UID Chat Q&A
03/07/2018
Q: So, on April 2nd we would only send changes for that week and not for the entire year?
A: On April 2nd, you would have your software produce a file with all the changes since your last PET file. Then every week after that, your software would produce a file with all the changes made in any enrollment and withdrawal made since your last successful Enrollment Tracking file.
Q: Is the weekly submission requirement being dropped, then? It would be possible for an LEA to have a null file.
A: The requirement is that you upload an Enrollment Tracking with any changes in Enrollment/Withdrawal from your student information system since the last file. If no changes then you would not submit a weekly Enrollment Tracking file.
Q: Would you suggest loading every Friday then?
A: Every week you must submit changes since your last Enrollment Tracking file. You choose the day of the week.
Q: So the new file format will have STUDENT enrollment or withdraw events and STAFF enrollment or withdraw events?
A: No. It would only include Student enrollment changes.
Q: How do we resolve the error of the future enrollment date/withdrawal date issue in the file. Do you have to take it out of the XML file?
A: If you have a future withdrawal date it will post because the date is within a school year. The future enrollment date will post too. If you don’t want it to post then the date would have to be back to the original date for your system not to pull it into Enrollment Tracking file.
Q: What if I decide to send all changes monthly. I know that my records will cancel out, but it will give me a reason why.
A: If a cumulative file is sent every month(week), duplicate error messages will be received on records that are already in the system. The rest of the records will still process. Review Batch Download File. Every record will show either processed or that it is a Duplicate Error. Ask your vendor to see if they will allow you pull records that have been part of an Enrollment Tracking file in the past.
Q: So no logic to attempt to prevent accidental enrollments under wrong U-ID? (example - all data incorrect except for U-ID)
A: That is correct. TIMS Ticket TSDS-29549 was created to add an enhancement: “Requesting, that the new Unique ID Enrollment Tracking upload process incorporate this level of data integrity: the unique id enrollment tracking event be updated only when Unique ID, State Number, First Name, Last Name and DOB match?” Current status is on Hold.
Q: What happens if an enrollment or withdrawal event is entered using the wrong Student Uniq-ID, one belonging to a different person?
A. The event will be posted to the other person’s record. Additionally, if the enrollment event date is greater than the enrollment date of the other person, the Master record ownership will switch. Make sure you run the PEIMS PDM3-600-002 – PEIMS Statement of Unique ID Student Discrepancy Report to view these discrepancies.
Q: In order to make sure our data stays in synch, can the unique id enrollment tracking event be updated only when Unique ID, State Number, First Name, Last Name and DOB match? If it doesn't the record gets cancelled.
A: It will only validate against the Unique ID number once it passes the file validation.TIMS Ticket TSDS-29549 was created to add an enhancement: “Requesting, that the new Unique ID Enrollment Tracking upload process incorporate this level of data integrity: the unique id enrollment tracking event be updated only when Unique ID, State Number, First Name, Last Name and DOB match?” Current status is on Hold.
Q: Are we still required to send one cumulative file at the end of the year like we used to do every year. We used to send one PET file after our last Summer PEIMS submission.
A: No. That requirement has been removed.
Q: There is a DVM Validation that requires Districts to send a “PET file” within the first 3 weeks of school in late August. What if our School start July. It’s out of date range.
A: That requirements is still there. If your Campuses start weeks before August, then send your file the first 3 weeks of when your school starts. Just make sure you continue to send weekly changes after that. You would be considered an exception that the Data Validation Monitoring system will have to take into consideration.
Q: I just wanted to double check, if a district doesn't load a weekly ET file in UID, can they still run the Duplicate Report in case their students left to another School District and they loaded an ET file in UID causing a duplicate record?
A: Yes, run UID-000-001-TSDS UID Presumed Duplicate Student Report for Enrolment on a weekly basis to see if you have Duplicate students enrolled
Q: There are changes in the character length of these elements between PEIMS and UID.
PEIMS:Fist Name = 75, Last Name PEIMS = 75, middle name = 75
UID:First Name = 60, Middle Name – 60, last name - 60
Are there any plans to make them the same?
I'm asking because there have been tickets concerning discrepancies between PEIMS and UID and they have to do with the character difference.For example TSDS-12555.
A: Submitted TIMS ticket TSDS-29628. They will not be changing the character length in Unique ID.
Q: Are Districts still required to be below a certain PID Error rate?
A: The PID error rate was eliminated as of the 2015-2016 SY because Districts were always below the rate.
Q: What happens when a District has ownership because they loaded a most recent Enrollment Record and then they go back to UID Enrollment Tracking and manually enter a “Delete Event” on that enrollment?
A: At the moment, the ownership of that record is still not reverting back to the previous District. I will be letting you know the status of this.
Q: What happens if an enrollment or withdrawal event is entered using a Student Uniq-ID that is retired?
A: It will be cancelled and not posted to that UID.
Q: What happens if an enrollment or withdrawal event is entered using a Staff ID Unique ID?
A: The record will post to a “staff UID” so long as the Person Type in the file is set to 02 (student) and not 03 (staff). A Staff UID can also be a Student UID. Such scenarios exists.
Q: How are no shows processed?
A: They will still post.
Q: If you do the last pet file on March 7th, how will it know to include changes from March 8 and 9 when you run the Enrollment Tracking from your software system on April 2nd?
A: That is up to your software. Ask them to make sure you are running the ET file correctly to include any changes in enrollment tracking that happen at any point since you last ran it.
Q: Should their software ET File be blank and let them know they don’t have any changes since last ET file was run?
A: Check with your vendor. To see how they are going to handle that.
