay Adjustments.
There are different options to choose from:
The cloned Hourly time card is the default. This
selection will show Cloned time cards only.
Manual Entries, when selected will display the
manual time cards for the current payroll.
Cloned and Manual will show both sets of time
cards.
Who is Not Paid or Who Can Be Paid, when selected,
will display another group of options.
·
Employee Master Area1 (Area 2, etc) will display
all employees with an account number, rate or hours in the Employee Master Area
1 (Area 2, etc.)
·
Last Month will display all manual time cards from
last month.
·
Last Two Months will display all manual time cards
from the last two months.
3. Make
adjustments needed to the rates or hours on the time cards.
4. To
delete a time card from the current payroll remove the check mark under the
Pay? column.
5. When
you are done with your adjustments select the Save button. All your changes
will now appear in the Manual Pay Entries and Adjustments screen. Further edits will need to be made in this
area.
Student User
Tips and Tricks
The end of the school year is quickly approaching. Now is the time to start planning for your year end processes while thinking of new ways to help ourselves and our environment.
It’s always important to keep detail information about absences and discipline from year to year. In the past schools have printed paper copies of cumulative attendance reports, cumulative discipline reports, attendance analysis reports, etc. This year, why not plan to save those reports to a .pdf file and write them all out to a CD. Label that CD with the names of the reports and the school year. Then if you need a cumulative attendance report for a specific student for a previous school year, you can just go to the CD, pull up the .pdf file and print the specific page for just that student. No more reams of wasted paper and most schools can fit all of the office reports on a single CD. Remember to always have a backup.
If you decide to save gradebook reports in the same manner, you will most likely need to save them to separate CD. Open Reports | Student Reports | Grades – Teacher Gradebook Reports. If the office saves the reports it will include all teachers to the same CD.
For users that would like to enter student registration requests quickly and without using a mouse, this can be accomplished by using the following method:
1. Go
into Next Year Registration and Schedule changes.
2. Locate
the student to process.
3. Enter
a course number into the “course” box in the “crs-sec-sem” area. This is located at the top left of the
registration area.
4. Hit
the enter key on keyboard then space bar. This will add that course to the
student’s registration record and it will place the cursor back in the “course”
box ready for the next number. This
eliminates the need to use the mouse.
· Teacher demands can be accomplished by selecting the teacher in the “teacher” drop down box BEFORE selecting “Enter”.
· Section demands can be accomplished by selecting the section in the “class sections” drop down box BEFORE selecting “Enter”.
For users that would like to see a list of courses that are specific to a student’s grade level, the guided method may be preferred. Note: Teacher and semester demands cannot be requested using the guided method. This method will require the use of the mouse, since you will select classes from a drop down list.
1.
Enter Next Year Registration and Schedule
changes.
2. Locate the student for whom you want to enter requests.
3.
You will see 
“Guided Course Selections” at the top. Click on it.
You will see only the courses setup* for that student’s grade year.
4. Choose the courses for the selected student. When finished, click the “Submit and Close” button. The student is now registered for those courses.
SETUP: To setup the registration drop down boxes so that the courses are specific to the selected student’s grade:
1. Open “Scheduling” to Master File and Code Entry and Changes.
2. Choose the Application of Scheduling (Next Year).
3. Choose the Entry option of Registration via Web Setup.
4. Click on the Green Plus sign and select a grade year from the list. This will open an area to the right. Use the field “scan code” to designate the appropriate grade level for the course. The grade level is referring to the current year grade level.
· As example: if you choose the grade year “08” and assign the scan code of 1, then any course in the next year course code table with a scan code of 1 will populate on the guided course selection list for students in that “grade year”. If you choose the grade year of “09” and assign it a scan code of 2, then any course in the next year course code table with that scan code will populate on the drop down list for students with a grade year of 09. If both grade levels may take that course, the scan code would be 12.
State Reporting News
Two new reports have been added to Illinois State Reporting:
› Homeless
› Multiple SID.
Reports are located in Web School Office |Processing Center |Data Exchange, State and Federal Reporting.
In V8.5 the reports are located in State Reporting |Illinois |ISBE Student Information System.
The home school district is the only entity allowed to upload these two reports to ISBE.
Refer to the ISBE SIS Data
Elements document for the approved codes and definitions.
Soon it will be time to send out transcripts for your seniors. Be sure to assign the graduation date.
When creating the DOE-STN report, make sure that you have assigned the correct ethnic code to each student. A student is in just ONE of the following categories:
1 = American Indian
2 = Black (Not of Hispanic Origin)
3 = Asian or Pacific Islander
4 = Hispanic
5 = White (Not of Hispanic Origin)
6 = Multiracial
Make note that a student that is Hispanic (of any race) must be coded with a 4.
After
June 2010, the codes change as follows:
1 = American Indian
2 = Black
3 = Asian
4 = Hispanic Ethnicity and of any race
5 = White
6 = Multiracial (two or more races)
7 = Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
For more information, see the Indiana DOE web site at: http://www.doe.in.gov/stn/Sections/STN/STN_Lookup.html and review the section on race and ethnicity changes.
For
1. Student doesn’t have the right entry date. Pull the entry date field value from the attendance analysis table, not the demographics table. This way, you can leave the student’s original entry date in the demographics entry date field. Also if the student leaves and returns, the attendance analysis table will use the right dates for both records (as long as the right date was entered).
2. Student doesn’t have the right exit date or any exit date. Pull the exit date field value from the attendance analysis table, not the demographics table. This way, you’ll get the right exit date (as long as the right date was entered) AND if the student returns, the original exit date information from when the student left the first time. If no exit date shows up, it could be because the Percent Full Time is equal to 0.
3. Student’s exit code isn’t correct. SDS recommends using the state’s list of dropout and mobility codes to code the demographics exit code field. When a student withdraws, the student is “mobile” or a “drop out”. If you have not already done so, add the state codes to your exit codes in SDS. For current students that have already withdrawn, change their exit code to the appropriate state code in both demographics and the demographics history records.
4. Student has two records in the RT output file and should only have one record. In situations like this, it has been found that the student_enrollment records have a slight difference in them. For example, one student had a misc_group data value in some records for some dates but not in all dates. The attendance analysis interpreted this as a “difference” and thus made two records for the student. Commonly if you just rebuild the enrollment data for this student and refresh the attendance analysis, the problem is resolved.
5. Student was never enrolled at my school and shows on the RT report. Make sure the current year active field from demographics is set to 1. This should remove the student from your output file.
6. Exited students are not showing on my output file. Change the selection criteria to include only students where current year active = 0 (V8.5) or current year active <= 0 and current year active >= 0 (WSO). Do NOT use the exit date is null feature – you WANT those students.
7. Student left and returned this year, but the RT is only showing one line of data and should have two.
a. Check the demographics history area and make sure there’s a line with the original entry date and exit date. There should be a second line of data with the entry date being the date of return for the student. If this is not the case, you will have to re-do the withdrawal and re-enroll process.
b. Check the daily attendance entries for this student. On the date the student left, there should be a “W” record. If not, add one in (as you would add an attendance record). On the date the student returned, there should be an “R” record. If not, add one in (as you would add an attendance record). There should be NO attendance records between the W and R records.
c. Check the student enrollment data. Make sure it starts with the original entry date, stops with the exit date, and re-starts with the re-enrollment date. If this is not the case, then rebuild the enrollment data using the steps shown here.