12.0.24 - 11/05/2023

Finance

FOCUS-40234- chore(accounts-payable): add bank name column to PO drafts table

System enhancement adding Bank Name column to Purchase Request/Orders > Draft > Existing Drafts.

See Purchase Requests/Orders and/or Internal Purchase Requests/Orders for more information.

FOCUS-40712- feat(accounts-payable): add "Amount" input as a filter on Check Report

System improvement adding 'Amount' search filter to Purchasing/Accounts Payable > Check Report > Check Reports.

See Check Report for more details.

SIS

FOCUS-40753 - Third Party Systems: New Graded Field in GET /classes for OneRoster API Dialect

The latest branch update includes an enhancement to the OneRoster API. A new "graded" field has been added to the metadata object within the GET /classes endpoint. This field indicates whether the course period is considered graded, providing a clear distinction within the API's returned data for external applications interfacing with the system.

FOCUS-40734 - Communication Platform: District Attendance Messages Should Not Appear in Sent

This branch updates the behavior of the attendance messaging system. Previously, attendance messages sent by an admin would appear in that admin's sent box. After the implementation of this branch, these attendance messages will no longer show up in the admin's sent box, reflecting a change in how the system records or displays sent attendance communications.

FOCUS-40732 - Scheduled Jobs: Resolve 9th Grade Students not Calculating in Populate Graduation Requirements Summary Scheduled Job

The recent branch update addresses a previous issue with the "Populate Graduation Summary" scheduled job. The correction ensures that records for 9th grade students are now properly populated.

FOCUS-40717 - Attendance Chart: Multiple period courses not considered for Daily Attendance with FTE Period (Texas)

The branch update rectifies a problem in the Attendance Chart where a course spanning multiple periods wasn't being accounted for in Daily Attendance calculations for Texas customers leveraging the FTE period. Specifically, if a course began and ended spanning periods that incapsulated the FTE period, this period wouldn't be included in the Daily Attendance (e.g. Begin Period 01, End Period 03, FTE Period 02). The branch ensures that such courses are now properly considered for Daily Attendance tracking.

FOCUS-40711 - Scheduling: Add Exclude from FTE indicator on Students with Inclusion Report (Florida)

This enhancement introduces a "Reported to DOE" column to the "Students with Inclusion" report for Florida state reporting customers. This column features a read-only checkbox indicating whether the "Report to DOE" option has been selected on the Inclusion Section. This feature provides a quick reference to confirm if a student's inclusion status will be reported to the FLDOE.

See Students with Inclusion for more information.

FOCUS-40708 - Custom Fields: Resolve Duplicate Select-One Option in Logging Fields where Min/Max Year Values Leveraged

This branch resolves a problem where options in a "select one" type column within a logging field record were being duplicated when minimum and maximum year values were specified. This correction ensures that each option appears only once as intended, preventing any confusion or data entry errors due to repeated options.

FOCUS-40707 - Workflow Triggers/Letter Queue: Update Month to Date option

The latest update corrects a discrepancy in Student Workflow Triggers concerning the 'Month to date' parameter. With this fix, the 'Month to date' selection now comprehensively includes all days from the start of the month up to and including the specified effective date.

FOCUS-40704 - School Choice: Refine Appearance of Zone & Sub Zone Information

The recent enhancement to the School Choice add-on module enhances the readability of zone and sub-zone data in both the School Choice Application and Evaluate Placement interfaces. The update substitutes dashes for commas in the display of these fields, offering a clearer visual separation of values for users of the module.

FOCUS-40695 - Ed-Fi: Limit Length of Course Titles in API

The latest update to the Ed-Fi Sync process introduces a safeguard against procedure failures by imposing a maximum length restriction of 60 characters for course titles within the Courses.

FOCUS-40690 - Print Avery Labels: Improve Generation for Multiple Images Per Page

The recent update rectifies an issue in the Print Avery Labels function where PDFs would stop rendering images correctly after about 19 pages with two images each. To improve this, the update changes the number of pages generated in each PDF from 25 to 15 before they are combined, ensuring a consistent display of images throughout the document.

