Published November 1st, 2016                                                                                                                      

Candidate Release: What does this mean and how does it affect me?

Early next year we plan to move from Preview Releases to Release Candidates.  A status of Release Candidate means that we have implemented enough functionality for a small, volunteer district to evaluate with the intention to “go live”.  This will most likely involve a commitment to parallel processing, testing third party integrations, etc.  This is a huge commitment and we are happy to announce we already have our first volunteer!  Once the evaluation period is over and we, the SSDT and the district, are convinced all is working properly, we will move from Release Candidates to Production Releases.  At this time, any district who feels the software meets their needs can choose to migrate from Classic to Redesign.  To be clear, this is a one-way migration.  Once you are running Redesign there is no going back to Classic.

I do not want to mislead you by implying everything you use in Classic is ready.  In USASR we will not have an Accounts Receivable system or Equipment Inventory system ready by the first Release Candidate.  We will be implementing this functionality in subsequent Release Candidates.  If these systems are vital for you to consider the software, you will not be an early adopter and that is okay.  With added functionality and extensive testing, we expect districts to slowly migrate to the Redesign.  No district will be forced.  I repeat, no district will be forced.  This will be a decision you make when you are ready.  We expect it will take several years to complete all migrations from Classic to Redesign.  If you decide to wait until the end, that is your choice. 

The end?  You just said we wouldn’t be forced to migrate.  Yes, I did.  However, the expense of maintaining the Classic systems will become prohibitive for both the SSDT and your ITC.  At some point in the future there will be a requirement to move from Classic to Redesign (or other solution).

If you haven’t seen the Redesign software yet, or it’s been a while, we invite you contact your ITC and ask them to set up an instance for you to evaluate.  We would very much appreciate any feedback you have to offer so we may provide you with the highest quality software.  Please send your thoughts or questions to feedback@ssdt.nwoca.org.

The SSDT would like to address some of the concerns or questions that have arisen lately on the status of the redesign projects. The following excerpts are from Dave Smith’s latest blog post found on the SSDT website. http://ssdt.oecn.k12.oh.us/ 

USPS-R Preview Release Highlights

An overview of the most recent USPS-R preview release

The latest preview release of USPS-R was sent to your ITCs a couple of weeks ago. This release is officially known as v0.16.0.  

Here are some of the changes you will see in this latest release:

USAS-R Predefined Reports Available

blah.. blah.. blah..

USPLOAD...

blah..blah..blah...