12.0.36 - 02/17/2024

Payroll

FOCUS-42027- Add Run/Date To Salaries & Benefits

System improvement adding Run Code and Check Date to Payroll > Payroll Reports > Salaries and Benefits.

See Payroll Reports > Salaries and Benefits for more information.

FOCUS-41970- W2 Box 12 Reporting / Roth Contrib 457(b) header

System improvement to create an additional W2 for an employee with more than four Box 12 items.

FOCUS-41490- Auto Assign Deduction

System improvement to Auto Assign in Deductions.  Changed label on ‘New Job Only’ to ‘New Staff Position' and added new option 'New Job Group' which auto assign on new job group.

See Payroll > Deduction for more information.

SIS

FOCUS-42107- Communication Platform: Tie SMS Signature to SMS Related Profile Permissions

In the updated release, the visibility of the SMS signature option in settings has been modified. Previously, users with the "send message" permission could access this option. Now, access requires either the "send SMS" or "announcement send SMS" permission. Users without either of these permissions will not see the SMS signature setting.

FOCUS-42086- Transcripts: Enable "Reduce Page Breaks" Option with CTE Grouping

This update addresses an issue where printing a transcript with the CTE grouping would insert an unwanted page break before the "Courses In Progress" section, leading to multi-page transcripts. The cause was the "Reduced Page Breaks" toggle in Grades > Transcripts being unintentionally disabled and unchangeable. With the new changes, the toggle is now enabled when using the CTE grouping option, allowing users to choose whether to include page breaks, thus offering greater control over the transcript's print layout.

FOCUS-42060- Communication Platform: Improve Auto-Translating in Portal Messages for Class Announcements

The update enhances the Communication Platform by fixing an issue where class announcements sent by teachers, which included a portal message without manual translations, failed to auto-translate to the recipient's preferred language. With this branch, portal messages now automatically translate into the preferred languages of the recipients.

FOCUS-42040- Student Grades: Resolve Issue with Course Titles Displaying in Grades Summary when Tied to Teacher Webpages

The latest update corrects a previously encountered issue where course names did not display as expected in the Student's Grade Summary screen for sections linked to a teacher's webpage. With this resolution, the course name now correctly serves as a hyperlink to the teacher's webpage, directly from the student's Grade Summary screen.

FOCUS-42026- Scheduled Jobs: Improve Built-in PEER Integration for Multi-Tenant

The latest update introduces support for the built-in PEER integration specifically tailored for multi-tenant customers in Florida.

FOCUS-42017- Gradebook Reports: Ensure Completion Only Assignments are Included in Progress Reports (Proficiency Gradebook)

This update addresses a issue encountered with generating Progress Reports through Gradebook Reports, where assignments marked as 'completion only' were not appearing as expected, specific to Proficiency Gradebook configurations only.

FOCUS-42011- Communication Platform: Improve Insert Field Visibility to Recipients

This update enhances the handling of specific insert fields within the Communication Platform, ensuring that the recipients' view of the messages they receive aligns with expectations. This improvement aims to maintain consistency and clarity in communication by making sure that the formatting and content of messages are correctly displayed to recipients.

FOCUS-42009- Communication Platform: Improve Announcement Table View

The latest update makes improvements to the table view of announcements by addressing two issues. First, it ensures that student contacts attached to an announcement are now visible in the table view. Second, it eliminates an issue that occurred when unchecking push notifications in the table view. With these enhancements, student contacts are properly displayed, and users can toggle push notifications seamlessly, improving the functionality and user experience within the announcements section.

FOCUS-41996- Grad. Req. Report: Scheduled Courses Not Displaying as Enrolled with No Credits

This update addresses an issue in the Graduation Requirements Report concerning Graduation Programs marked as "Weight by Credits" set to No. Previously, currently enrolled courses, especially semester courses that earn 0 credits, were not displayed in the pop-up when hovering over a graduation requirement through the report.

FOCUS-41992- Student Final Grades: Improve Logic of Credit Calculation with Duplicated Course Schedule Records

This update addresses a specific issue on the Student Final Grades summary screen, where credits for a single report card grade record were being incorrectly doubled. This problem arose in scenarios where a student was co-enrolled in two schedule records for the same course number and marking period, with both instances marked as graded. The fix ensures that credits are now accurately represented for students who are co-enrolled in identical courses within the same marking period.

FOCUS-41884- Student Groups: Ensure Limit Assigned Users Restrictions with Dynamic Groups

This update addresses an issue with Student Groups where the 'Limit Assigned Users' group designation was not working as intended. Previously, when a student group was created from a saved search, assigned to a user, and the 'limit assigned users' option was activated, the user's student search results were not correctly limited according to the saved search criteria. With this branch, the 'Limit Assigned Users' functionality should now operate correctly for users restricted to student groups associated with a designated saved search.

