FinalForms + ProgressBook
Integration information for ITCs, Administrators, and Gatekeepers
ITC and District Leaders,
The FinalForms team, product, and service are designed for rapid responses and development. We’ve had the privilege of serving 120 districts with the FinalForms ProgressBook integration thus far this school year and dozens more have already committed to use in 2020-2021.
WE HEAR YOU. YOUR FEEDBACK DRIVES OUR DEVELOPMENT.
This page was designed to keep you informed about our current integration status, our recent developments, and most importantly: Our Road Map for Your Success!
Please read below as you will find many of your ideas will soon turn into reality.
Interested? Need additional training or support?
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Enrollment Updates
As promised, for release February 1, 2020.
HELP ARTICLES AND SUPPORT
- NEW: Re-Enrollment
https://search.finalforms.com/documentation/faqs_students_enrollment_records#reenroll
- NEW: Move a Student to Another School within the District
https://search.finalforms.com/documentation/faqs_students_enrollment_records#transfer
- NEW: Improved Visual Guidance with Examples
Some example images of Enroll, Re-Enroll, and Withdrawal scenarios have been added to the Enrollment Records documentation page.
- https://search.finalforms.com/documentation/faqs_students_enrollment_records
- FOR ADMINS
- FinalForms now supports custom enrollment statuses other than "Active" and "Archived", including "External/Homeschooled", "Applicant", "Withdrawn", and "Graduated". Staff may filter lists of students using these statuses.
- Custom enrollment statuses can be created per school district request.
- Administrators may record and track changes in individual student enrollment statuses through time, such as when a student withdraws and returns to school.
- Individual student enrollment statuses are stored in an easy-to-read view.
- Students will not be displayed as "Active" on any FinalForms screens until they are both "Enrolled" and "Attending".
- Withdrawing or Graduated students will be marked inactive for ONLY the current school year. If Administrators view past school years, the student's respective enrollment status will be displayed.
- Special student circumstances information, such as transfer and homeschooled/external status, will be as accurate as possible.
- FOR PARENTS
- When enrolling a student, parents will be not be required to fill out any forms beyond those necessary for enrollment, nor will they be able to select sports or activities.
- If a school district wants the parent to fill out all potentially required forms during enrollment, this can be facilitated.
- Core student fields, such as Name, DoB, Gender, etc, will be locked and uneditable by parents after the student is enrolled.
- PLANNED UPDATES AND OPTIONS
- School districts may choose one of the following methods while facilitating new student enrollment:
- Forced School Assignment
This requires parents to select a school from the possible options for the student's grade.
- School Ranked Preference
Parents will rank their school preferences. Administrators will assign the student to a school when enrolling.
- No Choice
Parents will not be presented with a school choice. Administrators will assign the student to a school when enrolling.
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Known Issues
- Gatekeeper Button Staying Yellow after Sync
There are several scenarios where ProgressBook "silently fails" to update a piece of information, causing the Gatekeeper icon to stay yellow even after syncing. To diagnose and resolve:
- Click on the Gatekeeper icon again.
- Scroll for any fields highlighted in yellow.
- Diagnose based on the following known issues:
ISSUE #1: Student Physical Address and Parent Address almost match, but not exactly
If the addresses are basically the same, the parent is correctly marked as "Is Same Address as Student" (which means ProgressBook simply copies the student's Physical Address). However, if the parent address in FinalForms is off slightly (Ex. one is "Rd" and the other is "Road"), then the Gatekeeper will consider the field unsynced.
Resolution: Fix the parent address to exactly match the student's.
ISSUE #2: Parent Address marked Is Same as Student for another student
A contact's address may not update at all if the contact is connected to another student in ProgressBook for whom the address is marked Is Same as Student.
Resolution: In ProgressBook, uncheck the box for "Address Same as Student" for all the contact's students.
ProgressBook developers are actively working on a better solution for this.
- Click "Update Student" to sync again.
