Statewide Student Management System
SIS Updates
September 19, 2014

Deborah Gilliam
Product Manager, SIS
Debbie.Gilliam@tn.gov
615-253-1637 Office

2014-15 Statewide Student Management System
 101 state hosted districts
– Edupoint (26)
– Follett (9)
– Pearson (9)
– Skyward (31)
– STI (26)

Participating Addendum Reminders
 You are not committed to the SSMS for life of contract
 You are not committed to a vendor for life of contract
 Change vendors – new PA required
 Change from local/vendor hosted to DOE hosted – PA required
 Document vendor selection process
– Maintain documentation on file locally
– Include rationale for selection (Ex: memo explaining rationale, minutes from Board meeting, etc.)
– Required for audit purposes

Annual Cost Billing Process
 Annual cost based on funded ADM counts (K-12 only)
 District responsible for paying district share of annual costs
– Vendors direct billing for district share of annual cost could begin on/after Aug 1
– Vendors required to provide DOE copy of district annual costs invoices for verification and audit purposes
 Vendors billing DOE directly for state share of annual cost ($2.55/ADM) for SSMS districts

Outlook for 2015-16
 The new fiscal year budget cycle will dictate if or how many additional districts we can accommodate in 2015-16
 Current annual cost subsidy level is
$2.55/ADM
 Could potentially adjust the annual cost subsidy level (downward) to accommodate additional districts

SSMS General
 Routine maintenance downtime windows as needed
– Wednesday evenings (5PM – midnight)
– Saturdays (6AM Sat – 6AM Sun)
– Application releases/updates, etc. applied during these times (unless emergency)
 Any other downtimes – will be notified
 New SSMS Listservs established for general
DOE communications to SSMS districts
– Per vendor and combined

SSMS General
 Extracts generated routinely by vendor
– Automated process
– 3 days/week
– Data entered/changed by 5:00 PM
SIS Vendors Create Extracts
By 10.00 PM
EIS Processes Extracts
(Close of Business)
Data Available in EIS
(Start of Business)
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Tuesday
Thursday
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Tuesday

SSMS General
 Extracts staggered during implementation
– Group 1: district and school calendars (5 extracts)
– Group 2: class schedule, student enrollment, staff current assignment (6 extracts)
– Group 3: all remaining extracts – student, completion, grades, busing, etc. (17 extracts)
 All new SIS vendors, except Follett, are now sending all required extracts
– Follett all but 4 extracts in group 3
 SIS application releases, updates, patches, etc. applied by vendor for all districts at same time

Resources, Support and Protocol
– Data mapping document (maps state required data elements to data fields in SIS application)
– Vendors responsible for application support
• Support staff should have knowledge of TN requirements
– EIS Help Desk – assists with data reporting errors
– Issues with application/Azure environment access
• All vendors have admin access to boxes in state hosted Azure environment
• All vendors should be monitoring environment
• DOE has monitoring tools in place and looking at additional monitoring tools/options (alerts)
• Will be doing routine “cleansing” of Azure environment

Resources, Support and Protocol
– Issues with your SIS should first be reported to your vendor
• If vendor cannot resolve issue – vendor notifies DOE
Vendor
Edupoint
Follett
Pearson
Skyward
STI
Customer Support
1.877.899.9111
1.888.244.1366
1.866.434.6276
1.800.236.0001
1.800.844.0884
– Overall DOE Product Support will be restructured to provide a more integrated and streamlined process
• One stop shop for all DOE outward facing applications
• New ticketing system
• More communications and details to come as the processes and procedures are ironed out

IMPORTANT DATES
 November 1, 2014 - All historical data must be pulled for data conversion
 Mid – Late November 2014 – cut-off for “live” access to Star_Student to complete state Report
Card reporting process
 November 30, 2014 – all district user access to
Star_Student will be terminated
 November 15, 2014 – deadline to submit
Participating Addendums for 2015-16 implementation

Most Common SIS Vendor Implementation Issues
 Missed deadlines during “go-live” implementation and
EIS testing of extracts and reports
– All five vendors required to test/validate generation of EIS extracts and reports
 Poor/no QA during EIS testing
 Poor validation on required data fields and state defined codes
– Suggests issues with mapping data during conversion and properly mapping required data elements to correct fields in their application
– State defined code tables should be locked down

Most Common SIS Vendor Implementation Issues
 Insufficient/lack of prior planning/preparation to address TN specifics in application
 Assumed their vendor hosted model fit the SSMS model (business as usual)
 Insufficient resources to handle the TN implementation
– Having the right people involved
– Underestimated the amount of work, time and effort needed for the TN implementation
– Same resources working on multiple components
• TN specifics + EIS testing + training + application updates
• TN application development + DLP/Ed-Fi development

Things To Do…
 RUGs – continue involvement & consider restructure
 Provide SIS vendors direct access to:
– Course Master in EIS
– Lists of valid state defined codes
 Create enhanced enrollment process
– Automated call to EIS for student state IDs
 Implement Single Sign On

Comments
Questions