How To Do Common CACTUS Procedures and Processes

Changing your password

    1.    Click on the Key icon.
    2.    Type in your current password, and then type your new password in two places. Click on OK.
    3.    To view your logon id and security group, click on Help, and About.

Finding the educators in your district

  1. Click on the schoolhouse icon --or— click on the File menu, Open, and District/School Search.
  2. Click on Assigned Educators at the bottom of the window.
  3. Enter selection criteria.
  4. Press enter or click on the search light icon.
  5. Double-click on the person you want to see --or—
  6. Hold down the Control key and single click on multiple people.  Use the VCR buttons on the educator window to move through the group.
  7. If you selected only one person from the search window, you can click on the "running man" icon to go to the next person, if you know the SSN or Person ID.

Checking the status of licenses and endorsements

  1. Click on the License/Area/Endorsement tab
  2. Click on each license to see attached endorsements
  3. Authorizations attached to expired licenses.
  4. Specialties are indicated by the word "Specialty" at the far right end of the endorsement line.

Determining if the educator has an endorsement exemption

  1. If the endorsement tab has an X icon, the educator has an exemption.
  2. Click on the endorsement tab to open the page and see the information.

Checking the status of a state-approved endorsement program

  1. Click on the State-approved Endorsement tab.
  2. Click on Completion Date to move between rows and see requirements for each program.
  3. Anyone on this program should also have a temporary endorsement that expires when this program expires.

Checking the degree and entering the degree summary level

  1. Click on the Degrees tab.
  2. Click on the Degree Summary box to select the level you want.
  3. You cannot change any other data about degrees, and are limited to selecting degree summaries Bachelor’s plus, and            Master’s plus. All other summary level require proof of degree to be submitted to USOE.

Changing a home address

  1. Click on the Address tab.
  2. If the tab page is blank, right click and select add from the pop-up menu.
  3. If there is an existing address, type over it to enter the new address.
  4. Click on the save icon (looks like a diskette).
  5. If you are adding a new address, you will be asked if you want to save the old address as a previous address.  If it is an address they might return to, or where we might find them if they move again, please save it. Finding a correct address to send licenses to is a challenge.
  6. Use the scroll bar at the right of the tab page to see the current or previous address.

Checking on a professional development class

  1. Click on the Professional/Staff Development tab.
  2. Use the scroll bar to look at the educator’s classes.
  3. Double-click on a class to see all the detail information about the class.
  4. Click on the lower X in the upper right corner, or click on the close door icon to close the Professional/Staff Development class window and return to the educator tab page.

Hiring a new educator

  1. Click on the red schoolhouse icon to open the district/school search.  If it is already open, click on the eraser icon to clear your window and enter new search criteria.
  2. Click on the Unassigned educators box in the lower right of the search window.
  3. Enter the educator’s name, or SSN.  There are over 75,000 unassigned educators on file, so search criteria MUST be entered.
  4. Press enter or click on the search light icon to search.
  5. Double-click on the row of the person you want.  If the educator is not listed, she/he must first contact USOE by sending fingerprint cards, or making an application for a Utah license.  USOE will add people when they submit an application, and continue to update the record as the person moves through the licensing process.  If there are multiple people with the same name, be sure you pick the correct one, based on SSN or birth date.
  6. Make any necessary corrections to the person’s demographic information, especially birth date, citizenship, ethnicity, and gender. Name Printed on License must be a complete name. Whatever you enter in this field will be printed on the educator’s license.  If this field is blank, the person's first, middle, and last names will be used.
  7. Continue to the section on entering experience and assignments.

Entering out of state experience or prior experience in your district.

  1. If you have hired an educator who has worked out of state, or who has been at an accredited private/parochial school (call Connie Amos at USOE to check on this) you may give the educator credit for the experience by entering past experience through the ‘current assignments’ tab, starting with the oldest year first.  You may use the ‘undefined’ assignments for this experience. — OR — You may just enter the number of years in the box on the ‘experience history’ tab. If you enter a number on the experience history tab, we will not use it in calculating teaching experience toward license renewal.  For School Finance reports, we calculate an educator’s total experience years, by adding the numbers in the box on the experience history tab, plus all the years for which you have entered detailed experience.
  2. After you have entered the additional experience years, click on the diskette icon to save your work.

