Introduction:

Student Data Grids (SDGs) are comprehensive and customized spreadsheets listing your students with the data columns you selected, in the order you want, and delivered to you on the days that you need it. SDGs can be generated as needed or can be scheduled to run on a regular basis. For assistance with scheduling a SDG, please send an email to support@schooldata.net or use the question mark in the right hand corner of the application.
  
  
Creating a Student Data Grid:                                          

Details tab:                                

• You have the option to add a description that will better explain the purpose of the SDG.
• Categories are used to organize common types of data (i.e., basic student info and demographics) in groups. Adding categories is also optional and can be turned off by unchecking the “use categories” checkbox.        Using Categories will produce a double row header with Categories in Row 1 and Data Point Columns in Row 2.                         
• Data where there can be more than one value in a column (i.e. assessments and class grades), can be organized in multiple nested rows. Nested rows can make the output of the spreadsheet look cleaner. However, there are times when having separate columns is desirable. Separate columns are necessary, especially for times when you want to configure and add a custom formula.
• The “Is secure” option is to prevent users from seeing sensitive student data outside of their SDS system permissions. Any student the user does not have access to will have their name and identifying information replaced with a series of asterisks.
• The label and title for the SDG is automatically generated; edit it to rename your SDG, and save in order to move onto the columns tab.                         

Columns tab: 

• Clicking on the “+” sign next to Data Columns will open a window displaying the available data points.

• Columns with a gear icon have special configuration settings that can be applied before the column is added to the data grid. For example, the student name column can be configured to display: “Last name, First name”, “First name Last name”, etc.

• The Styles button/links in column configuration screens can be used to configure the display of data and renaming/creating custom data categories.

• If you wanted to create a category, you would put a custom name in the Category Label field. All pieces of data with that category label will appear in the same category.

• Student Info columns are labeled and are very specific data points.
• Behaviors columns:
• Daily Attendance: Includes some detailed data and other daily ratios and percentages related to attendance. Can be configured to look at finite ranges of time, like between two dates. You can also configure this column to look at specific schools, which is helpful when considering students who might attend more than one school in a year.  If the school option is left blank, the application will look at the predominant school of the student. Can set priority ordering for a specific column of data.
• Yearly Attendance: Looks at overall data for a year as a whole and can be configured to look at specific years or sets of years.  If the school option is left unselected, the application will look at the predominant school of record for the student. Can set priority ordering for a specific column of data.

• Attendance Details:  Looks at details (i.e., Number of ___) for students’ attendance. Daily attendance can be configured to look at finite ranges of time.  If the school option is left blank, the application will look at the predominant school of the student. Can set priority ordering for a specific column of data.
• Incident Counts: Counts discipline incidents that have been entered into your SIS. Can look at years as a whole or finite ranges of days.
• Referral Counts: Counts of SWIS referrals. Can be limited to a specific time frame, problem behaviors, locations and more.

• Health Log Counts: Used to count numbers of health incidents like injuries and illnesses. Can look at years as a whole or finite ranges of days.
• Health Conditions: Used to list health conditions for students.
• CAA/CIA columns: Contains information from students’ Certificate of Academic Achievement or Certificate of Individual Achievement record. EOC for historical End of Course, Math, Reading Science and Writing for historical HSPE assessments/milestones met.  Please note: EOC and HSPE are historical assessments used to meet the once separated graduation requirements.
• Enrollment Columns: Used to pull enrollment (i.e., district, school, class, etc.) data for students.

• Current Advisor
• Current Grade Level: Grade Level Ordinal is a numerical value for each of the grade levels and is automatically added. Use the action button to delete this extra column.  
• Enrollment: Current Predominant School, District enrollment column looks at finite ranges of dates and pulls district enrollment data for those dates. Current date is the most common option.  School enrollment column is like the district columns but looks at schools instead.
• Class column: Pulls class enrollment data. Important to note that this is where class grade data is found. Can be configured to look at grade level time spans or school year time spans. Can be filtered down using subjects, courses, class periods, etc. Can be further filtered down to look at specific class terms.
• When configuring the Class column you can add Grade information to your SDG, by using the ExternalGradebookGrades field. This is the column that is most used to pull grade information.

