To effectively schedule students, schedulers must be able to navigate through the menus of Focus and search for students by name or student ID, as well as search for a subset of students. This search may relate to schedules, requests, demographic data, test history, or course history. In addition to searching, users can take advantage of Advanced Reports, which allow users to compile, view, and track specific student data.
Portal Header
1. Focus /District Logo: Click on the logo to return to the Portal page.
2. Select Student/Staff: This pull-down is available at the top of all screens. Click on the pull-down, select the Students tab or the Staff tab and a list of all students/staff displays. Filter by student/staff name or student/staff ID. Clicking on a student/staff name navigates to the Student/User Info page for the selected student/staff.
3. Screen Name: Displays the name of the screen currently being viewed. Click on the screen name to add the page to Favorites.
4. Username: Displays your first and last name.
5. Profile/Role: Displays your assigned profile or role. A pull-down displays if you have more than one assigned profile, allowing you to switch between your assigned profiles, such as Coach and Teacher.
6. School: Displays the name of your school. If access to more than one school is granted, the school name displays in a pull-down where you can switch between schools, as needed.
7. School Year: Allows changing from the current year to view previous/future years.
8. Marking Period: Allows changing from the current marking period to view previous/future marking periods. Defaults to the currently active marking period.
9. SIS/ ERP: Clicking SIS takes you to the Student Information System. Clicking ERP takes you to Enterprise Resource Planning for finance, human resources, and payroll (depending on your district).
Portal Body
1. Main Menu: The Focus navigation menu is along the left side of the screen. If you hover over any of the menu icons, the menu opens and the menu titles appear. Because you may have different Preferences set up, your menu may be located along the top of the screen.
2. Dashboards/Portals: The district can create various dashboards for different user profiles. These usually contain graphical representations of student/staff data. If you have multiple profiles that have different portal block options, you can select the desired dashboard from the pull-down.
3. Last Login: Security feature that shows the your last date and time of login.
4. Alerts: Profile based system alerts e.g., teachers that have not taken attendance, admin discipline referrals that have not been processed, etc.
5. District & School Announcements: This contains notifications or reminders from both the school and/or district. These can be profile specific.
6. Upcoming Events: District and school calendar of upcoming events.
7. Find a Student/User: Search for a student/user from the Portal page by entering student/user name or ID number. Use the pull-down to select the sub-menu to view.
8. Focus University: Online training videos and help documents available for reference. These are NOT district specific.
9. Favorites/Recent Programs: Quick links to access the programs within the Focus menu that were flagged as Favorites from the screen name. Recent Programs displays a list of the most recently visited screens within Focus. Clicking the link navigates to the corresponding screen, as well as the student previously viewed, if applicable.
Portal Footer
1. Magnifying Glass: Used to filter and search through all of the menu items to quickly locate a specific menu option.
2. Help: Provides contextual help for the open screen. Links to Focus University can be opened in a new window. Allows users to sign up for a Focus University account and receive email notices for webinars.
3. Logout: Closes the Focus application.
By default, Focus times out after 24 minutes of inactivity unless the District has modified the time.
What feature brings you back to the portal page from any other screen in Focus?
What profile specific alerts might be seen in the alerts section?
How can you quickly locate a menu option?
The following options are based on the typical scheduling profile. If a Scheduler has more than one profile, they may have access to more options.
Marking Periods: Dates for the Full Year, Semesters, and Quarters. Schools may want to double check the dates setup by the District are accurate before requests and scheduling occurs.
Attendance Calendars: Dates that school is in session for students which affects attendance and sections. The Calendars can be set up by the district, and need to be checked by the school to ensure accuracy.
Periods: Also known as the bell schedules within a school. There might be multiple bell schedules, but there is only one set of periods per school. Schools will want to double check that the periods are accurate before requests and scheduling occurs. Total Minutes (Length) is required but start/end times are not unless Rotation Days are in use.
Resource Scheduler/Rooms: Displays the Fish Room Number, Display Room Number, and information about the room. Each room can be marked as “used for scheduling” from this option.
Student Info: One way to find a student and information related to that student.
Mass Assign Student Info: Helpful if a group of students need to have the same information added or changed.
Advanced Report: Generate a report specific to the student fields and data selected by the person creating the report. The report can be saved to be used in the future and will auto-update if student data changes between runs.
Add/Drop Report: View a full listing of each student enrolled in or withdrawn from the school during a specified timeframe.
