14-15 Fiscal Year End and 15-16 Rollover Preparation

14-15 Fiscal Year End and 15-16 Rollover Preparation

Important Information for 14/15 Reporting

Table 5 is based on automatic cohorts rather than on student goals for all students other than those who left with the Retain Employment goal between 4/1/2013 – 6/30/2013. This is the last reporting year that any goals-based data will be included on Table 5. Detailed information can be found in the LACES 2012.2.0 NRS Cohorts Release Notes and also later in this document.
When running the NRS Tables, make sure you do not use the ones that include ‘(FY 2011-2012 & before)’ or ‘(FY 2009-2010 & before)’ in the name of the report because these are not the most current Tables.
Table 7 for Staff is run from FY Summaries (like the NRS Tables for students) rather than from the raw data, so you will need to create FY Summaries for your staff before running Table 7.

Verify Data on NRS Tables

To prepare for your Fiscal Year end, first you should verify that all data on your NRS tables is correct. To do this, complete the following steps:

Create/Update FY Summaries

Run fiscal year summaries, and verify that the information is correct and complete. You can run FY summaries manually or schedule it to be done by us.

The Fiscal Year Summary records are created from the Student tab and are run on the selection. If you are creating the FY Summaries yourself, you will need to subset a selection of 200 or fewer students, because this functionality requires a great deal of processing. If you are scheduling FY Summaries to be run, you do not need to subset them – FY Summaries will be created for the students who were in your list at the time the summaries were scheduled.

Manually Creating FY Summaries

Tip: Begin by going to the User tab of LACES and clicking on the My Settings folder. Next to Display Rows, if the number listed here is not 200, double-click the number to highlight it, then change it to 200 and click Save Changes. Now, when you return to your student list, there will be 200 students displayed on each page.

In the Student tab, pull up the list of students who need to have FY Summaries created.Typical selections are: all enrolled students, Find > NRS Fundables, or FInd > Current FY.
Put a check in the box at the top of the student list to check each of the students on the page and then go to Selection > Subset. If your beginning list of students was more than 200 but you followed the tip to set your display rows to 200, you will be left with 200 students.
Go to New > Create FY Summary
In the resulting window, click Create FY Data Now.
The button will grey out while the summaries are being created. Because the summary creation is labor-intensive for the database, we recommend that you do not work in LACES until the summaries have been completed
When the FY Summaries have been updated, you will receive the following message: Fiscal Year Data created successfully!
If you get a message that the FY Records failed to create, please let tech support know.
If your original selection had more than 200 students, you will need to pull up the list again, go to the second page and repeat the process of subsetting the students and creating new FY Summaries. Keep repeating the process until you have updated the FY Summaries for all of the students in your list.

Scheduling FY Summary Creation

To schedule creation of Fiscal Year Summary records, go to the Student tab and determine which students you want to run the records for. Typical selections are: all enrolled students, Find > NRS Fundables, or Find > Current FY.
Go to New > Create FY Summary
Click the Schedule button.
You will receive a message telling you the creation of FY summary has been scheduled.
Usually within a day you will receive an email stating that the records have been created, if your email address has been entered in LACES. You can enter your email address or verify that it is already there by going to User > Account.

Fiscal Year Based Diagnostic Searches

When running Fiscal Year Based Diagnostics Searches, be sure to run this search JUST on your NRS fundable students by going to StudentsCurrentFYNRSFundables in the Selection. You can also run the search on the Current FY Students (Find > Current FY) so you can double-check the data for all of the current FY students.

Difference between NRS Fundable and NRS Reportable

NRS Fundable student - fundable is defined as a current fiscal year student with 12 or more instructional hours and a valid Entry Educational Functioning Level (Completed Advanced ESL is not a valid Entry EFL), usually obtained through a valid assessment in the fiscal year. Additionally, they must be at least 16 years of age.

NRS Reportable Student – meets all of the above criteria and does not have any data entry issues that prevent LACES from being able to accurately map the student’s data to the NRS Reports (these are the issues the Diagnostics are designed to find).

The diagnostic search is helpful to review your data after creating FY records, and to locate students who are NRS fundable but are not reportable.

Please read through this entire section PRIOR to running the diagnostic search!

