AET ISAT-TIDE Lite - Students PowerQuery 2024.10.31.1

Objective

This PowerSchool plugin builds a CSV export to be used by TIDE to import your students. This version uses the 24-25 school year template.

Before We Get Started - Setup

The plugin makes some assumptions that your PowerSchool system is configured in a certain way. If you use PowerSchool for your ISEE reporting, you likely already have it configured correctly. However, if your system does not meet one or more of these requirements, the report may not work or you may get inaccurate information:

• The District Number on District Management > District Setup > District Info must be an integer (whole number--no letters, symbols, nor punctuation).
• Your schools must either have their State ID number listed as an Alternate School Number under District Management > District Setup > School Info, or your PowerSchool SchoolID field must already be the state ID number.
• You use the Federal Ethnicity and Race options for your students' ethnicity/race selections, and they align to the Idaho State Reporting Guide's configuration:
  • 01 = American Indian or Alaskan Native
  • 02 = Asian
  • 03 = Black
  • 04 = Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
  • 05 = White
  • As it does in ISEE, the Hispanic ethnicity comes from the FedEthnicity field on the Students table.
• EL/LEP
  • Your Limited English Proficiency program names contain EL - or LEP - (that is EL, or LEP, space dash space) and the LEP Status (e.g. L1, LE, etc) is set inside the active record.
• Migrant
  • Your Migrant program names contain MIG - (that is MIG space dash space).
• Section 504
  • Your Section 504 program names start with 504 - (that is 504 space dash space).
• Special Education
  • Your Special Education program names contain SPE -  (that is SPE space dash space).
• Not Reported to TIDE
  • Paper Tester
  • IDAA Fixed Form
  • Students to delete from TIDE
  • If you need to report these, you must manually edit the extract and set it or edit it in TIDE after the import.

Before We Get Started - Notes

• You may need to adapt the instructions below to your system if your district/charter has customized the menus.
• Rather than itemizing each click through the menu screens, I use the > symbol to separate each item you're clicking.

How to Install the Plugin

PowerSchool Community has an article on How to Install and Enable/Disable A Plugin. Please refer to that if you are unfamiliar with the process. I am not able to guarantee support in plugin installation.

Note: I apologize for any inconvenience, but if you have any D91 version of my plugin installed, you should uninstall it before installing this version (steps below). Upgrades from 2024.10.31.1 and newer should work without uninstalling.

1. Download the plugin and save it somewhere you can find it shortly. 
2. From the Start Page, choose System Management > Server > Plugin Configuration.
3. Click Install.
4. Click Choose File next to Plugin Installation File.
5. Browse to the file you downloaded in Step 1 and select it.
6. Click Install.
7. The plugin was installed successfully. should appear at the top. Check the "enable" box for the AET ISAT-TIDE Lite - Students PowerQuery.
8. Click Enable to complete the installation. You should get Plugin successfully enabled.

Continue with How to Use the Plugin below.

How to Uninstall the Plugin

Hopefully you're using these steps to remove the old version, but the steps are the same for any version of my plugin. 

If you're having issues with the current version, please let me know in the comments tab below.

1. From the Start Page, choose System Management > Server > Plugin Configuration.
2. Find the plugin and click the Delete button on the right.
3. Confirm the deletion.

How to Downgrade/Reinstall/Update the Plugin (if it's already installed)

1. Follow Steps 1-4 above, downloading the version that you want.
2. Click on the plugin name, AET ISAT-TIDE Lite - Students PowerQuery.
3. Click Update.
4. Click Choose File next to Plugin Installation File.
5. Browse to the file you downloaded and select it.
6. Click Submit.
   • If you are reinstalling the same or a prior version to what you have, you'll get a warning and you'll have to click Submit again to force the install.
7. If the plugin was enabled prior to the update, you'll be automatically asked if you want to enable the new version. Click Enable. You should get Plugin successfully enabled.

How to Use the Plugin

This plugin installs a PowerQuery into Data Export Manager. If you don't yet have permissions to Data Export Manager, please see the Required Setup above for information on configuring that.

