We are happy to introduce one of the newest additions to the NASIS team, Inspector 7 – more commonly referred to as Jennifer Downey. Known for tackling and testing the intriguing issues that come her way, Jennifer has become known as “Inspector 7” around the office. After nine years in the automotive industry, Jennifer joined Infinite Campus in November 2007. She’s a native of Minnesota and received her business/marketing degree from the University of Minnesota. If you call our support line, you have probably discussed a case or two with Jennifer. She enjoys interacting with clients and helping them increase their knowledge of NASIS.

Outside of work, Jennifer enjoys spending time with family and friends, golfing, exercising her dogs, Bailey and Sugar, at the puppy park, and working on those never-ending home improvement projects. Jennifer also notes that she loves to travel and discover new places to visit. So don’t be surprised if Inspector 7 ends up on your doorstep sometime soon!

Best Practices
Does your school have a need to schedule large sets of students who meet the same criteria, into a course with multiple sections? For example, the majority of your 9th graders will be taking Algebra 1, and this course is taught by multiple teachers or meets at different times throughout the day. If so, then the request wizard and scheduling wizard tools may save you quite a bit of time.

One of the many advantages of the scheduling wizard is that it lets you schedule students into courses in batches. The process starts by rolling forward your calendar, courses, and enrollments into the next school year. You can either manage your sections through the scheduling module interface or create and manipulate sections by using the drag and drop functionality of the scheduling wizard, which is laid out like your traditional white board.

Are You Ready?
Start of school checklist

With the start of the 2008-09 school year quickly approaching, we would like to remind you to take time to ensure your system is ready for the first day of school. Below is a checklist for you to use. Depending on your school’s level of use within your NASIS application, not all items on the checklist may apply. You may disregard those tasks that do not apply to your school. We suggest reading though the tasks and checking off those that are done and following up on those that are not, or those you have questions on.

Hot Topics
Analysis of behavior data

The analysis of behavior data has been an ongoing priority for the BIE. As a proactive measure, the NASIS team has checked each school’s behavior data. You may have heard about this from your Technical Client Executive (TCE).

Although this process is going to change in the near future, the current process entails “mapping” your local behavior events and resolutions to the regional BIE mandated codes. If the codes/names were configured correctly initially, the mapping only needs to occur at the system administration level. If events were created after the mapping was corrected, your school will need to correct them on the individual student event record. For the time being, leave the regional BIE codes blank for locally defined positive behavior events.

Helping You Help Yourself
Do you have ideas, questions, or want to share a best practice?

When submitting new NASIS issues through the Customer Portal, you may notice some changes. One change is that the Steps to Reproduce and the Expected Results are now required fields before you can save your support case. The purpose for this change is that the more information you provide, such as detailed replication steps and expected results, the less time it will take to resolve your issue.

When accurate replication steps and expected results are provided, your issue can quickly be verified by a support team member and they can proceed to resolving your case. Enter the steps that were taken in detail that caused the error. Provide usernames if necessary, specific student data to view, and provide examples of students names to verify issues.

Have you been wondering how to remove the ISEP Certification District Notice from your NASIS home screen?  Your school’s NASIS Administrator can simply go to the User Communication module and end date it. To end date the notice, choose ‘All Schools’ in the school drop down in the application header and navigate to: User Communication>User Notices. The BIE’s ISEP Certification notice has a start date of 6/11/2008.  Choose an end date prior to today, and it will clear the District Notices area from the home screen.

User Notices
User notices announce upcoming events, the daily school bulletin, district happenings, etc. Users who log into the Campus application will see the user notices. Portal users can also view user notices, if the district so chooses. Notices are separated into District Notices and School Notices. District Notices are managed by choosing ‘All Schools’ and proceeding to: User Communication>User Notices. School notices can be managed by choosing your school name and following the same path.