FOCUS-40689 - Communication Platform: Ensure Insert Fields Generate for Prior Year Inactive Students in Messages

This update resolves a limitation in the Communication Platform that previously prevented Insert Fields from populating correctly when sending messages to recipients associated with students who were inactive from a previous year.

FOCUS-40667 - Schema Core: Force District ID on Insert for Single-Tenant Instances

This update introduces a fix for single-tenant sites, ensuring that a district_id is included when records are created, eliminating the previous scenario where records could be inserted with a null identifier, leading to complications. Additionally, the update corrects a problem specific to Postgres databases, where excessively long index names were being regenerated with every synchronization process.

FOCUS-40665 - Student Grade Summary: Ensure Grade Colors Consistent when using Proficiency Gradebook

This update addresses an inconsistency in the student grade summary where, if the proficiency grade preference is enabled, grade colors did not always display correctly. The correction ensures that grade colors are now consistent across the platform.

FOCUS-40649 - Discipline: Auto-Generate Discipline Letters tied to Discipline Actions

This branch ensures that letters associated with Discipline Actions in Referral Codes & Actions setup will auto-generate for the end-user when processing an applicable Discipline Referral.

FOCUS-40640 - Attendance: Resolve Print Absence Summary Report PDF Download in Chrome

This update fixes a problem encountered in Chrome with the "Print Absence Summary" feature. Initially, users experienced an issue where the absence summary would appear correct on the screen, but the downloaded file turned out to be blank when opened. With this branch's changes, the downloaded report should now display the absence summary content as expected.

FOCUS-40631 - Add a Student: Resolve Issue where System Fields Indicated as Not Visible were Visible

This update addresses an error on the "Add a Student" search interface. System fields that were intended to be hidden and not visible to users when adding a student were incorrectly displayed.

FOCUS-40619 - Test History Report: New Test Form Field Added

This update introduces an additional column for "Test Form" to the Test History Report, providing a useful distinction between different administrations. This is especially beneficial for Florida customers to delineate PM1, PM2, or PM3 instances of the FAST tests. This enhancement enables educators and administrators to more accurately track and analyze individual test administrations, ensuring that they can differentiate between various forms of the assessment for more detailed reporting and assessment of student performance.

FOCUS-40587 - Delete a Student: New Master Checkbox on Merge 2 Students & Timeframe Option in Undo

This enhancement brings new functionalities to the process of managing student data, particularly in situations where student records need to be merged or deletions need to be undone. Here's a breakdown of the improvements:

Merge 2 Students Tab: A new user interface feature has been added for convenience: a master checkbox at the top of the column that, when checked, will select all checkboxes in the list below it. This will apply to any checkbox columns present in the merge interface.

Conversely, if this master checkbox is deselected, it will clear all selections in the checkboxes below. The existing behavior of how checkboxes are populated when the merge screen loads remains unchanged; this enhancement simply provides an additional tool to select or clear all options quickly.

Undo Tab: An adjustable timeframe filter has been introduced at the top of the 'Undo' interface. By default, it will be set to the current month, similar to the Report Timeframe feature found in the Attendance Chart. Users have the flexibility to modify this timeframe to their needs, and upon hitting “Update,” the screen will refresh to display only the records that were merged within the specified timeframe.

See Delete a Student for details.

FOCUS-40584 - Scheduled Jobs: Resolve AutoWithdraw Not Deleting Applicable Schedule Records

The branch updates the built-in scheduled job AutoWithdraw to ensure that any schedule records with an end date set before the start date are automatically deleted as intended. This resolution is critical to maintaining the integrity of scheduling data and preventing the propagation of incorrect information in state reporting.

FOCUS-40579 - Teacher Programs: Resolve Display of Certain Gradebook Reports for Administrators

This update addresses an issue with session management in Teacher Programs, Gradebook Reports. Previously, when navigating to the Gradebook Reports, the application relied on a $_SESSION['staff_id'] value to identify the current user's gradebook data. However, the process also involved setting a student_id in the request variable which inadvertently led to the possibility of unsetting the user. This branch makes a change to the behavior to maintain the integrity of the session data and prevents user identification errors within the gradebook reporting feature.