1. From the Start Page of the District Office, choose Data and Reporting > Exports > Data Export Manager.
2. If you have NOT used this AET plugin before, skip to Step 4.
3. Follow these bullets' instructions:
   • Click on the My Templates tab.
   • Click on the template you created for the TIDE 24-25 Students.
   • Skip to Step 8.
4. Select Additional Data Sets from the Category dropdown.
5. Select PowerQuery: AET ISAT/TIDE Lite Students Export from the Export From dropdown.
6. Click the checkmark beside STUDENTS to select all fields.
7. You will need to go through all 25 fields and remove the STUDENTS.##_ part out. For example, instead of STUDENTS.01_DistrictID, you just want DistrictID.
   • Unfortunately, by default, PowerQueries will export their fields alphabetically. In order to ensure the fields are in the right order, I add numbers in front of the field names. However, TIDE will not understand these field names if you leave them this way so you need to strip them off.
   • The good news is we only have to do this once (until the fields change again). We'll be able to save this template shortly.
8. Click Next.
9. If you need to filter down to certain grade levels, you can use the Column Filters to do that here. Be sure you include a leading 0 because TIDE requires the Grade to always be two digits. If you want to preview the extract, click Show Records. When ready, click Next again.
   • Note that if you use filters and/or preview the extract, it shows the column names you saw originally, not the ones you cleaned up. Don't worry; the final extract will be right.
10. Adjust the options on this screen as follows:
    • For the Export File Name, I used TIDE_students_export.csv. You can use any file name you want, but you must end it with .csv (period c s v).
    • Line Delimiter should either be CR or CR/LF.
    • Field Delimiter should be Comma.
    • Character Set should be UTF-8.
    • Leave the Include Column Headers box checked.
    • If any of your kids' first, middle, or last names have a comma in it, you need to check Surround "Field Values" in Quotes, but otherwise that is not necessary.
11. If you HAVE used this plugin before, skip to Step 13.
12. Follow these bullets' instructions:
    • Click Save Template. This will save you having to clear out all the STUDENTS.##_ stuff next time. 
    • Give the template a name. I named mine TIDE 24-25 Students, but you can use any name you want. I usually set the school year in the name because the templates usually change each year. You can set a Description if you want. Otherwise, just click Save as New.
13. Click Export. Save the file somewhere easily to locate. This is the file you'll send up to TIDE.

Importing the Students into TIDE

1. Access TIDE at https://id.tide.cambiumast.com/ and get logged in.
2. Click on Students > Upload Students from the left panel.
3. Inside the Step 1: Upload File box, click Choose File.
4. Find the file you exported above and select it.
5. At the bottom of the page, click Next. It may take a moment for TIDE to preview your file.
6. If everything looks good, scroll down to the bottom and click Next again.
7. The next step depends on whether you have over 1000 students in the file or not.
   • 1000 or fewer students:
     • A brief confirmation showing how many records are being committed is shown.
     • Click Continue with Upload.
     • TIDE will validate your file on the fly and provide you status of any issues it finds.
   • More than 1000 students:
     • You'll be prompted that the file will be processed offline and a separate notification by e-mail will be sent when the processing is complete.
     • Click Continue with Upload.
     • Correct your information if needed, then click Continue. (Only the name and e-mail address are required).
     • That's it! Await the e-mail confirmation and the students should be loaded.
8. If there are any errors, you'll need to confirm that your system meets the requirements above and/or make any manual corrections to the export.

New with 2024-25

Cambium now supports automated imports of students into TIDE. If this PowerQuery is exporting what you want (specifically, no paper testers or IDAA fixed forms), you can use it to send those exports to Cambium directly via SFTP. Contact your district testing coordinator to check into your options with that... or if that's you, reach out to the state ISAT testing coordinator if you are unsure what to do.

Last, But Not Least

I hope this helps!

Many hours went into building this plugin and documenting its use. Please do me a favor and leave a review (in the Review tab below) if you use my plugin and let me know how it worked for you. If you have general questions, feedback, technical issues, or typos with the plugin or its documentation, feel free to use the Comments tab to let me know. Support is limited but I'll help if I can. If your questions are more about the process of loading the students into TIDE, or things beyond the plugin itself, please ask those questions in the forum so that a wider audience will see them and can assist.

Thank you!

--Vance M. Allen