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PowerSchool SIS 20.11.0.0

PowerSchool SIS version 20.11.0.0 is available as of 11/20/2020: 

New Features

FeatureDescriptionLearn More
Grad Planner Support

The enhancements to the Graduation Planner provide better flexibility and new capabilities for admins in designing graduation plans (Start Page > District Setup > Graduation Planner Setup). These features support ESSA compliance, and include the following:

  • Ability to set minimum grade required for counting credit for a graduation plan. For example, a student will qualify for a High School Diploma if the student meets 40 credits but the student will qualify for High School Diploma with Academic Honors if the student meets 40 credits with a minimum grade of B in 5 subjects.
  • Ability to set a minimum GPA for a graduation plan.
  • Ability to set a composite test threshold. For example, earn a combined score of 1750 or higher on the SAT critical reading, mathematics, and writing sections and a minimum score of 530 on each. Currently, we can test for the min 530 on each part, but cannot simultaneously have a composite threshold of 1750 for the combined subtests.
  • Ability to define multiple tests (or subtests) as options for a given requirement. A student can take one or more tests but doesn't have to take all. For example, the student can take either the ACT or SAT.
  • Grad Planner setup pages, student pages, reports, and DATs, and the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent portal support new capabilities where there is a dependency.

Graduation Plans

Test Groups

Graduation Plan Progress

Graduation Plan Progress in PowerScheduler

Graduation Progress in the PowerSchool SIS Teacher Portal

Graduation Progress in the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent Portal

Graduation Progress Report

PowerSchool Admin - Clock In/Clock Out

The Clock in/Clock Out feature now provides auto-calculation of the Clock in/Clock Out transaction for period attendance improving ease-of-use and efficiency, as well as promoting consistent attendance for accurate attendance accounting. Attendance Clerks can now:

  • Set Clock in/Clock Out meeting threshold levels for the school and year (Start Page > School > Attendance Preferences). Thresholds are copied to the next school year when the next year's term is created.
  • Period attendance records are suggested within the Clock in/Clock Out entry based upon the time missed (minutes or percentage) on period/meeting thresholds.
  • View/edit clock in/out times easily within the day's attendance schedule.

Attendance Preferences

Meeting/Interval Attendance

Incident Action Attendance

PowerSchool Admin - Attendance Default Code and Override Code

Attendance Clerks can now use the default code or override code quickly in each period, regardless of whether they are using Clock in/Clock Out.

Meeting/Interval Attendance

Incident Action Attendance

PowerSchool Subs - Group by Track AttendanceThe PowerSchool SIS Substitute portal now includes the Group by Track feature for taking attendance.

Take Single Day Attendance

Take Seating Chart Attendance

Fitness Tracking

Administrators can now define fitness tests and scales based on national or state recommendations to track student fitness. In this release, administrators are now able to:

  • Define fitness tests and scales for use in the district
  • Administer tests to students individually or in groups
  • Enter fitness scores for individual students, or for groups of students using the mass-entry function
  • Review individual student fitness results
Fitness Tests and Scales

Fitness Scores
PowerSchool Admin - PowerPack Migration

The Health Plugin Data Migration feature (Start Page > District > Health Setup - Health Plugin Data Migration) provides the ability to migrate data currently stored in PowerPack Health tables to the new Enhanced Health tables. 

PowerPack Migration
PowerSchool Admin - Enhanced Health Functionality PowerSchool Data Sets

All updates to the Enhanced Health PowerSchool Data Sets are now complete and available within the Data Import Manager and the Data Export Manage:

  • Health - Concerns
  • Health - Contact Log
  • Health - Medication
  • Health - Medication Doses
  • Health - Medication Inventory
  • Health - Misc.
  • Health - Monitoring - Diabetes
  • Health - Office Visit
  • Health - PE Waiver
  • Health - Physicals
  • Health - Student Health
Work with Health Data
PowerSchool Admin - Enhanced Health ManagementImprovements have been made to Enhanced Health Management providing nurses with the ability to:
  • Associate medication (and inventory) to a student without creating a schedule.
  • Track medication by the unit.
  • Access a student's health record from the Daily Log.
  • View which student a Daily Log record pertains to when open.
  • Track vital signs on an office visit.
  • Collapsed user interface for Office Visit for usability

Daily Log

Medication

Office Visits

PowerSchool Admin - PowerSchool SIS as OIDC Service ProviderAdmins can now set up PowerSchool SIS with SSO with Microsoft Azure and Google for Teachers, Admins, Parents, and Students.PowerSchool SIS as OIDC Service Provider for SSO
PowerSchool Admin - Change History

Districts have the opportunity to retain Change History records for up to 10 years. Please note that Change History records will require additional storage. This setting is configured within the PowerSchool SIS installer.