FOCUS-40574 - Discipline: Ignore Gradelevels Without Shortnames in Eligible Gradelevel Setting in Referral Codes & Actions

This update refines the Discipline Referral Codes & Actions settings by ensuring only grade levels with a designated "short name" are displayed. The previous setup included all grade levels, causing confusion when a "short name" was missing. Now, grade levels without this crucial identifier are omitted.

See Referral Codes & Actions for more information.

FOCUS-40533 - Document Management: New Retain By Option in Purge Old Files Scheduled Job

This enhancement introduces a "Retain By" option for the "Purge Old Files" job in the Document Management module, offering a choice between "Upload Date" and "Withdraw Date" for file retention criteria. The "Upload Date" retains the original method, while the "Withdraw Date" option uses the student's enrollment drop date as the reference for file retention, providing districts with more tailored document management capabilities.

See Scheduled Jobs for more information.

FOCUS-40516 - Birthday List: New Setting to Remove Hyperlink in User Birthday List Portal Alert

This update introduces a new system preference that enables schools to deactivate the hyperlink function in the User Birthday List portal alert. With this preference activated, birthdays displayed will only show the name without a clickable link leading to additional information about the student or staff member. The setting for this feature can be found in the system preferences under the General tab, labeled "Disable links in User Birthday List portal alert".

See System Preferences > General for additional details.

FOCUS-40507 - Communication Platform: Unify Logic of Printing vs. Sending Messages with Insert Fields

This branch addresses the discrepancy between the logic used for populating fields in the Communication Platform for printed documents versus sent messages. Previously, these processes were separate, resulting in redundant efforts and inconsistencies. The update ensures that printing now employs the same updated logic as messaging, creating a more cohesive and efficient experience in the Communication Platform, and eliminating the differences between printing and sending communications.

FOCUS-40502 - More Search Options: Allow Searching on Text Fields in Logging Fields in Advanced Reports

This update resolves a problem where text fields in log columns were not selectable for "more search options" in advanced reports, ensuring that users can now include these text fields as criteria in their report queries.

FOCUS-40434 - Community Mobile App: Integrate Lunch Feature in Schedule View

This enhancement integrates the Scheduling Lunch feature into the Community Mobile App, enabling it to display student lunch schedules within the schedule information section, mirroring the visibility found in the SIS interface for a cohesive user experience.

See Using the Mobile App for Administrators > Viewing Student Information for more information.

FOCUS-40430 - Advanced Reports: Improved Filtering Logic in Saved Reports

This update addresses an issue in advanced reports with pagination and filters. Previously, when filters were applied to paginated results, it could disrupt the filtering process and printing functionality. Now, when a filter is already applied to a report with multiple pages, the system will automatically consolidate the results onto a single page, ensuring that filtering and printing function as intended.

FOCUS-40377 - Florida Reports: Improve Menu Display

This branch guarantees that users can view the entire Focus top menu when navigating specific sections of the Florida Reports.

FOCUS-40304 - Discipline: No Longer Update Referral Action Record Start Date in Detention List

This update ensures that when completing an action record through the Detention list, the start date remains unchanged if the days completed for the referral are set and greater than zero, while the end date is updated to today's date.

FOCUS-40298 - User Info: Allow Searching on Multiple User Local IDs

This update enhances the User Search functionality by allowing multiple Local IDs to be searched at once. Users can input these IDs separated by commas or spaces, streamlining the search process when dealing with numerous records.

FOCUS-40287 - Request Grade Changes: New System Preferences to Require Explanation and Status

This update introduces two new system preferences within the Grading tab to enhance the grade change request process:

1) "Make Explanation Required on Submission of Grade Change Request": When enabled (default setting), teachers must provide an explanation when submitting grade change requests.

2) "Make Explanation Required on Grade Change Request Approval": When enabled, administrators must provide an explanation when approving or denying grade change requests. This setting is off by default.

These requirements also apply to administrators when submitting grade change requests through Teacher Programs → Request Grade Changes, maintaining consistency across user roles.

See System Preferences > Grading, Request Grade Changes (teacher), and Approve Grade Changes (administrator) for more information.