FOCUS-41861- Schedule: Improve Class Minutes Weekly Recalc with Inclusion (Florida)

This update addresses a specific issue encountered by Florida customers regarding the recalculation of Class Minutes Weekly. The problem arose when, within the same transaction, a drop date was added to both the primary and inclusion schedule records. This fix ensures that Class Minutes Weekly are correctly recalculated in such scenarios.

FOCUS-41815- Advanced Reports: Respect Teacher Referral View Settings

This update ensures system preference settings for Teacher Referral access in Advanced Reports are respected. With this branch, if a teacher's permissions grant access to "Referrals entered by the teacher," then Advanced Reports will only generate data from referrals if the teacher was the reporter.

FOCUS-41812- School Choice: Improve Application Printout with Multiple Custom Fields

This update addresses an issue with the School Choice Application printout, where Custom Fields were not properly organized, and any application with more than nine Custom Fields would have excess fields cut off by the page limit. With this fix, Custom Fields are now correctly organized on the printout, and all fields are included within the page constraints, ensuring complete and orderly presentation of application data.

FOCUS-41597- Gradebook Configuration: New Display Assignment Class Average Option on Parent/Student Portals

The latest update introduces a feature that allows districts to display class averages on the Grades (Assignment) screen to parents and students through their portals. A new system preference titled "Display Assignment Class Average on Grades (Assignment) Screen to Parents/Students" has been added to control the visibility of assignment class averages.

This preference is located in Setup > System Preferences > Default User Preferences > Default Gradebook Configuration and is unchecked by default, with "Disallow" also checked.

Disallow Functionality: Unchecking "Disallow" enables the preference to be accessed in the Gradebook Configuration under the same path. For teachers, this setting is available by logging in as a teacher, navigating to Gradebook > Settings > Configuration, and is found at the bottom. If "Disallow" is active, the setting remains hidden.

With Preference Enabled: Checking "Display Assignment Class Average on Grades (Assignment) Screen to Parents/Students" adds a "Class Average" column to the left of the Comments Column on the Grades (Assignment) screen, displaying the class average for each assignment.

This feature aims to enhance transparency and provide a comprehensive understanding of class performance for parents, students, and teachers.

See Gradebook and System Preferences > Default User Preferences > Gradebook Configuration and/or Default Gradebook Configuration for more information.

FOCUS-41278- SIS Core: Adding Support for New Search in Additional Features

This update broadens the integration of Focus' New Student/User Search capabilities across various additional features within the system. Enhanced support now extends to the Letter Queue, Print Avery Labels, Mass Add Log Entries for Users, Scheduling Request Reports, Scheduling Loading Reports, Various Attendance Reports, Positive Behavior Awards, Forms, and Various Billing Screens. By implementing these advanced search capabilities, users can enjoy a more streamlined and efficient process when navigating through these specific features.

See the following screens for detailed information: Requests Reports; Loading Reports; Lock Schedules; Positive Behavior Awards (Admin); Average Daily Attendance; Application Editor > Accessing a Form in the Forms Menu; User Action Log; Letter Queue (Students); Letter Queue (Users); Print Avery Labels (Students); Print Avery Labels (Users); Print Avery Labels (Teachers); Mass Add Log Records (Users); Mass Add Log Records (ERP); Add Absences; Absences by Course and Student; Average Attendance by Day; Check in/Check Out; Attendance Bulletin; Mass Invoice Students; Mass Invoice from Product List; Mass Invoice from Schedule; Employee.

FOCUS-41063- Advanced Reports: Increased Performance

The update introduces a performance improvement to the load times of Advanced Reports. Previously, the system evaluated Edit Rules & Workflow validation for all fields upon loading a report, regardless of whether they were included in the report or not. The new behavior alters this approach, focusing only on the fields that are actually part of the report.

FOCUS-42001 - Communication Platform: Enhanced Flagged Messages Functionality

This update introduces improvements to the Flag Messages functionality within the Communication Platform. A new permission titled 'Flag Messages' has been added under the Communication section for Admin and Teacher roles. By default, this permission is enabled upon installation to preserve existing functionality. However, if the permission is disabled for a specific profile, that end-user will no longer have the ability to flag messages in their inbox and Communication Report. Furthermore, when an end-user attempts to flag a message, a new warning message will now appear, cautioning, "Flagging this for inappropriate content will remove the content for all recipients. Are you sure you want to flag this message?" This enhancement aims to provide clearer communication and ensure users are fully informed about the implications of flagging a message.

See Communication (Admin); Communication (Teachers); Profiles > Permissions Explained for more information.

SSS

FOCUS-41616- SSS: Ensure Supplemental Forms Steps

Prior to this update, users encountered an issue within the Event Reporting interface where, if a program had not been selected upon opening an event, the supplemental forms steps would not function, preventing the addition of forms. With the introduction of this branch, this limitation has been addressed. Now, even if a user has not selected a program before opening an event, they can add supplemental forms steps as expected, enhancing the flexibility and usability of the Event Reporting interface.