SHAREPOINT PORTAL
PRESENTATION
Information Technology Services
Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Welcome
Queensland Department of Education,
Training and the Arts
MDCPS Background
Fourth largest school district
390 public schools; 80 Charter schools
Serving 2,400 square miles
344,000 students
56,364 employees; 5,963 Charter employees
Services 180 different home languages
The Big Picture
The Vision
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Have all users connected to all information at anytime
The Challenges
Giving our users access to their systems in one area
 Providing our parents an easy and consistent way to monitor their
child’s progress
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Tactical Objectives
Connect silo systems
 Reduce paper-based systems
 Increase parent involvement
 Provide easy and consistent access to information
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MDCPS Foundation
 Active Directory Account and Auto Update
 Password Synchronization
 District Email
 District wide Gradebook
 Metro Ethernet to each remote site
 Patch Management and Virus Protection
 Data Warehouse
 OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing tool)
 Self Service for Technology Support
 Leveraged Existing Microsoft Licensing and Experience
Implementation/Timeline
August 2007
District and Community
Deployment; Global Registration
System and Internship
Portal Lite
May 1, 2006
Enterprise Portal
November 2006 to April 2007
Infrastructure and Employee Portal
with Collaboration
Decision Making Process
 Key
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Criteria
Existing infrastructure and skill sets
Scalability
Technology partners and third party services
Flexibility
Rapid Development
 Why
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SharePoint?
Experience with Microsoft Products
Mature Microsoft Exchange Environment (ADS)
Successful Portal “Lite”
Established Personnel and Student Data Warehouse
Microsoft Platform throughout District
Good Partner Relationship with Microsoft
Build Cost
 Portal
Lite – Utilizing SharePoint Services - $300,000
 Enterprise
Portal – Utilizing MOSS 2007- $3.4 million
 Hardware, software, services, and employee training
 Single
Sign-on
 Personalization
 Collaboration
 Workflow
Resources
Resources:
 Miami-Dade
– 13 (Part Time)
2
SharePoint Administrators
 2 Exchange Specialists
 2 Database Administrators
 1 Web Designer
 4 Developers
 2 Network Analyst
 Microsoft
– Up to 10 Technical Staff (depending on phase
of deployment)
1
SharePoint Developer on site for 2 years
 1 Project Manager on site during Enterprise deployment
Initial Infrastructure Build
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Environment architecture and design
Security architecture and certificates
Hardware sizing and implementation
Active Directory Schema modifications
Database architecture and build
Data Warehouse interface and data
positioning
Development and Integration environments
Active Directory provisioning and
replication
Adoption
The Solution - www.dadeschools.net
Students
Parents
Employees
Community
My Site
Teacher Portal
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Teacher/Studen
Drill Down
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Test Scores
Absences
Homeroom Section
Birthdates
Student Achievement
Teacher
Portal
My Applications
Electronic Gradebook Application
Drill Down To The School Level
Equity and Access
Student Portal
Students can…
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View their schedule/grades
E-Textbooks
Store documents
Teacher/Student Collaboration site
School announcements and events
Create your own “My-site” Coming soon
Many more resources
E-Textbook
Parent Portal Access
 Login to Parent
Portal Using your
Existing Account
 Create an
Account – First
Time Users
It’s the Process
Not the Technology
M-DCPS
Acceptable Use Policy
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
Read in detail
If you agree to
these terms,
Select Accept
Parent Portal
New Features
 Student Schedule
 Student Assignments
& Grades
 Attendance
 E-Textbooks
 School Bus Information
 Free and Reduced Meal
Application process
 Ask A Question and
many more resources
Parent Internet Viewer
Flexible and Agile
Community Portal
Online
Application
processed
and reviewed
by District
Community
Service
Office
Lessons Learned
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Portal Lite
Over Estimating Services, Under Estimating Staff
Mapping and Establishing Environments Beforehand
Change Control in Place
Getting all Parts to Work Together
Limited best practice for MOSS as it as a new product
Deployment issues (test -> staging -> production)
No build process
Agile and Flexible
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Attendance Intervention
SPOT
SES
Weekly Briefing
Internship
Professional Development
RiverDeep
Attendance Intervention
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The implementation of this application is based on board rule.
Students with 5 unexcused/unresolved absences in a semester course or
10 unexcused/unresolved absences in an annual course will have their
academic grade withheld.
The Intervention application allows the attendance review committee to
determine the appropriate intervention for a student and then to resolve
the absences so that the academic grade can be given.
Additional comments can be added at the bottom of the application to
reflect any special issues that were addressed at the meeting.