Using the Purge Change History special operation, you can change history records greater than the Retain Change History setting. For example, if the Retain Change History setting is set to 1 year, only those records that are greater than one year will be purged.

Change History

Purge Change History

PowerTeacher Pro - Preview Grade Calculations

Teachers now have the opportunity to preview how unsaved assignments or standards scores will affect students' final grades and standards grades.

Preview Final Grades or Preview Standards Grades

PowerTeacher Pro - Final Grades Report

Teachers can now generate a report containing final grades and comments to verify student results.

Final Grades Report

PowerTeacher Pro - Missing Assignment Report

Teachers can now generate a report that lists missing assignments, by student or by class.

Missing Assignment Report

PowerTeacher Pro - Standards Grades Report

Teachers can now generate a detailed report of standards grades, by assignment or by reporting term.

Standards Grades Report
PowerTeacher Pro - Publish Scores UpdateAssignment Standards Scores now respect the Publish Scores option on an assignment.Publish Scores Update
PowerTeacher Pro - Update Auto-Calculated Assignment StandardsWhen new standards are added to a previously graded assignment that has its standards auto-calculated, those new standards will have their scores auto-calculated.Auto-Calculate Assignment Standards
PowerTeacher Pro - Email from PowerTeacher Pro

Teachers can now send plain-text emails to students and contacts directly from the Create option in PowerTeacher Pro. An option to Copy Emails will copy all selected email addresses (separated by a semicolon and space) to the clipboard, allowing an email that requires rich text or attachments to be quickly drafted using another email service.

Email Students and Contacts

Enhancements

FeatureDescriptionReference
PowerSchool Admin - BoundaryWhen defining your district boundaries, you can now enter 14 decimal places for latitude and longitude.

PSF-31183

PowerSchool Admin - Change History Scalability

Viewing Attendance Change History records is now available only at the school level. The maximum date range for Attendance Change History is 7 days. All other categories are now limited to a maximum date range of 31 days.

PSF-36597
PowerSchool Admin - CoursesThe Courses page now includes an option to search by Alternate Course Number.

PSF-26155

PowerTeacher Gradebook - Enable PowerTeacher Administrator

The System Setup > System Settings > Security page now contains an Enable PowerTeacher Administrator setting. By default, this setting is off and users cannot sign in to the PowerTeacher Administrator portal. It is recommended that PowerTeacher Administrator remain off if your district has fully moved to PowerTeacher Pro.

PSF-21587
PowerSchool Admin and Teacher - Manage Profiles

The User Settings page in the PowerSchool SIS Admin portal has been renamed to Manage Profile. In addition, the Personalize page in the PowerSchool Teacher portal has been replaced with the Manage Profiles page. User details are now included on the page, as well as all previous functionality.

ISS-332
PowerSchool Public and Teacher PortalsSeveral improvements have been made to improve accessibility within the PowerSchool Public portal and the PowerSchool Teacher portal.PSF-30124
PowerSchool - InfrastructureAs part of this release PowerSchool SIS has moved from Oracle Java to Amazon Corretto Java, which is based on OpenJDK, for server-side use.PSF-16361
PowerSchool - SecurityAs part of this release the tables available when utilizing Quick Export, DDE, DDA, and/or Templates functions can be restricted based on the user's role configuration. This change brings legacy export functionality inline with Data Export Manager.PSF-21560
PowerSchool - System StartupStart up logging has been changed to reflect a separation of system startup from district startup. Two summaries of schema update status now appear in the log, the first for system and the second for district.PSF-33059

Resolved Issues

FeatureDescriptionReference

PowerSchool Admin - Access Accounts

When viewing the Access Accounts page, Access Password is incorrectly masked for users who have view-only page permissions. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-35268

PowerSchool Admin - Automated Study Hall

In some instances, Automated Study Hall schedules students into different sections during overlapping timeframes. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-30015

PowerSchool Admin - Boundary

In some instances, when a school boundary or district of residence boundary has a large number of points, attempting to edit the boundary results in an error. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-31184

PowerSchool Admin - Calendar Setup

When using the Automated Calendar Setup, Bell Schedules with a value of 0 are excluded if Adjust Which Bell Schedules is set to Empty. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-32837

PowerSchool Admin - Course Setup

Including Has Fees when filtering courses may include courses with fees from a previous school year. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-32485

PowerSchool Admin - Data Export Manager

When an Oracle SQL reserved word is used as a Field Name, attempts to export data through the Data Export Manager fail. This issue is now resolved. Reserved words cannot be used as Field Names.