Steps to Add a grade column:    

1. Click the pencil icon to add/configure these columns.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Add Column Heading Text to describe the data as desired.
4. Select a Gradebook Bucket. A gradebook bucket is the place where specific grade data is stored. For example, the buckets for middle school and high school students include: midterm, semester, and term grades. Elementary grades are a little more difficult as each grade level will have its own set of grade buckets.
5. Select the Gradebook Accumulation Term. The term needs to match with the bucket selected previously. For example, if you selected midterm for the bucket, you would need to select one of the midterm accumulation terms. Otherwise, the column won’t pull the data correctly, if at all.
6. Click Add
7. Repeat Steps 3 thru 7 as needed for additional grade columns
8. Lastly click Save

To confirm you have the correct gradebook bucket and accumulation term, you can go to a student’s spotlight and view the Student Gradebook Container. Look for the Grading Target to be listed. Please see the image below.  

Steps to Edit a grade column:                                                        

1. Click the pencil icon to add/configure these columns.        
2. Click on the grade column in question
3. Make changes as needed
4. Click the Add button
5. Once all the edits are made to the grade columns click the Save button.

• Activities column: is used to pull data on activities (most commonly sports) that a student might be participating in. Configured to look at finite ranges of dates. Current date is the most used option.
• Grades & Credits columns
• The “Current …” columns are very specific data points with no configurability other than Styles
• Term Grade Count: Used to count specific grades for a term as well as credits. Can be filtered much like the Class enrollment column.
• External Gradebook Grade count: Used to count specific grades from the external gradebooks. Number of Grades and Number of Classes will be selected depending on what the user desires to look at. They are not necessarily the same. Can be filtered much like the Class enrollment column.
• External Gradebook Assignment count: Can be filtered much like the Class enrollment column. However, there are two additional filtering criteria including: assignments assigned within and assignments due within. Can be used to specify if the assignment is missing or if the assignment is modified.  Can also select specific assignments to look at.
• Risk: Used to pull risk indicator values into data grids. Select the indicators of interest and the columns to include. If more than one indicator is selected, you must select Apply Configuration Multiple times to match the number of indicators selected.

• Assessments: Used to pull assessment scores and other information into data grids. Can be configured to look at specific years or sets of years. Specific assessments can be selected. This is probably the most used option. However, you could also look at assessments grouped by subjects (i.e., math, English, etc.), scope (state, district, etc.) and family (i.e., Smarter Balanced, iReady, etc.) depending on what you want to look at.
  
•  If you select multiple assessments or the other selections result in more than one assessment for a student, you must select the Apply Configuration Multiple times to match the number of assessments. The exception to this is if you are looking for a specific score for a group of assessments like the highest score.

Steps to add an assessment column:                                                        

1. Click the + icon and click assessment
2. Adjust time span if needed
3. Click Select under assessments
4. Use the Filter Search to find the assessment(s)

5. Once you have selected the assessment(s), use the apply configuration multiple times. Select the appropriate number for the same number of assessments you selected.

6. Scroll down to the columns included section where you can add the assessment name, performance level, year and others to your spreadsheet if needed. Once those columns are selected, you can use the Heading Text box that will appear so you can change the names of the specific columns.

