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SIS 2000+ Attendance Phone Contact List Detailed Instructions Last update: 3/28/2001 jmm

This application is used to generate a data file to be used by an automated phone dialing system for contacting the parents of absent students. A verification report is also produced.

The user specifies the effective date, included periods, threshold number of attendance activities, included attendance reasons, and file format.

The initial version of this application supports 3 file formats: Standard, Conversant, and Phone Master. The Standard format exports data in a double quote delimited, comma separated ASCII file. (These are the also the fields which appear on the verification report).

The standard report export facility ("print to file" function) is used to create the extract file.

1. Open the report
From the SIS 2000+ Main Menu, open the Enrollment program module. From the Enrollment Menu, click on the Reports icon button. Select the report's title from the list menu that appears. See General Reporting Procedures, Step 1 for more information on finding and opening a report.

Fig. 1 - opening screen, default Options
 

2. Define Parameters
The opening screen of this report (Fig. 1) contains three information screens: 'Options', 'Select', and 'Sort'. Click on each tab to view and define various parameters for the report, or continue to the Step 3, "Print Preview" for viewing and/or printing the reports using the default parameters.

2.1 Choose Options
Click on the 'Options' tab (Fig. 2). Choose options as follows:

Fig. 2 - sample user-defined options
 
• Effective Date -

Attendance phone contact files can only be generated for one day at a time. The default date is today's date, indicated by the check mark in the Today field. To change the effective date, remove the check mark from this field and activate the drop-down calendar (Fig. 3) via the field button. Use the VCR buttons to scroll forward or backward through the months. Click on the target date until it is highlighted in yellow. Then click on the Select command button to close the calendar and post the date to the As Of field.


Fig. 3
 

• Periods -

Absence codes (absence reasons) will be reported from all periods of the logged on track by default, indicated by the check mark in the All field. To report absence codes from specific periods only, deselect this field and click on the target periods in the field to the right. To select more than one period, hold the Ctrl key down when clicking.
• Reasons -

Select absence codes to report from the list of pre-defined codes. To select more than one code, hold the Ctrl key down while clicking. To select all codes at once, put a check mark in the All field.
• File Format -

Select the type of file to export from the list of pre-defined selections.
• Threshold -

Default value is "1". The set of students selected to report may be filtered by entering a higher value, as follows: A student is reported if the number of attendance activities for the included periods, on the effective date, with one of included reasons is equal to or exceeds the specified threshold value. (If a student has more than one such activity for a particular period it is counted for each time it occurs.)
 



Click on the Reset command button to restore all Options to their default selections (Fig. 1).
 

2.2 Apply Select queries
SIS 2000+ reports can be instructed to print specific sets of records through the application of queries. A query is essentially a data filter. By defining criteria (parameters) for selected data fields, specific records can be retrieved. Click on the 'Select' tab. A list of data fields is displayed (Fig. 3). These are the data fields that will available for querying. The default criteria is "All" for each data field. (Currently, there is only one data field available for querying in this report.) To apply a query to any data field, continue with Step 2.2.1. If no queries are needed, continue to the sorting procedure in Step 2.3.
 

Fig. 4
 
 2.2.1 Select data fields and apply queries
Select a data field in the list until it is highlighted in gray (Fig. 4). Then click on the Edit command button. A criteria selection screen will open that is specifically designed for the selected data field. The sample in Fig. 5 shows the criteria selection screen for the Home Language data field with three languages selected for reporting.


Fig. 5 - sample criteria selection screen, Query Type 3

There are several possible types of queries, depending on the data field selected. Instructions on how to select and apply each type of query are found in the document titled General Reporting Procedures.
 

• Home Language = Query Type 3. Students with a specific home language or set of home languages may be selected for reporting. If none are selected then "All" will be reported. The Home Language of a student is defined in the 'Misc.' tab of the Student Editor application.
 