Entering experience

  1. For a new hire, click on Experience History tab to find out if s/he is assigned to another district for this school year.  If s/he is, and s/he hasn’t worked in that district this year, call that district and ask them to delete the experience data.  If you leave partial year experience, that district will get part of your funding.
  2. Click on Current Assignments tab.
  3. Right click in the white space below "District" on the Current Assignments tab page, and select Add from the pop-up menu. A person may have two experience records in one school year, but the dates may not overlap, and the experience must be in different districts. An educator may not be recorded simultaneously in two different districts.
  4. Begin date will default to the beginning of the school year. Type over it if the educator will start mid-year.
  5. District defaults to your district.
  6. End date defaults to 6/30/9999. Leave it unless you want to terminate an educator.  If you are adding past experience, enter the end date for the experience.
  7. Enter the rest of the fields. FTE will be calculated based on contact hours.  Private schools do not need to enter lane, step, and salary information, but public schools should enter this if they want funding.
  8. Enter Y or N for intern, which will generate the first row of assignments.

Entering an assignment.

  1. Select the school where the educator is working.
  2. Double click on the blank area below "Assignment" to open the Assignment Selection window.
  3. Click on the subject area.
  4. Click on the actual assignment. The assignments are in black text. Subject areas are shown in color and are not available for assignment. Historical codes are shown in blue, underlined.  A historical code will come up underqualified.
  5. Enter the percent of time the educator will spend on that assignment. The total for all assignments must sum to 100. Use contact hours to indicate a part time person.
  6. Mail pickup designates one school where mail will be sent or where the educator may be contacted. One, and only one assignment must be Yes.
  7. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  8. To add additional assignments, right click in the blank space below the assignment just entered, and select "Add" from the pop-up menu.  For educators in Applied Technology, the assignments entered in Cactus must equal the data entered in PATI for Applied Technology funding.

Assigning an educator to more than one school

  1. An educator may have the same assignment at different schools, or different assignments at one school. All assignments must total to 100%. Use Contact Hours in the experience row to indicate a part time educator.
  2. Mail pickup designates one school where mail will be sent or where the educator may be contacted. One, and only one assignment must be Yes.
  3. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.

Terminating an educator

  1. Click on the Current Assignments tab.
  2. RIGHT click on the experience row (the top one that begins with begin date, district, end date)
  3. Click on terminate educator on the pop-up window.
  4. Read the box and click on the radio button for either "this educator did not work in the district for the current year", or "this educator worked in your district for a part of the year"
  5. If you choose the second option, fill in the boxes according to the instructions.
  6. Save your work.

Finding authorized educators

  1. Click on the red schoolhouse icon to open the district/school search.
  2. Click on the Authorized Educators button at the bottom of the window.
  3. Enter search criteria which might include Auth Status (New, Approved, Denied) and date (>= 07/01/2000). You can right click in the Auth Date row to get a list of operators (<, >, <=, >=). You can also get a list of values, but it might take awhile.
  4. Press enter or click on the magnifying glass icon to start the search.

Requesting a letter of authorization

  1. Click on the Authorizations tab.
  2. Right click in the area below the tab line and above the deficiencies box.
  3. Select Add from the pop-up menu.
  4. Double-click in the new row under Assignment to get a list of the educator’s current assignments.
  5. Double-click or single click and OK to select the assignment you want to authorize.
  6. Click in the new row under College to select the college where the educator is working toward qualification for this assignment.
  7. Click in the new row under Reason for Authorization to select a reason you are seeking authorization for this educator.
  8. Click in the new row under Advertised to select yes or no.
  9. Click on the word Deficiencies and enter as much text as you need to define the deficiency. If the cursor is not flashing in the white text box, you may need to click there first.
  10. Click on the word Justifications and enter as much text as you need to define the justification. If the cursor is not flashing in the white text box, you may need to click there first.
  11. When you have finished, click on the diskette icon to save your work. You will be able to delete and re-add this request, but you will not be able to modify it once you have saved it. You do not have access to enter the Status, Approve/Deny date, or the Motion.