PSF-29241

PowerSchool Admin - Data Export Manager

When exporting a .csv file using Data Export Manager in Chrome 75+, the file saves as a .txt file. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-12541

PowerSchool Admin - EnrollmentWhen Include Inactive Students is enabled in PowerSchool Enrollment, State/Provincial Reporting fields may not be copied from the Students table to the ReEnrollments table when re-enrolling an Inactive or Transferred-Out student. This issue can occur when a student who has been transferred out of school is delivered via API by PowerSchool Enrollment. This issue is now resolved. PSF-37468

PowerSchool Admin - Enrollment_SchoolID

When an inactive or transferred-out student is re-enrolled, the Enrollment_SchoolID is incorrectly updated with the School_Number. This issue is now resolved. The Enrollment_SchoolID field retains its original value.

PSF-33417

PowerSchool Admin - Field Level Security

In some cases when accessing the Field Level Security page, an error occurs when the number of records is exactly at the 1,000 markers. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-31656

PowerSchool Admin - Gradebook

In some cases when the Appropriate maximum number of characters is defined to be 1000 characters or fewer, the remaining characters counter is hidden. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-15727

PowerSchool Admin - Health Management

When using the Not Recorded Immunization Mode in the Health Management Student Immunization Count, students who are compliant but have not yet recorded receipt of the vaccine are excluded. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-19639

PowerSchool Admin - LogsIn some instances, PowerSchool SIS logs included personal information or insufficient information to determine the source of a problem. This issue is now resolved.PSF-36248
PowerSchool Admin - MaintenanceWhen the PowerSchool SIS server is unable to connect to PowerSource, attempts to log in as a Maintenance user may fail. This issue is now resolvedPSF-33660

PowerSchool Admin- PowerScheduler

In some cases, the following PowerScheduler reports may not return results.

  • Course Request Tally
  • Unscheduled Rooms
  • Unscheduled Students
  • Unscheduled Teachers

This issue is now resolved.

PSF-29752

PowerSchool Admin - PowerScheduler

When a dash ("-") is included in the day abbreviation within PowerScheduler, the DAT tag *period_info does not return any data. This has been resolved. PowerScheduler no longer supports the dash character within the day abbreviation.

PSF-34721

PowerSchool Admin - PowerScheduler

Primary course requests that are not filled in do not display in the PowerScheduler Schedule Course Enrollment report when the student has multiple requests for the same course. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-29368

PowerSchool Admin - Reports

In some cases, Report Engine-based reports fail to render if a <, >, or & character is present in the text. This issue is now resolved. Improvements have been made to better handle these characters in these types of reports. However, there are some cases where these may still fail such as when another character immediately follows the ampersand (&) character.

PSF-6298

PowerSchool Admin - Reports

When attempting to run a report for an individual student, an error occurs if the student has a Health Concern Alert. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-34661

PowerSchool Admin - School Settings

The value set in the Default Term Level setting is not applied when the school is out of session or between school years. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-33212

PowerSchool Admin - Search

Attempting the Search for Additional Family Members takes a considerable amount of time to complete when the option to Include Student's Last Name in Search is selected. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-27651

PowerSchool Admin - Special Functions

In some instances, the Backfill functions do not complete and return an error if there are students who have switched Continuing Education schools during the term. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-23447

PowerSchool Mobile - Single Sign-OnIn some cases, a single sign-on error occurs when signing in as a student or a parent. This issue is now resolved.PSF-36984

PowerTeacher Pro - Users Signed Out

Under certain circumstances, when admin users accessed PowerTeacher Pro through read-only access, the users were sporadically signed out. This issue is now resolved.

PSF-34577

PowerSchool Admin - Grade ScalesIn some cases when editing a Grade Scale record from DDA or outside of the Grade Scale setup page, an error may occur. This issue is now resolved.PSF-36024
PowerSchool Admin - SecurityIn some cases, verbose technical error messages are shown to the end-user. This issue is now resolved. In cases where an error occurs a more user-friendly message is shown and the full error is recorded to the PowerSchool logs.PSF-35084
PowerSchool Admin - AttendanceIn some cases, Nightly Attendance can take a significant amount of time to run when between years. This issue is now resolved.PSF-32544
PowerSchool Admin - Email

As part of this release two options have been added when advanced email is enabled.