To run the Fiscal Year Based Diagnostic Searches:

From the Student tab, go to Find > Fiscal Year Based Diagnostic Searches.
When the search window opens, choose the NRS FY 14-15 option for the Reporting System, click Search in the “Current Selection Only,” and then click the “Apply the Above Search Condition” button.
Click all of the “Get Results” buttons in the right-hand column.

If the screen grays out after clicking the “Get Results” button, you will need to set the Compatibility View in Internet Explorer to access the search results:

Open an Internet Explorer webpage.
In the Tools section, click on Compatibility View Settings. If you do not see the Tools menu, click the ALT key on your keyboard to display it.
Add literacypro.com, and hit Add, then Close.
If you go back into the Tools tab, you should see a check mark next to Compatibility View. You can also go back into the Compatibility View Settings to verify the link is within the websites added.

Interpreting the Results of the Fiscal Year Based Diagnostic Searches

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS USING FISCAL YEAR DATA

Students with fiscal year data in the above Reporting System

This search tells you how many of the students in your selection have had a FY summary run for the current FY. Ideally, this should be the same number as your starting selection, as we recommend running the diagnostics immediately after running FY summaries.

Students without fiscal year data in the above Reporting System

This search shows how many students in your selection have not had a FY summary created in the current FY. To correct numbers here, click on the number, and thenrun fiscal year summaries on those students.

Students with fiscal year data created before today in the above Reporting System

This search tells you how many of the students in your selection have had a FY summary for the current FY that was created prior to today’s date. If data has been added, edited, deleted, or modified since the last FY summary creation, new FY summaries should be run for these students.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS MISSING DEMOGRAPHIC DATA IN FISCAL YEAR RECORDS

Students missing ethnicity/race information

Since this is a required field when entering a new student, you should not have students appearing in this diagnostic category unless the student was imported from another application without this data or the student is a returning student for whom the race/ethnicity has not been updated since the NRS switched to the two-part format for this data. If students appear in this category, go to the student Demographics folder to enter the information and then create new FY summaries before running the diagnostics again.

Students missing gender information

Since this is a required field when entering a new student, you should not have students appearing in this diagnostic category unless the student was imported from another application without this data. If students appear in this category, go to the student Demographics folder to enter the information and then create new FY summaries before running the diagnostics again.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS MISSING EDUCATION DATA

Students missing Highest Education Level Completed on Entry

As of 7/1/12, this is a required field when entering a new student, so students entered in LACES after this will not appear in this category unless the agency modified the choice list to include options that do not map to the NRS Tables (the ability to modify this choice list has been removed). Returning students who have not yet had this information entered in their Education folder will appear in this category. Once the information has been entered in the Education folder for the student(s), create new FY Records before running the diagnostics again.

Students missing Highest Education Level Completed on Entry Location

As of 7/1/12, this is a required field when entering a new student, so students entered in LACES after this will not appear in this category unless the agency modified the choice list to includeoptions that do not map to the NRS Tables (the ability to modify this choice list has been removed). Returning students who have not yet had this information entered in their Education folder will appear in this category. Once the information has been entered in the Education folder for the student(s), create new FY Records before running the diagnostics again.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS WITH INCORRECT OR MISSING EMPLOYMENT STATUS

Students with Employment Status as No Value or Other

NRS guidelines require that students have an Employment status in the FY. Employment Status is updated in the Work History so it can be tracked historically. For all tables a student must have a valid Employment status as viewed on Table 6. This search will pick up those who do not have a valid Employment Status. Please note that making modifications to the Employment Status choice list in the past can affect the student record adversely, resulting in the students being picked up by this search. The tables look for Employment Status code numbers, not the actual text, when reading Employment Status.
The correct Employment Status and Employment Status Codes to populate the tables are as follows:
Employed-Full (Code 101)
Employed-Part (Code 102)
Unemployed (Code 103)
NotinLaborForce (Codes 104, 105, 106- these will include Retired, Unavailable for Work, and Not Looking for Work)

To fix records returned in this search, modify the view and add the EmploymentStatus as well as the EmploymentStatusCode fields. View the codes used for each of the above Employment Statuses to insure that they are correct. To view the details, go to the student’s Work History file. Students must have a line of history in the Work history folder that has the same start date as the student’s Intake Date.