In the Users menu, click My Preferences to change certain preferences to make Focus customized for your use.
Display Options: Change the menu highlight color, display of student info, menu location, display of menu icons and date format.
Student Listing: Choose which student tab opens by default when a student record is accessed, select default search options, and determine what displays in student lists.
Student Schedule: Displays the courses/sections the student is currently scheduled in by semesters and/or full year. Changes to the student’s schedule can be made from this screen.
Student Requests: Allows schedulers to manually enter requests. If in use, students can enter their own requests, which can be viewed from this menu option.
Mass Add/Drop Course: One or multiple sections can be added/dropped directly to one or multiple student schedules en masse.
Mass Requests: Allows searching for groups of students to add one or multiple course requests to those students on a one-time basis.
Automatic Course Requests: Mass add course requests to a specific group of students based on district or school-defined criteria. The district can run these requests district-wide or for individual schools and schools can run their own requests. Automatic Course Requests can be rolled from one school year to the next for all schools or for individual schools.
Requests Reports: Offers tools for planning sections of courses, including Duplicate Requests, Students with too many Requests, and Students with too few Requests.
Builder Reports: Displays a summary of sections built versus requests entered--including issues that arise after an administrator has run the Scheduler. These reports are particularly valuable in assessing the match between demand for particular courses against actual availability.
Loading Reports: Informs how Run Scheduler has filled sections and student schedules. The reports can be used to make tweaks to the master schedule until Run Scheduler is no longer used and then used to locate/fix students with incomplete or conflicting schedules.
Master Schedule Report: Displays the current Master Schedule by Section, Course, Co-Teacher, Linked Sections, and Inclusion Sections (if the Focus Inclusion tab has been used).
Teacher Schedules Report: Displays each teacher with their assigned periods and sections. If teachers aren’t assigned to any sections, they will not appear on this report. This report allows schedulers to move sections from period to period for a teacher or from one teacher to another teacher.
Room Schedules Report: Displays all rooms within the school with the scheduled sections by period; includes the number of students if the Scheduler has been run.
Schedule Report: Overview of the requests and open seats for each course and section.
Add/Drop Report: Displays students that have had schedule changes.
Print Student Schedules: Print a selection of students or each student’s schedule.
Print Teacher Schedules: Print all teachers or a single teacher’s schedule.
Print Class Lists: Print class lists for one or all teachers.
Course Catalog: Provides a list of courses offered in the district. The catalog is based on the state catalog and courses can be restricted by the district to specific schools. The Course Catalog does not contain Post-Secondary Dual Enrollment courses which will need to be added by the district.
Courses and Sections: Organized similarly to a file cabinet: Subject → Course → Section. The Subject is created by the district or at the school level to organize the different courses; within the courses, sections are set up.
Lock Schedules: Provides the ability to lock schedules for the entire school, a specified set of students, or individual students. This does not lock master schedule sections.
Teams: Allows for students to be organized into teams for scheduling purposes.
Lunches: Allows lunch periods to be created. The lunch displays on the header of the student schedule (e.g. A Lunch, B Lunch) but is not a scheduled period. If lunch should be a scheduled period, it needs to be included in the Periods set up and built as a section in Courses & Sections.
Elementary Scheduler: Used to equitably roster and schedule elementary students into packages in a quick manner using the optimize functionality.
Create Packages: Used to link sections together. A package could be built for elementary homeroom teachers or Reading could be linked to English/LA in Middle and High School.
Run Scheduler: Builds student schedules based on the available courses/sections and student requests. If student schedules or sections on a schedule have been locked, this will not unlock those schedules/sections.
Master Schedule Snapshots: Used to restore the master schedule to previous setups after Run Scheduler has been utilized. Tracks percentage of students fully scheduled in each run.
Master Schedule Builder: Schedulers can load the existing courses and sections with or without the Periods attached, or build sections from scratch within the Builder and an algorithm determines the periods assigned to each section based on student requests and available courses/sections.
Final Grades, GPA, & Class Rank: Displays the Course History for a student, which can be printed or downloaded.
District Reports: Provides links to run reports created by District Admin and assigned to selected profiles.
Saved Reports: Displays and provides the ability to edit any advanced report that has been created by the individual user.
My Reports: Displays a list of saved Advanced Reports that have been generated by the individual user.
Published Reports: Displays a list of saved Advanced Reports that have been created by others and shared with selected profiles
- Which menu option allows the drag-and-drop of sections between teachers?
