The Department has added a new knowledgebase feature designed to communicate known issues and updates pertaining to our data systems (NEO/Synergy).  We hope this will provide those in need of help with a quick way to search and filter by issue or topic to find more information and possible resolutions.

The knowledgebase can be found on the Data Team Helpdesk page.

Column Heading Definitions:

Updates/Issues:  Is this a known issue that has been reported or is it a system updates such as a code change, etc.

System:  The Data System the issue is pertaining to such as NEO or Synergy.

Report/Upload:  The name of the specific report or upload within the system.

Issue:  Brief description of the actual issue reported or actual work done during the system update.  Note:  This field is hyperlinked and will display more information, including possible resolution, when clicked.

Description:  This is a detailed description of the issue reported or work done during the system update.

Priority:  Rating of Low, Medium, High or Completed.

Report to Helpdesk:  If the issue is marked with a Yes in this column, please contact the Helpdesk to provide more information specific to your school or situation.

Last Updated:  This is either the initial date the issue/update was entered or the last time information was updated for this specific record.

Please direct any questions to medms.helpdesk@maine.gov or (207) 624-6896.

 

Due to the continued data access and quality issues integrating the student data from Infinite Campus to NEO, the Maine Department of Education is delaying the MaineCare report review for Q417.

Q417 MaineCare Seed recovery efforts will be delayed until December 2017.

Previous notification has been sent about reports moving from Infinite Campus to NEO and can be viewed by clicking on the link below.

https://mainedoenews.wordpress.com/?s=NEO

Once the reports have been moved to NEO, additional communication will be forthcoming and will include new instructions for SAUs to access the quarterly MaineCare reports.

This will change the scheduled MaineCare Seed recovery for Q417 from November to December 2017.

Q118 will remain scheduled for Seed recovery in January 2018.

Please direct any questions to Denise.towers@maine.gov.

The Maine Department of Education is continuing to assist School Administrative Units (SAU) as October 1st student enrollment counts are being uploaded into the new Synergy State Edition Student System.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as the Department answers requests, resolves issues and continues to work through the transitionary period.

Below are a few updates and reminders as we move forward.

Reminder of policies:

All data must be entered by the primary enrollment school.

To help to prevent duplication issues, students with the same First name, Last name, and date of birth (DOB) will need to have stateids resolved manually through the Synergy system.

Students who are enrolled in another district (overlapping enrollments) need to be resolved between the two districts involved.

Once a student has been identified as an English Language learner (EL), the student cannot be exited from EL until he/she has tested out.  The Maine DOE now enters the exit date for the student, based on ACCESS For Els scores.  This resolves the issue of the student being incorrectly exited from EL.

Resolved issues:

• Missing or mismatched language codes.
• Inconsistencies with uploading student names that contain punctuation.
• Segment range overlapping with existing special ed disabilities.
• Districts are now able to obtain ids through uploads to resolve delays in obtaining a student id for new students.

Note: A webpage with known issues is being created to post new issues and resolutions to existing issues. Be on the look-out for further information.

To better assist district users and help save time, the Help Desk will post instructions for how Synergy users can update their own password within the system, more information will be forthcoming.

For further information and questions, please contact the Data Help Desk at 207-624-6896 or medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

The Department has resolved a technical issue with the upload functionality for special education data in the Synergy State Edition Student System. 

To solve this issue, it was necessary to delete all special education data that had been uploaded prior to 1:00pm on Friday, October 6, 2017. If you have uploaded your special education data prior to this date/time, it will be necessary for you to upload the data again. 

In addition, another system error, pre-population of prior services and an exit date, has been corrected.

If you have already uploaded special education data and need to re-upload as a result of this technical issue, please be sure you are uploading new special education student information and changes to existing special education students rather than starting new. If you re-upload data exactly as it has been uploaded previously, you will receive an error message. 

Note: Please see a recent priority notice that relates to Synergy uploads.

For further information and questions, please contact the Data Help Desk at 207-624-6896 or medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

 

Progress is continuing toward the full release of Synergy as Department staff have successfully uploaded and created thousands of student IDs. The next phase in the process will begin on Friday morning, September 22, when the Department will begin a “soft roll out”.  This process will have a select group of school administrative units testing the process and providing feedback for improvements, to ensure a smoother upload process for all units.  Also, a Synergy developer is on site to assist the Department with issues that arise.  The Department’s goal is to make available full access for all superintendents and data specialists, as listed in NEO, on Monday, September 25.  Access for other requested personnel follow within a few working days.  At this time, the upload capability encompasses: New Student IDs, Student Enrollment and Student Personal.  Other upload capabilities will be available in the following days and weeks.

The Department fully anticipates that the system will be ready for the October 1 EPS reports that are required to be certified by October 30.

As a result of the delay in getting data into Synergy, the Department will not be requiring all Quarter 1 reports to be submitted or certified and these reports from the DC&R calendar. Additionally, the “Tips and Trick Web session” will be postponed until the system is fully functional.  Additional updates on this will be posted via the Commissioner’s Update and noted on the Department’s professional development calendar.

Please continue to check the Maine DOE Newsroom communications via the Maine DOE Update for further communications.  Thank you for your patience.  If you have questions or we can be of assistance, please contact the helpdesk at (207) 624-6896, medms.helpdesk@maine.gov or Shannon Bartash, helpdesk manager at (207) 624-6799, shannon.bartash@maine.gov

 

The Maine Department of Education is committed to supporting access to and participation in the arts as part of Maine students’ well-rounded education. In order to provide a view of trends, challenges, and successes in PreK-12th grade arts education, the department is asking school district to submit student participation and access data for the 2016-2017 school year. School level data that includes courses and enrollment numbers forms the basis of the data collection. Student names, personal information, and unique student identities are not included in this collection.

The Maine DOE will be reviewing and analyzing this arts education data, conduct in-depth analysis of the information, and align instructional practices and resources to support engaging arts experiences for learners. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, collecting this data will make Maine eligible to apply for arts education grants, resources, and additional supports.

Superintendents should submit their data via the following link: https://mainedoe.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7QyhoMK8B3GhKRf

For further information contact Beth Lambert, Maine DOE Visual and Performing Arts Specialist at beth.lambert@maine.gov.

 

Progress is continuing toward the full release of Synergy and much work is being done behind the scenes.  Although we are still not ready to release the full product, we do now have the ability to search for and generate new student IDs for districts.  In the future, this will be a process done by individual districts but in the interest of time and the urgency of having IDs for students, the help desk will run the files for districts and return a file with the IDs.

To have IDs searched and generated,

1. Download the New State ID Request file.
2. Using either the extract provided by your SIS vendor, or creating your own file using the data available to you and the upload template, create a newstatestudentid csv file.
3. Request a secure email from the helpdesk medms.helpdesk@maine.gov .
4. Reply to the secure email attaching the file created in Step 2.
5. Helpdesk staff will process the file and return the student ID results to you via secure email.

Please continue to check the Maine DOE Newsroom communications via the Maine DOE Update for further communications.  We appreciate your patience.