W H AT ’ S N E W ?I N R E L E A S E

1 . 4 . 0 0 0 3 *Business ApplicAtions

Global Access is here! Global access is now available for the Budget Amend-ment Requests (BAR), Accounts Receiv-able, and Warehouse workflow types. If selected on the District Administration > User Profiles > Permissions tab, userscan view all data related to the selectedworkflow type (i.e., budget amendmentrequests, invoices, warehouse andrestock requisition records), regardless oftheir user profile settings. As a result ofthis enhancement, the Bar Permissionstab was renamed to Permissions in theDistrict Administration application.

New TRS rate field: In accordance with Senate Bill 1458, the TRS Non-OASDI (Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insur-ance) Rate field was added to the TRS Rates tab in Human Resources.

Continued on page 2.

student ApplicAtions

tXsuitetxConnect district administrators have two new export options:

• Users and Students lists of all txConnect users and their associated students incsv format.

• Users Only exports data from the users table, which provides a basic txConnectuser list in csv format.

txGradebook district administrators have two new reports that provide a list of se-mester grades or final grades that fall within a specified range.

On the Elementary Skills-Based Report Card Setup page, the restriction was re-moved that prevented campus IDs outside the 100-200 range from using the Sem#C# fields to indicate the cycle availability of a skill. Now, all campuses can use these fields, provided that the cycle grade reporting headers are the same for all campuses.

Volume 1 | Issue 2 | April 2014TxEIS PLUS

Newsletter

Judi SparksTCC Manager

Wow – thank you to those of you that I have had the oppor-tunity to meet with in the past several months as I travel this great state of Texas visiting with the TCC ESC partners. These visits have allowed me to see and hear from the ESC TxEIS consultants and clients firsthand what we can do better for you.

I am still on the road and coming to an ESC near you soon if I haven’t been there already. You, our clients, drive our success, and we at the TCC thank you for choosing TxEIS as the definitive choice in Texas Student and Business Information Systems.

in TxEISTxEIS PLUS Newsletter • April 2014 • 1 • txeis.net

AAR Multi Year (SGR2047) Report: Now DNR (Does not Rank) displays on the report when you choose N or G for the Print Rank & GPA parameter. According to the TEA: “Calculation and reporting of class rank is optional. However, if class rank is not calculated or reported, the AAR should indicate that and may do so using the letters “DNR” for Does Not Rank. Failure to report rank or DNR may result in a delay in the student’s col-lege-acceptance consideration.”

New Discipline Bully reasons: In accordance with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights require-ments, Religion and Sexual Orientation have been added to the Bully Reason drop-down field on the Student Mainte-nance page of Discipline.

For more information about our software, visit txeis.net.

*Check your version numberon the TxEIS login page.

TxEIS Knows House Bill 5.Read all about it on page 3.

For more information see the online Help.

BECAUSE WE’RE LISTENING.Coming Soon...

Student System: The Registration Comment button is com-ing to the Individual Maintenance page on Grade Reporting. And it’ll have something new, too. Security. This is the first time TxEIS has included security for a button. Only those with security clearance will be able to view protected infor-mation. Also check back to see the new Grade Reporting report, Students Without a Schedule (SGR0010), which lists students who do not have schedules in the current school year.

Business System: Moving! For a smoother work flow, user profiles from the Budget and Finance applications will be moving to the District Administration application. Stay tuned for additional information on this move.

TxEIS PLUS Newsletter • April 2014 • 2 • txeis.net

Rememberis there for you. Learn how to run utilities.

Discover new reports. Follow checklists. Get more out of TxEIS.

M E E T T H E T C C

David C. Taylor Data Processing/Information Systems Consultant at ESC 18

Q: How long have you worked at the TCC? A: I have worked with the TCC for 26 years as a Data Process-ing/Information Systems consultant. I have provided support for the student system and PEIMS in the areas of student data and staff data. I have seen a lot of changes over the years, not only in our software, but technology as well.

Q: What were one or two of your favorite projects? A: I have always been interested in the ability to manage data. I enjoyed the time when the TCC first allowed us to extract data into DBF’s (DataBase Files) to import and use in Microsoft Access. This was back when the program was written in Cobol. The most exciting thing for me was when we went to a rela-tional database. This really allowed our product to expand and also gave us the ability to work directly with the data inside the database when needed.

Q: What’s something you enjoy doing when you get home from work or on the weekends? A: I enjoy being able to spend time with my lovely wife after the workday is over. We have been married almost 31 years and have two children, Nathan and Whitney. Nathan is the Head Band Director at Crockett Junior High in Odessa, Texas and Whitney, after teaching two years at Big Spring High School, has gone back college to get her master’s degree at Texas Tech University. I love sports especially football and I love the outdoors. I enjoy camping and fishing when I can. Spending time with family and friends are very important to me. I also love music and going to the theater when we can. We try to catch a music group playing on the weekends when possible.