- Which menu option contains a report of all students who have too few requests?
- If a course is missing from the school’s setup of Courses & Sections, where can you look to see if it is offered by the district?
- Explain the difference between Mass Add Course and Mass Requests.
Focus provides several ways to search for students, both individually and by similar information in student records. The Student Search module appears on many screens throughout Focus.
Option 1: The Select Student/Staff pull-down can be used to find students using names and ID numbers.
Option 2: The Find a Student/User section on the main Portal page is a quick way to search for students. Use the pull-down menu to select a sub-menu to view for that student.
Option 3: Go to the Students menu and select Student Info.
The Search Screen displays when menu options, other than reports and setup, are selected.
1. Navigate to the Find a Student section on the Portal page.
2. Menu: Select which student menu displays when you search for the student, such as Demographics, Absences, Grades, etc.
3. Search All Schools: Select to search for students at all schools to which you have access. Only available if you have access to more than one school.
4. Include Inactive Students: Select to search for students who have withdrawn during the current school year.
5. Include Previous Years Inactive Students: This option displays once Include Inactive Students has been selected. Select to search for students who have been active in the school or district at any time (as long as that previous data is loaded into Focus).
6. More Search Options: Select to search for students based on specific student fields. This will be covered in detail later in this training.
7. Click Search once the search criteria has been set.
Search Criteria: Searches are NOT case sensitive.
| Example | Results |
|---|---|
John Smith johnson, betty |
Full student name (searches are not case sensitive). Multiple student names cannot be listed. |
| Ab |
Students with a last OR first name beginning with “Ab.” |
| ab, |
Students with a last name beginning with “ab.” |
| ,ab |
Students with a first name beginning with “ab.” |
|
Ab,c -or- ab,c |
Students with a last name beginning with “ab” and a first name beginning with “c.” |
|
A b -or- a b |
Students with the first name beginning with an “a” and the last name beginning with a “b.” |
|
1234567 |
Student with the specified local (district) student ID, Texas Unique ID. |
|
1234567 2345678 3456789 |
Students with the specified student ID numbers. Multiple student ID numbers can be entered using a comma or space as a separator. The student numbers can also be copied from an Excel, word or pdf list and pasted directly into a student search box. |
The Student Search screen also provides a link to More Search Options, giving the ability to search by detailed data for a student or a group of students. This feature lists every student data field the administrator has profile permission to view.
Click More Search Options on any Search Screen.
In More Search Options, there are 4 sections available: General searching, Focus Menus, Florida Fields, and Student Fields.
- General Searching - Search by name, student ID, address, calendar or grade level.
- Focus Menus - Search criteria based on the Focus Menus. Most commonly used by scheduling teams include:
- Scheduling - search on a scheduling option such as Scheduled into a course, Requested Course, Scheduled into a section or teacher and more.
- Test History - search by test name, score type, score range and administration date. More than one test can be included in the search criteria.
- Florida Fields - Search criteria in the Florida (state reporting) Fields section. State reporting fields from the master schedule, student schedule, and course catalog are available.
- Student Fields - Search fields located on the student demographic tabs.
When selecting multiple check boxes from within a tab, the system will look for students meeting any one of the selected criteria (e.g. LY or LP). However, if additional fields from another tab are selected, the students must also meet those additional criteria to be pulled into the search results.
This displays a list of modules that can be opened and closed by clicking the gray triangles. Selecting multiple options will yield very specific search results.
Many pull-down menus include a Filter text box to narrow the selections without scrolling through all of the options. The filter updates the pull-down in real time, enabling the results to be narrowed with full or partial entries. There are links to Check all options and to Clear all options.
If selected in My Preferences, Alert icons may display next to students' names in student lists throughout Focus. Clicking the icon directs you to the student field in Student Info on which the alert is set if you have permission to view that field.
Scenario Directions: Below are examples of instances when the More Search Options feature may be used. Read the scenario, and then use More Search Options to locate the students. Try finding the information before looking at the answers below.
Scenario: 504 Students
It’s the beginning of the school year, and we want to locate the currently eligible 504 students who have accommodation plans.
1. In the Students menu, select Student Info.
2. Click More Search Options.
3. Scroll to and click on the tab titled 504 Info.
4. Locate the 504 Eligible field.
5. Select the Yes option.
6. Click Search.
Scenario: Exceptional Ed Students
It’s the beginning of the school year, and we want to know of any exceptional education students with an FEFP of “254.”