Through the application the attendance review committee will print a
letter for signature by the parent and student. The letter will also print in
Spanish or Haitian-Creole if the home language is one of these
languages.
The student and parent also are receive a message in their alert box on
their individual portals. When they click on the alert they are taken to a
summary page showing the attendance intervention.
SPOTsuccess
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This application was created in response to a need that the Superintendent saw
to recognize students for doing positive things in school. The SPOTsuccess
application allows staff at schools to recognize students that has taken positive
action.
School personnel can recognize any student in their school by going into the
portal and selecting SPOTsuccess. There are nine core values to select from.
Within each core value a subgroup must be selected. The number of subgroups
varies between core values.
The principal approves the recognition on the principal approval screen.
Once approved the student and parent are notified in an alert box on their
individual portals. They can then click on the alert and se the congratulatory
letter.
In addition the principal has the options of printing a congratulation letter, an
award certificate, and emailing the parent. They can all print SPOTsuccess
stickers to hand out to the students.
Letters are printed in English and a second language based on the home
language.
SES-Supplemental Educational Services
If a child attends a school that has been identified by
the state as “in need of improvement” for two
consecutive years; and receives free-or-reduced price
lunch, they are eligible for free tutoring. The tutoring
is offered by state approved private providers in:
 Reading
 Language Arts
 Mathematics
before and after school or Saturdays
Internship
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Businesses apply for portal account and role, submit internship
proposals, select/decline interns and submit mid-term and
final evaluations of student interns.
District Community Services staff approve/disapprove
business’ requests as internship providers.
Students apply for internship opportunities available to them
that are automatically posted to their portal.
School site Internship Coordinators approve student requests
and queue up to ten students for interview with a business and
provide business information to approved students.
All functions are real-time in the portal and audiences receive
email notification in addition to portal screen information for
all actions and events related to an internship opportunity.
Professional Development
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Provides management and monitoring of District teacher training provided
by specialists from Professional Development, School Operations and
Curriculum and Instruction departments.
Curriculum Specialists from all departments use their portal to take a Talent
Survey, the information from which is used to send the most qualified
specialist to serve schools requests for professional development.
Curriculum Specialists complete a Service Log on their portal with details of
the training provided including grade level, categories, specific skills, etc.
Dynamic monitoring reports are available to the District departments
displaying which regions and schools needed what type of training and retraining along with numerous reports on categories and specific skills
trained. Reporting also differentiates new teachers, specific grade levels,
educational background, etc. regarding recipients of PD.
What’s Next
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Substitute System
 Substitute teachers use Portal to enter their
availability (using a calendar), subject areas,
grade levels, school and region preferences, etc.
and to apply for specific substitute vacancies.
 School sites use an Intranet web application to
post substitute vacancies, review available
substitutes, coordinate interviews and assign
substitutes to vacancies.
 Email notifications and screen displays keep all
parties informed on open vacancies, vacancies
applied for, substitute selection, etc.
Future Implementations
Continue to increase adoption
 If budget permits
Volunteer
Choice
Mentor
Scholarship Listing
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Infrastructure Overview
Active Directory Environment
 Historically decentralized AD environment
 Portal project coincided with AD migration project
 DMZ forest was created for student and parent
accounts
 Initially intended for web applications only
 Now being rethought for network access
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Infrastructure Overview
Load Balancer
Sharepoint Web 1
SQL Server Cluster 1
Sharepoint Web 2
SQL Server Cluster 2
Sharepoint Web 3
Sharepoint Web 4
SQL Server Cluster 3
Tape Library
Fiber attached SAN
Infrastructure Overview
Replication Topology
Bridgehead Site
8 DC’s
School Site
School
1 DC Site
School
1 DC Sites
1 DC
MIIS
343 Remote Sites
Data Warehouse
Mainframe
Infrastructure Overview
Dynamic Provisioning into AD
 Guardians identified with a PIN and questions
about the student
 Guardians linked to student as an attribute of
the AD user object
 Password self-reset
 M-Tech’s P-Synch software used
 Users register challenge Q&A for self reset
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Infrastructure Overview
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Version 3 single sign-on (Web SSO) technology used for transparent access
to resources
Student
Gradebook
Food Services
Portal
Single Sign-On
Transportation
HR / Payroll
RiverDeep
E-Mail
An overlaying
system of session
tickets allow uses
to login once and
access disparate
applications
Infrastructure Overview
Backup Strategy
 20 TB fiber channel SAN space allocated for the
portal
 20 TB lower cost FATA drives allocated as a
staging area
 Staging area is backed up nightly to a tape
library
 Selected collaboration sites are kept on different
retention schedules
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Q&A