 
2.3 Define the Sort order
Click on the 'Sort' tab. The 'Sort' screen (Fig. 4) displays the data fields used for sorting the student records. The sorting order in this application affects the printed hard copy report only - it does not affect the generated data file created in the "print to file" procedure. The default sorting order is:
 
Student Name = primary sort field


Fig. 6 - default sorting order

 
• Additional sorting fields may be added via the Add command button.
• A sorting field may be deleted by first selecting it in the list and then clicking on the Delete command button.
• The sorting order may be changed by shifting the position of a field in the list by dragging the mover bar  with the mouse.
• The direction of a sort field (ascending or descending) may be edited by selecting the sort field from the list and using the Edit command (Fig. 7).


Fig.  7 - the sorting direction of the Student Name field is being changed  from Ascending to Descending
 

In the example below (Fig. 8) the ID (student identification number) field was added to the end of the list and then moved to the position of primary sort field by dragging it to the top of the list with the mover bar. The other field was subsequently moved down one position. The sorting direction of the Student Name field was changed from its default Ascending to Descending.


Fig. 8 - sample, customized sort order

For further instructions on defining the sort order of a report see General Reporting Procedures, Steps 2.3-2.3.4

2.4 Resetting global defaults



Global default parameters for all the screens can be reset by clicking on the Reset All command button at the bottom of the main screen.
 
 

A customized or default report can be previewed at any time before actual printing. Click on the Preview command button to initiate the preview. An option to print the report is available as the Preview is being exited - via the 'Report Destination' dialog that appears (Fig. 9), or printing can be executed directly, without previewing, via the Print command button (See Step 4).
 
For further instructions on previewing reports, see General Reporting Procedures, Step 3
 

4. Print the report to a file

Unlike most standard SIS 2000+ reports, the primary purpose of this application is to generate and export a data file that can be used by an automated phone dialing application. This "print to file" procedure is accessed from the Print command button.

4.1 Initiate
Click the Print command button. The 'Report Destination' dialog will appear (Fig. 9).

4.2 Select Report Destination
Select either 'Printer', 'File', or 'Both'. If 'Printer' is selected only a hard copy of the data will be printed for verification - no data file will be generated. If 'File' is selected, a data file will be generated based in the parameters defined in the 'Options' tab - no hard copy will be printed. If 'Both' is selected, a hard copy verification report will be printed at the same time as the data file is generated. If either 'Printer' or 'Both' is selected, a cover page will be printed by default unless the Cover Page field is deselected.


Fig. 9

4.3 Continue
After selecting the Report Destination parameters, click on the Continue command button to proceed, or Cancel to abort. If "Continue" is executed and either 'File' or 'Both' was selected, an 'Export Parameters' screen will appear (Fig. 10).

4.4 View Export Parameters
The 'Export Parameters' screen is a standard SIS 2000+ output dialog for exporting report data as ASCII files. Normally, the parameters in this dialog screen are editable. In this application, however, they are not editable because the auto dialing format required is fixed according to which File Format was selected in the 'Options' tab (Notice the data fields are not enabled in Fig. 10). The illustration below is the dialog for the Standard format.


Fig. 10 - sample export dialog for Standard file format. Read-only mode.

4.5 Save As



Click on the Location command button to open the 'Save As' dialog screen (Fig. 11). Select a destination directory for saving the data file and assign a file name (default file name is export.txt). (The 'Save As' screen will vary slightly according to the operating system of the host computer. Consult the user's manual of the operating system for detailed instructions on saving files.)


Fig. 11 - sample Windows 95 'Save As' dialog

4.6 Export File



After the 'Save As' destination has been determined, click on the Export command button. As the data is being processed, screen gauges will indicate the progress (Fig. 12 & 13). When the Report Complete message appears (Fig. 14), click on "OK" to return to the main screen.
 

Fig. 12

Fig. 13

Fig. 14

 

For further instructions on printing reports, see General Reporting Procedures, Step 4
 
 

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