Technical Details: ProgressBook is still investigating an additional, extremely rare scenario.
- Parent No Longer Living with Student
When a parent's "Is Same Address as Student" flag (which means ProgressBook simply copies the student's Physical Address) goes from being "true" to "false" in ProgressBook, ProgressBook clears the address and fails to update the new address.
Resolution: Sync the student again.
Technical Details: ProgressBook has an incorrect order of events. It updates the address and then updates the flag, which clears the address.
- Migrating from "Paired" Contacts to Individual Contacts
Some School Districts maintained contacts as "pairs". ProgressBook and State support do not recommend this approach. Fortunately, FinalForms can help easily migrate away from "Paired Contacts" to "Individual Contacts".
How to Resolve:
1. Click on the Gatekeeper icon for a student.
2. Scroll to the bottom and identify any "Extra Contacts" that are paired contacts.
For Example: "Brandon & Molly Adams" is a paired contact.
FinalForms will have "Brandon Adams" and "Molly Adams" as two individual contacts, listed under Parents.There are two methods to resolve this.
Resolution 1: Check the box to mark this contact for deletion.
- When you sync the student, this paired contact will be deleted and the individual contacts (Brandon Adams and Molly Adams in the example) will be created.
Resolution 2: Change the contact's FirstName in ProgressBook to match Parent #1 in FinalForms (in the example, you would change "Brandon & Molly" to be "Brandon"). Then refresh the FinalForms page. Parent #1 will now match this contact based on name and will update the record.
- When you sync the student, this paired contact will be updated with all information for Parent #1 in FinalForms.
4. Review all other yellow information in the Gatekeeper.
5. Click "Update Student" to sync the student.
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Recent Q&A
Q: CAN FINALFORMS ALLOW GATEKEEPERS TO SYNC STUDENTS WHEN ONLY FORMS INCLUDING PROGRESSBOOK RELATED INFORMATION ARE COMPLETE, BUT OTHER FORMS ARE INCOMPLETE?
- Currently, ALL academic forms must be complete for the Gatekeeper to sync the student. (Athletic/Extracurricular forms do not factor in)
- If a district adds new forms for 2020-2021, the new forms will be required; however, the student will ONLY desync the student if the new forms include new information for the Gatekeeper interface.
NOTES: FinalForms is reviewing potential for efficiencies that will not compromise data structure or create confusion for Gatekeepers.
Q. WHY, WHEN I CHANGE A PARENT CONTACT NUMBER ON STUDENT #1, IS THE CHANGE NOT REFLECTED ON STUDENT #2?
- Currently, an Administrator must change parent/guardian numbers on the 'Contact Information' form for each student.
NOTES: FinalForms is working to define the best method for updating information across all related students.
Q. WHY ARE NEW ENROLLMENTS ALL ARRIVING IN PROGRESSBOOK AS RESIDENTS, EVEN IF A NON-RESIDENT?
- When enrolling new students; all are coming in as ‘resident’ into SIS; can we mark as non-resident, if so, and pass to SIS.
NOTES: Student Statuses will be modeled correctly in our 2/1 enrollment update.
Q. WHY IS THE HONOR ROLL CHECK BOX NOT CHECKED FOR NEW STUDENTS?
- New students are coming into SIS without checks in the HONOR ROLL (could be factored for Honor Roll)
NOTES: Already fixed in late August!
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DECEMBER 2019 UPDATES
- NEW: How-to Video Library
- NEW: Support Topic Search
- NEW: School Year Rollover Video
- UPDATE: 2020-21 Contact Information Form
- NEW: How-to Video Library
The first batch of online how-to videos appears in a revitalized Playbook/Support area.
- Videos appear on relevant pages of the Digital Playbook.
- - - FAQs including video material display a "play" icon.
- - - "Video Library" is a new page in the support area including a list of all video topics.
- - - - - All staff users may access the Video Library from the username dropdown.