FOCUS-40083 - Print Letters & Send Email: Respect Default Letterhead Option

This update addresses an oversight in the handling of letterhead templates for users without admin rights. Although the preferred admin letterhead template was saved in the database, it was not being accounted for when non-admin users attempted to print or email a letter. The system would fail to recognize the admin-specified default template. With this fix, when the default template is not defined in the user's request, the system now retrieves the correct template from the database if it exists. If no admin-defined template is found, the system reverts to the previous default setting. This ensures consistent use of the designated letterhead templates across different user levels.

SSS

FOCUS-40618- SSS: New SSS Icon in SSS Event Portal Alerts

For clients utilizing the Special Student Services (SSS) module, this enhancement includes the addition of an SSS icon next to portal alerts for SSS events. This visual aid is intended to help users quickly recognize alerts that pertain to Special Student Services, thereby facilitating a more intuitive and efficient user experience.

FOCUS-40617- SSS: Ensure Fields Display Correctly in PMP Events for Inactive Students

This update resolves a previous issue with the SSS PMP program in which certain fields would fail to populate on the PMP Graph step if the event was locked and the student did not have active enrollment. The cause was an inability to determine a grade level without an active enrollment record. The new functionality, introduced with the branch update, ensures that even when a PMP event is locked without an active enrollment for a student, all fields will correctly populate. The system now retrieves information from the most recent enrollment that began before the event was locked, allowing for complete and accurate data display in the PMP Graph step.

FOCUS-40531- SSS: Improved Archived Download Logic

This update ensures that if an archived file in the SSS module lacks an extension, the system will automatically append the appropriate extension from the file's full name. This allows for hassle-free downloading and opening of files.

FOCUS-40203- Targeted Behavior cannot be updated on existing PMP records

This update fixes an issue with the PMP record management in the SSS module. Previously, while creating a new PMP record allowed for correct input of targeted behavior, any updates made to targeted behavior in existing records were not being saved. This occurred because the system was incorrectly referencing the academic PMP fields for behavior-related updates. The fix ensures that when updating a behavior PMP, the targeted behavior field is correctly referenced and saved.

FOCUS-39915- SSS: Improvements to Document Management within SSS

This branch enhances document management within the Special Student Services (SSS) module by providing a custom naming convention for PDF uploads. It introduces a new 'Image Name Format' field that administrators can use to define the file naming structure, incorporating variables like student ID, program name, event name, and others. Additionally, placeholders for form fields can be used by encapsulating the field name within curly braces. The system defaults to a standard file name if none is provided, but administrators can set a custom name, which must conclude with the '.pdf' extension to be valid.

See Setup > Setting Up Events and Manage Student > Locking an Event for more information.

Moreover, two new fields have been included: 'Imaged By' and 'Imaged Time' on the locked tab of the Manage Student screen, which track the user who last imaged the event and the corresponding timestamp. Finally, a new user interface element provides feedback on the imaging process, offering progress updates and error messages, should the user opt to keep the dialog window active during the process.

FOCUS-39352- SSS: Add Support for Non-Standard Grade Levels in PMP Setup

This branch enhances the PMP setup by extending support beyond the standard grade levels (PK, K, 01-12). It now accommodates any grade level present in the system, ensuring compatibility with non-standard grade levels that may be utilized by certain institutions.

FOCUS-38223- SSS: New Features for Parents in Community Mobile App

This new feature enhancement is specifically tailored for parents using the Community Mobile App to interact with the SSS system. Parents now have the added convenience of accessing PDF versions of locked SSS events directly from their mobile devices, ensuring they can review important information on the go. Moreover, the update also introduces the ability for parents to effortlessly sign SSS forms right within the app. This not only streamlines the process but also reinforces the commitment to making the Community Mobile App a one-stop platform for parents to manage their child's educational needs.

CTE

FOCUS-40582- Postsecondary: Updates to Program Completer (Florida)

For postsecondary institutions in Florida, a new branch has been implemented to align with FLDOE updates concerning the PROGRAM COMPLETER field. Now, on the scheduling, course progression screen, if a student completes all program requirements but hasn't passed the basic skills requirement, the Program Completer field will be marked with an "O". This indication is for students who are marked with a Progression Type of "Full Program Completed." Even with this designation, the withdrawal code for these students will remain as WNC.

See Course Progression for more information.

FOCUS-40528- More Search Options: When Searching on Voucher Criteria Exclude Students with Deleted Vouchers