• Services columns or the Services column specifically: Used to pull service enrollment information. Can be configured to look at finite ranges to dates. The Status Limit options are dependent on the Time Span chosen. You select the services of interest. If multiple services are selected, then you must select an Apply Configuration Multiple times to match the number of services selected.
• Ex: Selecting Special Education, 504 and Bilingual will require the configuration multiple times to be set to three.
• Demographics Columns: very specific data points, some have extra options to add like codes and abbreviations. Those columns can be added by using the gear next to the specific data point.
• Custom Columns
• Formula column: You can write your own Excel executable formula that is based on one or more of the other columns of data in the grid. Care needs to be made when changing (adding or reordering) the columns in the grid as the formula columns will not automatically be updated. Formulas will not display on the dashboard if the SDG is being used on a district’s dashboard.
• Blank Column: Commonly used to add a blank column to enable users to enter their own data in the resulting spreadsheet.
• For many highly customizable columns, you can clone them to save having to repeat a complete configuration of the same column that might have a slight difference in the configuration. For example, maybe you are looking for counts of letter grades. You could create a count column for “A” grades and then clone it and just change the column to look for the other letter grades of interest instead of having to configure the column from scratch.

• You can rearrange the order of the columns by hovering over the number of each column. An arrow cursor will appear allowing you to drag and drop adjusting the order.

Categories tab:

• Used to format the data in the categories and columns. You can delete or rename categories of columns as necessary.

View tab:

• Used to generate a preview of the data. Simply select a student group and click Load Preview.  This is helpful when designing a grid and save having to generate spreadsheets each time you want to test a design.
• The one caveat is that the preview will not execute custom formulas. It will simply show all or part of the custom formula. If you want to test a formula, you will need to run a full report that will be delivered to you as a spreadsheet via email.

Report tab:  

• Used to generate an Excel spreadsheet of the grid. Select a student group and add a custom file name (if desired).
• Click the Include Student Download Options checkbox to include additional data point columns at the end of the data grid. Select the additional download options as desired.
• Lastly, click Send Spreadsheet Report.

Report PDF tab:

• Allows a user to create a PDF of the information. Oftentimes users find that an excel file generated in the report tabs is often the most helpful. Allowing the user to filter, rearrange and exclude data as needed.

Collaborate tab/menu:

• This is a drop down menu used to copy or share the selected grid to another user within the district.
• Copying the SDG to another user allows them to use your SDG without having to create one from scratch.
• Sharing allows the other user to make edits to the SDG in both yours and their account.

Schedule tab:

• Used to schedule a grid to be sent to you or other Recipients on the days and times selected.
• Confirm you are in the correct school year, especially important if you have cloned or copied the SDG.
• Click on a desired day and then select the time you want the grid delivered on that day.
• Repeat the process for other dates of desire.  
• Make sure the Schedule is Active checkbox is checked.
• Contact School Data Solutions if you want advanced scheduling (i.e. every __ weeks) to set up these types of schedules more efficiently.
• If you are having trouble accessing the scheduling, please know that this is a permission not all SDG users have. Please reach out for assistance.

Recipients tab:

• Used to send the data grid to one or more recipients using a specific student group for each recipient set. The recipients will only receive data for those students they are authorized to view. For example, teachers would only be able to see their students. The basic settings are used to configure the basic email parts including: report file name, email subject, and email message.

Adding A Recipient Set:  

1. Click on Add Recipient
2. Scroll to the bottom of the webpage to Recipient Selection
3. Select the subset of recipients of interest, for example Principals.
4. Depending on the subset selected previously, further options will appear. Configure the options as desired.
5. Repeat Steps 1 thru 3 for remaining recipient sets of interest.
6. Click the Save button.
7. Click Run Now to execute the grid and send a spreadsheet to the recipients. If you wish to see how the recipient selections will work prior to sending to users, click the down arrow next to the Run Now button and select Run Validation Now. This will create the separate spreadsheets that each recipient would receive and will send them to you in a compressed (ZIP) file, which you can then open and review.

Student Data Grid Organization & Management

My Data Grids screen:                                                                         

Data Grids can be organized into folders/categories using the Add new Category option from the Actions Menu. SDGs can be moved to other categories using the Edit item option using the gear icon next to the Grid. Grids can also be cloned (i.e., copied) to facilitate creating other grids based off other created grids, thereby avoiding unnecessary configuring of common fields. This option is found by selecting Clone Item from the gear icon next to the grid in question. Grids can be reordered as desired by dragging and dropping on the double arrow icon next to the grid.