AK Data Validation - User Interface

AK Data Validation - User Interface

Navigation

The AK State Reporting Validation page is accessed under the Data & Reporting charm.

It is important to note whether you are in District Office mode, or an under a particular school when accessing the page. When in District Office mode, violations from every school in the district will be shown. However, when viewing PowerSchool under a particular school, only violations tied to that school can be seen. This is very useful for distributing workload, as you can direct school registrars or admin assistants to review their enrollment errors, or school principals to work on their discipline errors.

Landing Page

Upon loading the AK State Reporting Data Validation page, the PowerSchool server validates the school district's license against the data validation server, and if successful, returns a list of information about available state reports, and the list of reports for which data validation rules exist.

Report Information

Not every report is produced by PowerSchool, but as an aid to school districts, much of the information about reports is displayed on the landing page. Reports are sorted by due date, with the reports at the top of the list due earlier in the school year. For each report, applicable count days, due dates, and documentation links are listed.
Image showing an example of the Report Information list

Report Selection

The feature on the landing page that users interact with the most is the report selector. Click the drop-down menu and select one of the available reports to run the validation rules for that report. 
Image showing the location of the report menu.

Validation Rules

Floating Header

At the top of the validation rules page, a small header area holding tools will move with you down the page as you scroll. This area contains several frequently used tools.

Revalidation

Users will be frequently opening students in new tabs to make corrections. Every link on the AK State Reporting Data Validation page is designed to open in a new tab. This is done to reduce the amount of time spent downloading the rules, and re-running them. However, after making a number of fixes, you may want to have the rules run again to make sure that you have actually fixed the issues. Pushing the Revalidate button will run the rules again, and clear off any errors you have fixed (or add some if your changes trigger other errors).
image showing the location of the Revalidate button.

Filtering

If a user has been referred to a specific report to correct an issue, they may have a hard time locating it in the set of rules when scrolling. The filter box helps users quickly find a rule to work with.
Image showing the location of the filter.

Rule Types

Viewable rules can be filtered by their categories to speed navigation. By unchecking the "Errors & potential errors" or "Informational" boxes, any errors for those categories will be hidden. This setting does not persist between page reloads.
Image showing the location of the checkboxes that control display of errors & potential errors or Informational rules.

Collapsing Results

Rules default to closed because, especially in large districts, there may be a large number of results that results in pages that are 10-100 times larger when rules are expanded than when they're closed. It takes a significantly longer time to scroll through the page when rules are expanded. To make it easier to navigate the page, there is a link that will quickly collapse all the rules.
Image showing the location of the Collapse all link.

Working with Rules

Types of Rules

There are three types of rules:
  1. Errors
  2. Potential Errors
  3. Informational Items
For example, a student who has no entry code for the year will produce an error. A student who is recorded as less than a full-time student is a potential error, and a student marked as intensive or being retained in their current grade level will show under informational items. Two checkboxes exist to help narrow down the rules if you wish to only see a subset of the rules at once. (Note: There is significant value in reviewing the informational rules. The rules exist because the consequences of having them mis-marked may be large, or as an opportunity to review data that may be hard to unwind later.)

Errors and Potential Errors are shown in a red font with a warning glyph. Information items are shown in a black font with a checkmark glyph. (Error rules with no errors found are also shown in a black font with the checkmark glyph.)
Image highlighting what errors, potential errors, and informational items look like.

Expanding Rules

Rules default to closed because, especially in large districts, there may be a large number of results that results in pages that are 10-100 times larger when rules are expanded than when they're closed. It takes a significantly longer time to scroll through the page when rules are expanded. To view the errors or informational items associated with a rule, click the + button on that rule's line - all the way to the right side on the screen.
Image highlighting what the expand button looks like.

Rule Context

Some rules are straightforward (incomplete address information) while others are more nuanced (Economically Disadvantaged Should be Yes). When a rule is expanded, additional information about what that rule means, where the data is stored in PowerSchool, and guidance on where to find additional information in the state reporting handbooks can be found. You may also find information on what the available options for reporting are.
  1. Description: A plain, though sometimes still wordy, description of what the error means.
  2. PowerSchool Fields: A list of the fields the rule is looking at.
  3. Manual References: Additional information from the state reporting handbooks. These may be quotes, or references to relevant appendices.
  4. Valid Options: A list of values and what they represent.
An image showing several of the details that exist when rules are expanded.

Sorting Tables

Often it is helpful to sort the results as the default sorting behavior may not make the most sense for a particular user. The column headers for every Data Validation table are sortable. Hovering over a column header will show the header with a cross-hatch pattern to make it obvious that clicking the header is an available action. Once clicked and sorted, the column will display a triangle showing the order (ascending or descending) in which the table has been sorted.
Image showing the cross-hatch pattern on a table column header.
Image showing the arrow that indicates the sort order

Working with Students

There are two primary methods of correcting errors:
  1. Correcting student information one-by-one.
  2. Updating a value en masse.
To correct errors student-by-student, click on the student's name in the expanded rule. This will almost always take the user to the page where the field that needs to be modified can be found.
Image showing a list of students under a rule. Their name is shown in blue as a hyperlink.

However, when many students need a value set, it is useful to make the students who match the rule the current student selection, and use tools such as the "Change Student Field Value" function. This can be done by clicking the "Make Current Student Selection" above and to the right of the table showing students who match the rule. This is a 2-stage process to ensure an existing selection is not overwritten. After clicking once, the button will change to say, "Go". Clicking it again will open the selection of students at the start page in a new tab.
Image showing the Make Current Student Selection button.



All data displayed in the screenshot is fictitious.

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