- "Admin Playbook" is renamed "Digital Playbook" as the playbook will be compiled based on user privileges.
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NEW: Support Topic Search
A search bar appears at the top of all Playbook pages.
- Use it to quickly filter for relevant support topics and pages.
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NEW: School Year Rollover Video
View our video that details the process for transitioning between school years in FinalForms.
To view this video:
- Click [Your User Dropdown] in the top right of your screen.
- Click Digital Playbook.
- Start typing "Rollover" into your search bar and select the sole result.
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NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATES
- NEW: “Same-year” Re-Enrollments
(Students re-enrolling after withdrawing in a previous year are supported)
- FinalForms will now accurately detect and re-enroll active students if a student has been withdrawn in the current school year in ProgressBook.
- - - When pushed via the Gatekeeper, FinalForms will create a new FS Record for the student.
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OCTOBER 2019 UPDATES
- NEW: Re-enrollment Support
Re-enrolling students (students that already exist in ProgressBook but withdrew in a past school year) are now detected and handled appropriately.
- Administrators will see a big notice at the top of the Gatekeeper screen if a student is detected as a re-enrollment.
- - - Instructions and clarification of the situation are displayed just like they are for New Enrollments.
NOTE: FinalForms and ProgressBook are collaborating on a solution for students that withdraw and return in the SAME school year.
- - - Until the solution becomes available, the Registration Wizard will need to be run for these students.
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SEPTEMBER 2019 UPDATES
- NEW: Added IsGuardian Flag
- NEW: Allowed editing of Admission Dates
- NEW: Re-enrollment Support
- UPDATE: Improved UI for handling Zip4
- UPDATE: Improved FAQs
- UPDATE: Added help link to FAQs
- UPDATE: Improved Error Messages
- NEW: Added IsGuardian Flag
The ‘Is Guardian’ flag for Contacts is now explicitly displayed in all Gatekeeper interfaces.
- The default is FALSE for Host-parents, Step-parents, and Social Workers
- The default is TRUE for all others
- This yes/no question will be included on all Contact Information forms for the 2020-2021 form set.
WHY? FinalForms was always able to assume to 99.9% that parent Contacts followed the rules indicated above. However, this is an important enough flag that Admins need complete control of this attribute.
- NEW: Allow editing of Admission Dates
Admission Dates are editable in the Gatekeeper interface.
- Admission Dates still default to today’s date..
- Admission Dates must be in the format of "yyyy-mm-dd" for the time being.
WHY? The assumption was that any exception would be managed in ProgressBook. However, this date is populated in at least 3 different locations in ProgressBook, making updating tedious. This is not a piece of data FinalForms explicitly collects, but this update will deliver the date to desired locations. This upgrade saves registrars time!
- UPDATE: Improved UI for handling Zip4
The ‘Zip4’ field for addresses is now explicitly displayed in all Gatekeeper interfaces.
- This field is still part of the single FinalForms zip field.
WHY? ‘Zip4’ was always passed discreetly to eliminate confusion and screen pollution. Unfortunately, when this field becomes desynced the reason why a student may be desynced was previously unclear. Displaying this field fixes this issue.
- UPDATE: Improved FAQs
ProgressBook Gatekeeper documentation has been improved.
- CLICK the Gatekeeper Icon. CLICK the ? button in the top right.
- The ‘Important Notes’ section has been broken up into ‘Important Notes’ and ‘Issues and Caveats’.
- The ‘Issues and Caveats’ section details more of the common problems with the integration.
- UPDATE: Added help link to FAQs
A ‘help’ button linking to the help article for ProgressBook Gatekeeper appears within the Gatekeeper interface.
- The button is a ‘Question Mark (grey) in the top-right.
- UPDATE: Improved Error Messages
Error messages returned by ProgressBook are intercepted and improved upon by FinalForms to add context and a suggested resolution.
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We hope you find these updates helpful! As always, contact support@finalforms.com with questions and feedback.