Entering a professional development class

  1. Click on the Professional Development icon, or File Menu. Click on Open. Click on Professional/Staff Development.
  2. You will be presented with a blank screen to enter a new professional/staff development class.
  3. Core status code defaults to pending and is changeable by USOE authorized staff
  4. Enter the Course Title - freeform field
  5. Select a subject area from the list
  6. Start date/End date - valid dates
  7. Target Audience is a freeform field
  8. Select the type of class - course, workshop, or independent study
  9. Credit type - Quarter/Semester - defaults to semester
  10. Credit - Max 5 for quarters and 3 for Semesters
  11. Professional/Staff Development Hours - the number of hours for relicense credit
  12. Location, instructor info are freeform fields
  13. Institution/Sponsor - select from the list. Must be an institution that has been marked valid for Professional Development classes
  14. Second Sponsor - - select from the list. Must be an institution that has been marked valid for Professional Development classes
  15. Enter the contact’s SSN - if you’re not sure, enter 111111111 and you will be prompted to search.  The contact should be the specialist who is organizing the class.
  16. A phone number where USOE can reach the contact person.
  17. The email address of the contact person.
  18. Credit criteria.  The class will not be approved if you can't answer yes to all criteria.
  19. Description and evaluation are required text fields without limits
  20. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  21. Students may be added only after a course has been approved. This is done by clicking on the Educators Completed Course tab and then right-clicking the mouse and selecting add. Then, the SSN or the person’s last name is entered.  If the student cannot be found on Cactus, the user will be prompted to search
  22. Enter the course instructor(s) by clicking on the Course Instructors tab.  You must save the class information before you can enter the instructor.
  23. Right click in the Course Instructors box and select add from the pop-up menu.
  24. Enter the SSN of the first instructor and press the TAB key.
  25. If the instructor is known to the professional development sub-system, the name will be filled in and you can proceed with qualifications.
  26. If the instructor is not known to the professional development sub-system, you will be asked if you want to add the instructor.  Click on the yes box.
  27. Fill in the instructor name, telephone number and email address.   Click on the Save Instructor button to save your work.
  28. Fill in the qualifications in the Course Instructors box.
  29. If there are multiple instructors, right click and continue until you have specified all instructors for the course.  Click on the diskette icon to save each time you enter an instructor.

Finding an existing professional development class

  1. Click on the professional development icon, or File Menu, select Open, click on Professional/Staff Development.
  2. Click on the search light icon to open the search window.
  3. Enter your search criteria and press Enter to start the search.  You can use < and > to search for classes that start or end greater or less than some date.
  4. Double-click on the class you want to see OR highlight the class with your mouse and press Enter OR hold down the Control key and highlight several classes and press Enter.

Duplicating an existing professional development class

  1. Enter or find a professional development class.
  2. Right click and select "duplicate".
  3. Enter the new dates for the class
  4. Save.

Printing

  1. Click on the File menu, select Open, Reports, Districts.
  2. Click on the report you want
  3. Click on the blank parameter window to select the school, if you don't want all of them.
  4. If there is a Select Assignments window, click on the assignments or subject areas you want.
  5. Click on GO.
  6. Click on the printer or print preview icons to check out the report and print it.
  7. You may generate another version by just selecting different parameters and clicking on GO,