1. In the Students menu, select Student Info.
2. Click More Search Options.
3. Scroll to and click on the tab titled ESE.
4. Locate the ESE FEFP field.
5. Select the 254 option from the pull-down.
6. Click Search.
Scenario: ELL Students
It’s the beginning of the school year, and we want to ensure that all of the active ELL students are scheduled with certified ELL teachers. We want to search for all “LY” students and look at their schedules.
1. In the Scheduling menu, select Student Schedule.
2. Click More Search Options.
3. Scroll to and click on the tab titled ELL.
4. Locate the English Language Learner field.
5. Select the LEP in LEP classes [LY] option from the pull-down.
6. Click Search.
Scenario: Level 1 FSA ELA Students
Students who score a Level 1 on the most recent FSA ELA need to be scheduled into an Intensive Reading class. We want to run a search to identify these students to add a request for Intensive Reading.
1. In the Scheduling menu, select Student Requests.
2. Click More Search Options.
3. Scroll to and click on the tab titled Test History.
4. Select FSA ELA from the Test pull-down.
5. Select the Achievement Level (AL) option from the Score Type pull-down.
6. Enter a Score range between 1 & 1.
7. Ensure Only the Most Recent Administration is displayed in the 2nd Score Type pull-down.
8. Click Search.
Scenario: Current Algebra 1 students
All Students in Algebra 1 need Geometry for next year. Identify all students scheduled into Algebra 1.
1. In the Scheduling menu, select Mass Add Request.
2. Click More Search Options.
3. Scroll to and click on the section titled Scheduling.
4. Click on Scheduled into Course(s) Last Year (remember we are working in the upcoming school year; selecting this option also provides access to multiple courses in the event the district uses an 8th or 9th digit for the Algebra 1 course).
5. Select the appropriate Algebra 1 course(s).
6. Click Search.
Advanced Reports are typically created with a specific subgroup of students in mind who meet a specific set of criteria. Specific fields of data that may change over time are selected to be included as columns in the report. The report updates with the most current data if there were changes since the last time it was run. Advanced Reports roll from school year to school year until the user deletes them.
1. In the Students menu, select Advanced Report.
2. Define the subgroup of students by clicking More Search Options and making selections.
3. Define the data that will populate the columns in the report from Available Fields.
Click Student Demo to expand the tab to select demographic fields such as student name, ID, grade level, etc.
4. To add fields to include in report, click the green plus sign or click and drag the blue field over to the Fields to include in Report section.
Click Student Demo again to collapse the tab after making selections.
5. Continue to click on the tab names to find and select the data fields that are to be included in the report. Optionally, use the Filter text box to enter text for quick searching.
6. Rearrange the fields to include in the report by clicking and dragging the blue fields in the order the columns should appear in the report.
7. Remove a selected field by clicking the red X.
8. Decide whether to Search All Schools and/or to Include Inactive Students.
9. Click Run Report after all report criteria have been selected.
10. View the report results. If satisfied, go to the next step. If not satisfied, skip the next step and go to step 12.
11. Save the report by clicking Create Report at the bottom of the screen.
a. A pop-up appears requesting a title. Enter a Title for the report and click OK.
12. If the report does not display students, does not pull in the selected data, or if more/less data is necessary, click Modify Report. This will cause the original More Search Options criteria to be lost but will retain the Fields to include in Report.
13. Reset the More Search Options criteria (or change if no students were pulled into the report).
14. Add, delete, or rearrange the data fields depending on the results that are displayed in the report (if applicable to achieve necessary report results).
15. Click Run Report and view the results.
If satisfied, see the instructions in step 11. If not satisfied, repeat the previous steps starting with number 12 until necessary results are attained.
The results of an Advanced Report can also be downloaded and saved as a static report prior to clicking Create Report. To download, click on the Excel icon that displays in the header next to the total number of students.
A saved report can be modified to add more fields or add a filter; a new sub-report can then be created by selecting the option Save as a New Report Instead in the Confirm Overwrite of Existing Saved Report window. Selecting Save & Overwrite loses the original report parameters.
1. Create an Advanced Report for one of the More Search Options activities above. Include the following fields in the exact order listed below:
- Last, First M
- Grade Level
- Other fields to display the necessary data based on the group selected.
2. Run, save and name the report.
3. Go back to the main Portal page and locate the saved report.
4. Add a filter to the report; include only the highest-grade level of students at the school.
5. Export the report to Excel.
6. Resave and name the new report.