  • Email Batch Size - Enabled administrators to define how many emails are sent every 30 seconds.
  • Use Reply-To When Sending - When enabled this setting will add the Reply-To attribute for the originating sender.
PSF-18576
PowerSchool Admin - School SettingsIn Batch School Setup at both the District and the School level, we have removed the option to choose the grades to which the attendance point change will not apply.PSF-26737
PowerSchool Admin - SearchWhen navigating the Term Picker using the arrow keys, the last option in the picker is partially hidden. This issue is now resolved.PSF-26673
PowerSchool Admin - Attendance Change HistoryWhen a Substitute Teacher takes attendance in the /subs portal, the Changed By field in Attendance change history displayed "PS Maintenance". This issue has been fixed and the Changed By field will now show "Substitute".PSF-35973
PowerSchool Admin - ContactsWhen attempting to modify the phone number field on the Emergency Contact page of any Student record, if the associated contact record has the newly changed phone number value, the change will fail but appear to complete. This issue is now resolved.PSF-33169
PowerSchool - IntegrationAs part of this release the Pearson Inform integration has been removed. Pearson officially announced the end-of-life for Inform in June 2017.PSF-32163
PowerSchool Admin - SecurityWhen working with staff security in Admin Access and Roles, access for a staff member can only be added to those schools which the District Administrator can access.PSF-21552
PowerSchool Admin - EnrollmentIn some cases field values may fail to copy from Students to the ReEnrollments table depending on the current users Field Level Security permissions. This issue is now resolved.PSF-21406
PowerSchool Admin - ReportsAfter upgrading to PowerSchool SIS 20.4.0.0 or above the Consecutive Absences page does not recalculate as part of the nightly process or when manually executed. This issue is now resolved.PSF-35086

Known Issues

FeatureDescriptionReference
PowerSchool Admin - Co-Teaching RolesIn the Co-Teaching Roles table, the fields Code, Alt. code 1 and Alt. code 2display "{code}&nbsp;{code}" when the field is null or empty.  PSF-37168
PowerSchool Admin - Medication Frequency

The code set entry for the medication frequency is not automatically seeded in version 20.11.0.0 (code = PRN). 

Workaround: It can be added manually if desired, imported from the code set samples for Health on PowerSchool Community, or will be automatically added with 20.11.1.0.

PSF-37072
PowerSchool Admin - System ReportsPowerSchool has identified an issue where the names of the new reports sometimes display incorrectly. We are looking into this issue, and a fix will be included in an upcoming release.--
PowerSchool Configuration

When utilizing PowerSchool SIS in an array configuration, the PowerSchool SIS nodes may not start if the time between the servers is out of sync by more than 20 seconds.
When this issue occurs the following messages may appear in the log:

  • Waiting for task master schema updates to complete
  • District (server_address) remained unavailable

This will impact only multiple node environments during startup, and will not impact a server that is already running.
PowerSchool SIS should be run on a server with an Operating System that is synced with a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server to ensure consistent time across the nodes. The Windows Operating System attempts to sync the server time every 7 days.

PSF-37690
PowerSchool Mobile Android/iOS Applications - PowerSchool SIS as OIDC Service Provider

If the PowerSchool SIS is enabled as an OIDC Service Provider for SSO for parents and/or students using Microsoft Azure or Google as the IdP, parents and/or students cannot sign into PowerSchool Mobile Android or iOS applications.

--
PowerTeacher Gradebook

After upgrading to PowerSchool SIS 20.11.0.0, the Email Students and Parents feature in PowerTeacher Gradebook no longer functions correctly. This issue is slated to be resolved in 20.11.0.1.

PSF-38540

Removed Features/Future Deprecation

FeatureDescriptionReference
Legacy Look

In the PowerSchool SIS 2021 spring back-to-school release, the New Experience introduced in PowerSchool SIS version 20.4.0.0 will be the only look that is available for the PowerSchool SIS Admin and PowerSchool SIS Teacher portals. The "classic look" will no longer be available. All users not already using the New Experience will be automatically transitioned. We are providing notification in advance so that districts have ample time to test and make changes to any impacted customizations.

New Experience

PowerSchool Components

PowerSchool SIS is comprised of several software components, each versioned independently from one another. This allows for greater flexibility of component updates as new features and bug fixes become available. Some updates may include dependencies between components. These dependencies will be communicated and built into the component update installers to prevent PowerSchool SIS from being configured incorrectly. The following table identifies the version number for each PowerSchool SIS component in this release compared to the previous release:

ComponentVersion Number


20.4.5.1

20.11.0.0

PowerSchool SIS Server

20.4.5.1

20.11.0.0

PowerTeacher Gradebook

2.8.0.18

2.8.0.21

ReportWorks

1.5.1.29

1.5.1.32

PowerScheduler

3.0.2

3.0.2

Oracle

12.2.0.1

12.2.0.1

State Reporting

20.9.2.1

20.11.1.2

Report SDK

1.21.0.0

1.21.0.0

Oracle Java

1.8u202


Amazon Corretto Java
1.8u262


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