Mailing Labels

  1. Click on the File menu, select Open, Reports, Mailing Labels.
  2. Send To: Select Administrator to send to the Administrator title on the Institutions table.  Generates one label per school; Select Title to send to one person at each school holding the title you type into the title box; Select Educators to generate labels by educator name according to subsequent criteria.
  3. Districts:  Click on All Districts to include all districts, private, public, and ATEs;  Click on Public School Districts to include only the 40 districts and the charter schools; Click on Schools to select certain schools.  To select certain schools or districts from the list, just click on and highlight those.
  4. School Type:  Click on All Types to include all schools;  Click on Common Types to exclude special schools.  To further select school types, click on and highlight the ones you want.
  5. Sort Order:  Click on the sort order before or after you generate the labels or listing.
  6. Select Graduated from:  Click educators in the Send To box to activate the Select Graduated From option.  Click on the box preceding the option to select it, and then click on the box following it to open the drop-down list of Utah colleges that grant education degrees.  Click on the one you want.
  7. Assignments: Click on Educators in the Send To box to activate the Assignments option.  You can click on All Assignments to select everything.  You can click on subject area headers to select everything in the subject area, and click on certain assignments to exclude them.  You can click on Exclude Selected, and then highlight the assignments and/or subject areas that you DO NOT want to print.  There is a limit of 200 assignments that may be selected, so you may need to be creative to get everyone you want.
  8. No Duplicates:  If you are selecting educators by assignment, you may get duplicates.  If you select all the math assignments, and a teacher is teaching algebra, geometry, and calculus, that person would print 3 times unless you check the No Duplicates box.
  9. Labels Output:  Click on either labels or list to produce one or the other.
  10. Records Found:  Displays the number of records printed.  You can use this program to get counts of certain types of educators.
  11. Export File:  After you have generated labels or a list, you can click on the Export File button to save the data to a file on your computer.  Click on the type of file format you want, and select whether or not you want column heading in the first row of your data.  Windows will show you a Save As box to let you specify where you want to save your file and what you want to call it.

Send email to the School Administrator:

Please note that CACTUS does NOT have email addresses for individual educators -- there is no good way to keep it current.

     1.   Click on the File menu, select Open, Reports, Mailing Labels, by School Type/Assign/Email.
    2.   Click on the School Email button.
    3.   Select the district(s).
    4.   Select school type if you want only selected types.
    5.   Click on GO and follow the on screen directions.

To add a district:

  1. Go to the institution detail window for any institution.
  2. Right click to get a pop-up menu, and click on Add. This will give you a blank window.
  3. Add the information for the district. A district should be active for License/Area/Endorsement because they recommend an educator who is moving from basic to standard, or level 1 to level 2. If the district offers professional development classes, that flag should be set to Primary Active.
  4. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  5. Right click in the school window, which should be completely blank. Click on Add from the pop-up menu.
  6. Left click in the Current Administrator box arrow. No one can be assigned to this district until it is established, so the Current Administrator must be unknown.
  7. Enter the Administrator Title. Select the school type (district). Enter the district school number which will be 0 + District Number. Select any district from the district dropdown box.
  8. Close the window and save your work.
  9. On the search window, click on the eraser icon to clear the previous search, and type in the name of the new district. Double-click on it to return to the institution detail window.
  10. Go to the district dropdown box on the school window and select the district you have just added. Enter the district number you are assigning to this district.
  11. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  12. Right click in the blank school year window and select Add from the pop-up window.
  13. Correct the grade range.
  14. Close the window and save your work.

To add a school:

  1. Go to the institution detail window for any institution.
  2. Right click in the top window to get a pop-up menu, and click on Add. This will give you a blank window.
  3. Add the information for the school. A school should be invalid for all the flags in the box.
  4. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  5. Right click in the school window, which should be completely blank. Click on Add from the pop-up menu.
  6. Left click in the Current Administrator box arrow. No one can be assigned to this school until it is established, so the Current Administrator must be unknown.
  7. Enter the Administrator Title. Select the school type. Enter the school number. Select the district from the district dropdown box.
  8. Click on the diskette icon to save your work.
  9. Right click in the blank school year window and select Add from the pop-up window.
  10. Correct the grade range. Indicate if this is a Necessarily Existent Small School, and/or if it receives Title I funding.