Common mistakes to look for: Look for incorrect Employment Status or Employment Status Codes, as well as incorrect Start dates for Employment status (a future date outside of the FY range.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS WHOSE AGE AT INTAKE IS LESS THAN 16 OR GREATER THAN 99

Students Whose Age At Intake is Less Than 16 or Greater Than 99

Review intake date and birthdate to determine any errors.
Students who are under 16 years of age are not considered NRS fundable, nor are they current FY students so if the person is under 16, they will not be returned in these results if you begin with either of those selections of students.

Common mistakes to look for: Frequently, a below 16 or greater than 99 age is the result of a data entry error when inputting birthdate. If a student was younger than 16 in a previous fiscal year, but turned 16 prior to the beginning of the current FY, he will be eligible for inclusion in NRS reporting this year even though he was not last year.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS WITH INCORRECT ASSESSMENT OR LEVEL DATA

Since Fiscal Year data cannot always depend upon Entry and Current Level information, these searches are vital to picking up inaccuracies in the Overall Status History folder that may prevent students from counting accurately. While the Overall Status History folder typically accurately reflects changes in subject area and assessment information, these diagnostic searches are available so you are aware of any instances where this information has not updated correctly for a student. Before checking these diagnostics, please make sure you have updated your fiscal year records so any assessment info that has been entered for your students is captured in the FY Record.

Students with Subject Area in Student Overall status history not matching current subject area

If the current subject area does not match the last subject area in the Student’s Overall Status History record then they will show up in this search. To correct the records: Contact Technical Support.

Students with Entry Level in Student Overall status history not matching current entry level

If the current entry level does not match the last entry level in the Student’s Overall Status History record then they will show up in this search. To correct the records: Contact Technical Support.

Students with incorrect GED levels in FY records

The search picks up students who have incorrect data in their FY record. In order to show as having Completed High Adult Secondary they must have an entry level of High Adult Secondary. To correct the records: Contact Technical Support.

Students with more than one assessment pushed forward in the Reporting Period

LACES allows you to move assessments from one FY to the next by changing the Fiscal Year in the Assessment record. This should be done within the guidelines of the State agency you report to, as well as the test manufacturer’s guidelines. However, you should never move more than one assessment forward in the same subject area. If more than one assessment has been pushed forward in the same subject area, those students will show up in this search. To correct the records: Delete extraneous pushed forward assessment records for the new FY. Only one assessment per subject area may be pushed forward (and there is no reason to push forward more than one subject area since the student can only be tracked in one subject area per year for federal reporting purposes.) Run a new FY Summary Record for that student.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS WITH INCORRECT HOURS

Students with Current FY Instruction Hours totals not matching the recalculated total

This search will display any students whose current FY hours totals do not equal the sum of their hours for the Fiscal year. Most often, this is because hours have been added since the most recent FY summary was created. To correct the records: Run new FY summaries on these students and then run this search again. If the search is still returning students, contact Tech Support to run an hours recalculation on your data.

Run a new summary for any students in this category BEFORE attempting to fix other NRS non-reportable students, as this often clears up non-reportables.

SEARCH FOR STUDENTS: TOTAL NOT REPORTABLE FOR NRS

Students not NRS Reportable

This search should be run after all the other data has been cleaned up. You may find other problems with records that cause them to not be counted that are not included in the other diagnostic searches. To correct the records: You will need to review the records for common issues including: lack of hours or a valid assessment in the current FY. If you cannot determine the problem then send the list to Technical Support for analysis.

Dashboard and NRS Fundable and Remove Search

You should also use the Dashboard chart for Non-NRS Fundable to Date or the Fundables and Remove from Selection search to check on a regular basis those students who are not counting as NRS participants. To do this, go to Students>Find>Current FY. Then go to FindNRSFundables and remove from Selection. These are the students who do not count as participants, usually because they do not have 12+ hours, or a valid assessment in this fiscal year.

NRS Custom View

Occasionally, data entry errors in the required assessment or demographic information will keep a student from being picked up as a participant as well. To check why these students are not counting, use the NRS Custom View to look at their hours this fiscal year.