September 2017

Ready... set....

The core functionality of the USXS-R software is ready to go!  Volunteer pilot sites have been approved by the ODE Sponsor with field testing to begin in September.  The pilot sites will be executing a dual-entry approach for a period of 60 days in which payroll and accounting transactions will be entered in both Classic and the Redesign. During the 60-day window, SSDT, the pilot's ITCs, as well as independent User Acceptance Testers, will assist the pilot districts. 

Based on the results of the pilot, the ODE Sponsor will authorize the Redesign as being "production ready" with an additional 60 days to be allotted for follow-up remediation and validations prior to the first live production wave.

What does that mean to school districts and ITCs who are interested in a possible migration to the Redesign?

The first wave “Live” production release is expected to begin in January 2018 with the offering of functionality, reports and integrated programs as approved by the ODE Sponsor.  The first production wave anticipates a  maximum of 4 ITCs and 12 school districts.  During this time, the SSDT programming staff will continue to work on  Accounts Receivable and Inventory functionality for the second production wave in July.  Not all first wave participants are required to go-live at the very beginning of the first production wave.  Some may elect to join a few months after the first production release is made available.  Subsequent waves of school district sites will then migrate to the Redesign in succeeding 6-month intervals.  In total, approximately 500 school districts will migrate to the Redesign across eight production waves spanning four years to the end of calendar year 2021.  Contingent upon the success of the migration, ODE will then determine when the classic system will be decommissioned.

Redesign Demo at upcoming OEDSA conference

Multiple demonstrations of the Redesign will be available at the upcoming  OEDSA (Ohio Education Data Systems Association) conference in Columbus on Thursday, September 14th.  Conference registration information and agenda are available on OEDSA's website.  The redesign sessions will include:

• USAS-R: Demonstrate the core functionality of the USAS software. Topics include vendors, accounts, expenditure process, receipt process and many other transaction programs.
• USPS-R: Demonstrate the core functionality in the USPS software. Topics include how to add a new employee, create deductions, enter job calendars, import attendance, running a payroll and many others.
• Redesign Reports: Demonstrate the robust redesigned report module in both USAS and USPS.  Topics include the available template reports, creating a custom report from a template report, available canned reports, how to share report settings or import shared report settings among other report topics.
  
• Additional functionality: Demonstrate additional features and functionality in both USAS & USPS that are not available in Classic. Topics include creating Roles, Rules, Custom Fields, applying Permissions to Users, User Accounts, Modules, etc.
  

User Acceptance Test (UAT) Team

SSDT has been very fortunate to be working with a group of experienced former school district treasurers who collectively have superior knowledge and experience with the classic state software. For the past several months, the UAT team has been performing Redesign testing from an end-user perspective. The SSDT and the UAT meet weekly to confer on Redesign system fixes, refinements and improvements. They will also be lending end-user support assistance during the pilot and production phases. The SSDT would like to sincerely thank Dee Cramer, Rhonda Zimmerly and Sandra Griscom for their continued efforts in preparing the software for the end user and their support of the Redesign!