Q: Do you have any pets? A: We have two wonderful pets. Both are rescue dogs we got from the SPCA. Buddie is a poodle mix and Betsie is a Maltese. They are very loving dogs and have great personalities. We are so thankful they are part of our lives.

Contact your ESC for more information.

our Mission

Provide a comprehensive administrative software package to school districts, charter schools, and education service

centers throughout the state of Texas.

Business Applications Continued

Introducing…user-created report templates. Users now have the ability to create, save, and retrieve user-cre-ated report templates. Currently, this functionality is only available in the Warehouse application. Other applica-tions are In Progress.

Did you know...txConnect parent portal is compatible with your mobile device. Find out more here.

texascomputercooperat ive.net

• The English Transition Import utility will also be added to Test Scores. A CSV file of students who passedeither the reading or writing assessment for previous English I and/or II exams, met the minimum score onthe other, and achieved at least a combined scale score of 3750, has been provided to the school districts.Simply import the file so that the students will receive credit for the new STAAR English I and/or II EOCtests. To facilitate this, we will be adding a new maintenance page for English Transition as well.

• The EOC Maintenance page, Import Test Scores Utility, and reports in Test Scores will facilitate EOCsubstitute assessments for tests already included in the application (ACT, AP, PSAT, and SAT). Maintenance,imports, and reports for IB and PLAN tests will be implemented during the 2014-2015 school year.

• The first page of a student’s Academic Achievement Record (AAR) will display test dates and performancelevels for TAKS and STAAR, or substitute assessments (STAAR only) to comply with House Bill 5. It will alsolist the current five EOC exams.

S u m m e r 2 0 1 4

• In the Test Scores application, with the addition of End-of-Course (EOC) substitute assessments, you areable to indicate if a student will substitute a comparable exam such as the ACT or SAT for an EOC exam. Themaintenance page for EOC will list exam subjects and the tests that can be substituted for them. The substituteassessment field has also been added to the EOC import utility.

• The new English Language Learner (ELL) Progress Measure field has been added to the EOC import utility inthe Test Scores application.

• The new graduation type codes have been added to the TxEIS applications as defined in the PEIMS DataStandards.

• The TxEIS PEIMS application has been updated to collect evaluation information ranging from 21st centuryworkforce development to dropout prevention at the district and campus levels and submit this informationto TEA through the PEIMS file.

S p r i n g 2 0 1 4

The TxEIS team is working hard to seamlessly integrate the requirements of House Bill 5 into our Student applications. In fact, we’re already well on our way, but there’s still much to come. As the Texas Education Agency (TEA) provides the necessary information to us, we’ll start updating our maintenance pages, utilities, and reports. Here are some of the implications for our software. We’re here to make it black and white for you.

TxEIS Knows House Bill 5

Te x a s C o m p u t e r C o o p e r a t i v e

Te x a s C o m p u t e r C o o p e r a t i v etexascomputercooperat ive.net

Find us on the web

txeis.net

Visit us on Facebook

Questions? Comments?

• PGP data will be transmitted through TREx pending the publication of TREx requirements.

• The AAR will be updated to include performance acknowledgements and endorsements. Also included, theAARs will include the STAAR EOC performance levels and indicate if a substitute assessment was used inplace of a STAAR EOC exam. Other updates are pending further information about minimum standards fromthe TEA.

• Assessment substitutions will have a full complement of utilities for which to load these substitutes into TestScores. This will include IB and ACT-PLAN as well as those already included in the application (ACT, AP, andSAT). The ACT-PLAN utility may even be released in the summer.

• TxEIS will provide an import into the Scheduling application, allowing districts to load student courserequests from third party software. The new import can be used with any software that writes to the TxEISdefined import file layout.

C o m i n g S o o n

• PGP will be integrated with txSuite parent portal and txMyZone.

W i n t e r 2 0 1 4

• Graduation programs and the Personal Graduation Plan (PGP) are perhaps the most affected by House Bill 5.TxEIS will provide for the collection of data to support Endorsements, Distinguished Level of Achievement,and Performance Acknowledgements while also providing maintenance for FHSP. The PEIMS application willbe updated as defined in the PEIMS Data Standards in order to report the required graduation program data.

• To support PGP, we will build upon the existing Graduation Plan application by using the Texas College andCareer Readiness format as a model.

F a l l 2 0 1 4

TxEIS Knows House Bill 5