Soon we will be releasing our new website. Our team has been hard at work developing a new site that is user friendly, up to date and secure.

We will also be contacting superintendents and technology coordinators with our vendor extract audit. We began auditing the extracts that we send to vendors on your behalf last spring. We will be using the same application this year as well. Look for an email coming to you soon to start this process.

Each spring we survey our membership to gauge how well we are serving you. We will be sending this year's survey out to you later this month. Please take a few minutes to provide us with your feedback about our service to you. Remember, we are here to serve you!

We invite you to include us in your professional development for the 2023-24 school year. We are willing to come on your site to do individual, small or large group sessions with your staff. If you are interested, please contact me or a member of our team.

As always, we are here to help you with your needs. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Thanks for partnering with us!

Here's to a strong finish to the 2022-23 school year!
Ben Thaxton
Executive Director

School Year Initialization for the 2023-24 school year is continuing. Over 150 buildings have been initialized so far, and all completed buildings have been informed. If your building is not one of those that is completed, please make sure to finish the Initialization Survey and return to Student Services at your earliest convenience. Remember -- promotion, enrollment and student scheduling cannot begin until the initialization process is finished on our end.

Team members Jaime Best, Scott Schaffner and Doug Norton presented in a session at the recent OECN Conference in Newark, Ohio. Their session focused on NOACSC’s own in-house report system Harmony and the Harmony Dashboard. Attendees heard how Harmony fills gaps in the information organizing and reporting of ProgressBook modules and can be used for customized problem-solving in managing and utilizing the array of information in StudentInformation and GradeBook.

If you are in need of assistance or have questions as the student scheduling season gets under way for next year, we’re here to help! Please contact Student Services via phone, email, or ticketing if you want to schedule a one-on-one lab session, or just need some quiet space to get your work done.

With the Summer & Fall End of Course Assessment and Fall Early Learning Assessment closing within the last two weeks, and still having another 13 collections open for submission to ODE, an EMIS Coordinator is forever busy.

By the time you are reading this, the EMIS Team will have completed the 2-part session of the Troubleshooting the FTE Reports and we will be getting ready to have the Troubleshooting the CTE Report on April 25. The team at NOACSC will be scheduling the following trainings, so be on the lookout for dates in the near future:

• FY23 EMIS “S” Checklist (StudentInformation Users)
• FY23 EMIS “G” Checklist (StudentInformation Users)
• Troubleshooting the Where Kids Count Reports
• Troubleshooting the Missing Assessments Reports

You will be able to register for all the above through the NOACSC website.

Also, ODE will be giving a New EMIS Coordinator Training on April 4, in person. They are also giving several online Sessions throughout the rest of April, those topics include the following: Data Collector, ODDEX, Secure Data Center, Data Review & Appeals, and Pulling It All Together.

The Annual Ohio Association of EMIS Professionals (OAEP) Conference is going to happen in Columbus on May 8 and 9. Our EMIS Team is planning on attending.

We now have 27 districts who have implemented EMIS CrossCheck. CrossCheck is a data verification tool designed to allow schools to dig deeper into their EMIS data using real-time data. If you are interested in learning more, please contact a member of our EMIS team. The cost is $1 per student, with a minimum cost of $1500 and a maximum cost of $3500.

OECN United Conference – The fiscal team just got back from the first all ITC conference. It was a wonderful conference with excellent relationship building with other ITC’s and training on everything from customer service to a deep dive into USAS/USPS custom report writing to how to decipher USAS/USPS application logs.

New Faces at the Districts– NOACSC Fiscal team is seeing a lot of new faces at the districts. Across our ITC we have 11 new treasurers and are expecting 4 more before the end of the fiscal year. We are also seeing many new fiscal support staff in payroll and accounts payable positions. The number of staff changes have prompted our NOACSC fiscal staff to be flexible concerning trainings. If there is a topic for which you require additional training, don’t hesitate to let us know. Please remember……we are here to help!

Upcoming Trainings- Currently, we have scheduled the USAS/USPS User Group meetings for May 3rd with a morning and afternoon session and May 4th in the morning. The Agenda will be - Budgeting, New Contracts, EMIS Staff Reporting, and any other topics the group would like to discuss. If you already have a specific topic you would like to bring to the group, please let us know and we will make sure the topic is discussed. We will be sending out an email soon with the link for sign-ups on our website.