Q: How will this enroll/withdrawal “verified” flag be populated on the file? You can process an ET file with a Verified flag instead of going to the Unique ID screen and entering it manually.
A: Check with your vendor. To see how they are going to handle that.
Q: If you want to delete an enrollment, if there is no change, then it won't be part of the file. then how can you enter a D for Delete in the file
A: Check with your vendor. To see how they are going to handle that.
Q: What will be the start and end date for a school year?
A: August 1st to July 31
Q: What if you load a blank file?
A: It will fail.
Q: How do you handle discrepancies between districts?
A: You need to run the “Statement of Unique ID Student Discrepancies” available in Fall, Summer, and Extended submission to clear any demographics/unique Id errors. Running these submissions periodically throughout the year is now even more important as this will be the only way to clear demographics/unique Id errors. At a minimum, load the InterchangeEducationOrganizationExtension.xml, InterchangeStudentExtension.xml, InterchangeStdentEnrolmentExtension.xm.
Q: If a campus back dates an enrollment or withdrawal after we have finished sending our event file. What happens? (Ex: Let's say you enter from April 9th - April 13th to capture all the changes in that week since the last time you had sent up your file was April 6th. But what if someone changed with the Enrollment Date on a student from August 21 to August 22. How will it know to capture that change?)
A: You will have to ask the software vendor this question so they can explain how their extract logic will work.
Q: Sungard mentioned that the weekly file submission is limited to 40000 records at a time. Is that a software limitation or TSDS limitation? Our SIS vendor (powerschool) says that there is a limit of 40,000 records per file. Is this true? We will need to submit multiple files in this case.
A: As per TEA: “I don't believe it's a limitation of either. At the beginning of each school year, TEA will increase the file size limit to allow LEAs to submit a file for all their students. After that period, TEA will limit the file size to 40,000 records. This is because the weekly submissions should only contain the enrollment changes that occur. By limiting the file size, large files (that may contain all students rather than just changes) will be rejected.”
Q: Diana Do you know if TxEIS is going to be ready for this change?
A: You must verify with you vendor to see that they comply with the update and/or they provide proper training.Vendors were notified of the changes on July 2017 and September 2017.
District Comment: eSchoolPlus will have a date range that you select.
District Comment: Skyward districts will want to keep an eye out for their webinar announcement...they are giving a training on the process later this month.
District Comment: TxEIS already has the new date range.
Q: Is the Enrollment Tracking Email available already in AskTED so it can be setup with the group email?
A: Yes.
Q: So can we use this as a replacement for PGP?
A: Your District must be setup with a group e-mail that you add to the Ask Ted Administrator application. In Unique ID Enrollment Tracking every enrollment record will have an email envelope button. Click on the email link on the ET event for the LEA you wish to email and it will generate an email to the Enrollment Tracking email address in AskTED using the user’s default e-mail program. Keep in mind that these emails are not encrypted by TEA. Do include personal identifiable information such as social security numbers.
Q: Charter School - WHAT IF WE DON'T HAVE A TED ADMINISTRATOR?
A: Charter Schools must submit a TIMS ticket to have the new email box set up.
Q: What if we do not have outlook?
A: If you do not have Outlook, then when you select the e-mail link in the Enrollment Tracking record of the Student, the default e-mail system should open a new email message.
Q: Are we able to email UID's? Encrypting is a pain since you have to share passwords with the receiving district.
A: You can show a UID in e-mails. But do not share social security numbers nor DOB.TEA recommends not sharing any demographic information. Ask your technology department to see if you have encrypt capabilities in your e-mail systems. You can password protect pdf files in case you need to send personal student files. Then call the Campus with the password. Or if you and the other District are in communication, then send the personal student file attached through a TREx.
Q: Any chance for the TEA to host a PGP key exchange for LEAs?
A: Created TIMS ticket: TSDS-29612. “Emails sent out from the enrollment tracking email icons do not go through the TEA mail system, therefore PGP cannot be invoked to provide encryption for these emails.Also, PGP was never intended for use between districts, although many used it for that purpose. PGP was intended for communication between TEA and a specific district.” – John Reese, TEA.
Q: Is there a way to ask if we can have a District TREX for data exchange? To send sensitive data, SSN BC Special ED data? It is just set up to send to a district campus, but we can have a District TREx?
A: Sent an email to TREx department at TEA. In the meant time, currently you can send a TREx record to a Campus without first needing a “request”. Click on Send one record/transcript. Make sure you call the other District so they will go in and download the information they need.
Q: Did I hear you say that you can still verify, calendar, delete from within the UID system also?
A: Yes.
Q: How will the current TEASE PET lookup system be affected? Will PET look up now be done in TSDS? Will existing TEASE accounts with PET access be migrated over or will they have to request new access?
A: The Edit + will be available to LEAs to search historical data until 2019-2010 but enrollment tracking information will longer be loaded into Edit +. All enrollment tracking will be done via TSDS Unique ID.
Q: Will Unique Search users, have only access to the enrollment tab or all tabs? PET view only? Re-appply?
A: They will have access to all tabs but won’t be able to edit. If you want your current PET view Only users to continue having access to view enrollment records for students in Unique ID, they should apply for TSDS role Unique ID Search.
Q: When our staff re-applies, will our Superintendent have to approve everyone that applies? The way she approves for TREX.
A: Yes. The Primary Approver or the Alternate Approver (if your District is setup for one) will need to approve all the requests that come in.
Q: Was this training recorded? Will there be another training like this one?
A: Yes. The recording was posted to Region One > TSDS. If you need further training, please refer to recorded training, UID 10.3 Handout Presentation or call Sergio or myself.
1Revised 03/09/2018