Multi-Factor Authentication is currently being implemented across all districts. Approximately, 20 districts have been implemented so far. Every treasurer should have received an initial email. We have had a few bumps along the way and have had to work through those. The good news is we can set MFA to allow your device/browser to be “trusted” through DUO, which means an end user will only have to approve MFA once every 24 hours with the same browser and same device. For example, if I logged into USAS this morning on my computer with Chrome, and then approved MFA and then logged out and into USPS through chrome on my same computer, I would not have to go through MFA a second time. It is already a trusted device and browser. This will save users the frustration of having to approve MFA each time they log into USAS and/or USPS. Duo does need to be used through an app on your phone or through a token. The tokens cost $15.00 each and will be billed on your invoice in the fall. (Reminder: this will not affect requisition users. They will not be required to use MFA.)

EMIS Alliance Training – Multiple treasurers sat through the EMIS Alliance training held March 29, 2023. This training helped explain the correlation between the ADM (enrollment) figures created through EMIS, and the enrollment figures on the SFPR. It was great to see districts be able to tie out these figures. For a treasurer to see where the enrollment figures are coming from helps to determine whether the funding is correct, especially in the current times of funding formula changes. Correct funding is more than being error free on an EMIS report. For a treasurer to see where those figures are coming from and exactly what students make up the count is wonderful knowledge to have. As the opportunity permits, we plan on doing more trainings bringing the EMIS coordinator and Treasurer together to better see the whole picture. Thank you to the EMIS team for including us.

The Five Year Forecast - Required Spring Update (FY23) deadline will be May 31, 2023. A checklist will be coming.

The EMIS Period L Final deadline is August 4, 2023. I know this seems like a ways off, but you might have errors you want to fix prior to the end of the fiscal year. If you have any errors and need guidance, please let us know.

Tip:

What can I archive and what does it affect?

• Employee-If an Employee record is archived then Attendance, Compensation, EMIS Employee, EMIS Position, Leaves, Pay Distribution, Payroll Accounts, Position and Payroll Item records are all considered archived.
• If an Employee record is deleted it will be marked as archived and move to an archived state. Attendance, Compensation, EMIS Employee, EMIS Position, Leaves, Pay Distribution, Payroll Accounts, Position and Payroll Item records are all considered archived.
• If a specific Position or Compensation is deleted it will be marked as archived and move to an archived state.
• If Employee records are archived the data will not pull into the EMIS SIF data collector.
• If a Pay Group is referenced to payroll data in the system, it cannot be deleted but it can be archived.
• If a Job Calendar is referenced to payroll data in the system, it cannot be deleted, but it can be archived.
• A Payroll Item Configuration record can be deleted if it is not referenced to payroll data in the system.
• A Payroll Item record can be deleted if it is not referenced to payroll data in the system.
• A Payroll item can now be archived.
• A Payroll item configuration can now be archived.

As Always: Our support email is: fiscal.support@noacsc.org, our phone number is: 419 228-7417 option 3 is for fiscal.

What's hanging around in your Downloads Folder and Recycle/Trash Bin?

How many files have you got resting in your computer’s download folder? It’s normal that it gets filled with installation apps and other files that you view from all the different programs that we download from the Internet and then forget to delete.

For security and other reasons these files should be deleted periodically, especially if any of those files contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

On windows, most browsers by default use the downloads folder. This folder can be found under This PC in Windows Explorer. On MAC OS, locate the Downloads in Finder. Browse through the files and delete any files that are no longer needed.

Now that you have cleaned up the Downloads Folder, check the Recycle and Trash Bin for those files, and other files that you thought that you previously deleted but are still hanging around.

Their recommended list of impactful security measures is listed below. As your ITC, we can assist your district in implementing many of these measures. In fact, we are already working on most of these recommendations and have implemented them effectively. We continue to work diligently to keep you and your students' data secure. Please reach out to a member of the network team with any questions you may have regarding cybersecurity measures. To read the full report, visit https://www.cisa.gov/protecting-our-future-cybersecurity-k-12.

• April 7 - Office closed (Good Friday)
• May 16 - NOACSC Board of Directors meeting @ 9:30 a.m.
• May 29 - Office closed (Memorial Day)
• June 19 - Office closed (Juneteenth)