Powerscheduler Issues- First time user

[aorton]

For context:  District switched over to Powerschool during summer break.  Counselors were informed when we returned in July to work within Powerscheduler to edit courses/adjust class hours/change teachers/etc BEFORE "hitting the button" to "go live".  (Counselors in district to not have access to "hit the magic button.")

Issue we are running into is that when we "run a load/import/Q" in Powerschceduler, most changes that were made via schedules tab within student  are reversed/undone.  Our POC informed us that running a Load/Import/Q would not undo our fixes, but would make other updates. After we went through a grade level of students and ran a load for updating purposes, we noticed students were put back into classes they started with (even though we made the fixes via the schedule tab).

How can we make sure the changes we are making will stick?  In addition, should we be adjusting schedules now in Powerscheduler or on the live side (students start in two weeks)? 

From what we gather, any work we've done thus far in Powerscheduler has been reversed, rendering our efforts useless.

[DanM3 · Accepted solution]

Good questions. I'm assuming if you are brand new to PowerSchool, do you know if you have to do the End of Year process that will promote the current students and their grade level?  In PowerScheduler is their grade level the 2024-2025 or last year? I ask because when you commit the final schedule to push it to the live side changes.  

With that said, I would continue to make the changes in PowerScheduler until you think it's ready for prime time.  Obviously schedule requests will come in once the students see their schedules, but that can be done on the live side.

The commit process is done on the school side, but I assume the District Admin probably has access to PowerScheduler and the school's data.  

In the commit process there is an optional checkbox to suppress the schedule from being seen on the app and parent portal.  This is a fairly new option and I used it for the first time yesterday. 

[DanM3 · Accepted solution]

Since EOY is technically done as a new school to PowerSchool, you might share this with the PowerSchool admin. 

https://help.powerschool.com/t5/PowerSchool-SIS-Knowledge-Base/How-To-Continuing-Scheduling-After-En...

One other thing to consider depending if other changes were made after the last load, there is a thing called flashback where you (PowerSchool Technical Support) can go back to a specific moment in time. If there was only one load down and few other changes in the database made, this might be an option.  You might have your PS Admin contact PowerSchool support to see if this is applicable to your unique situation.  Not sure if this is school specific or district wide. (I've only worked in a single school district setup.

Good luck!

[DanM3]

First of all, you should probably place this in PowerSchool Admin forum on the community, not sure many people will see it here.  Secondly, whoever is your POC (whatever that is) doesn't know much or anything about PowerScheduler.  Generally running Load and then importing the results makes that the current and latest version of the schedule. PowerSchool itself says "Important: Each time a new load is run and imported, all manual changes to student schedules are lost." The only way to make sure the schedules stick is not to run LOAD again!  That being said, did anyone download a PDF copy of the schedules before the last load was initiated?  Do you label your loads in the comments section of the results page?  If so, and you know which load it was, you can re-import a previous load and try to make the fixes there.  It will look familiar and might be easier than trying to fix the last load.  Generally when our AP knows she is not going to change any other periods, classes and terms, she does the manual adjustments then and we do backup copies of the schedules just in case.

https://help.powerschool.com/t5/PowerSchool-SIS-Administrator/bd-p/PowerSchoolSISForum

[aorton]

Our point of contact ("POC") was a former coworker of a current admin in the district and he told us he's worked with Powerschool for over 15 years. Maybe we misunderstood what he was saying about loads/imports because we would definitely NOT want to undo any work done... which is exactly what happened this week! 

Knowing that running a load is something we will avoid going forward, should we continue to make changes as we have been, via schedules per each student, in Powerscheduler? If so, when do we stop working in Powerscheduler and have district admin "push" the button, making schedules live? From that point, do we continue to clean up on the "live side"?

Also, once schedules are "live", how do we make them hidden from students until we are ready to release them?

[DanM3 · Accepted solution]

Good questions. I'm assuming if you are brand new to PowerSchool, do you know if you have to do the End of Year process that will promote the current students and their grade level?  In PowerScheduler is their grade level the 2024-2025 or last year? I ask because when you commit the final schedule to push it to the live side changes.  

With that said, I would continue to make the changes in PowerScheduler until you think it's ready for prime time.  Obviously schedule requests will come in once the students see their schedules, but that can be done on the live side.

The commit process is done on the school side, but I assume the District Admin probably has access to PowerScheduler and the school's data.  

In the commit process there is an optional checkbox to suppress the schedule from being seen on the app and parent portal.  This is a fairly new option and I used it for the first time yesterday. 

[aorton]

Yes, our students are showing up as their current/this SY grade level. Someone did an upload over the summer from our last SIS, so I'm guessing that's how the correct grade levels were assigned.

We will continue to make our changes via schedules in Powerscheduler until we've combed through all 5 grades (we have 8-12 in our building).  After we go through and make our manual changes, and will be sure to NOT run any Loads/Uploads/Q's, we will let our admin with the magic wand know we are ready to commit schedules for students to access. Does that sound about right to you?

Thank you for your help in this! We were beside ourselves when we realized three days worth of changes were reversed... I appreciate your timely replies and helpful advice! 

[DanM3 · Accepted solution]

Since EOY is technically done as a new school to PowerSchool, you might share this with the PowerSchool admin. 

https://help.powerschool.com/t5/PowerSchool-SIS-Knowledge-Base/How-To-Continuing-Scheduling-After-En...

One other thing to consider depending if other changes were made after the last load, there is a thing called flashback where you (PowerSchool Technical Support) can go back to a specific moment in time. If there was only one load down and few other changes in the database made, this might be an option.  You might have your PS Admin contact PowerSchool support to see if this is applicable to your unique situation.  Not sure if this is school specific or district wide. (I've only worked in a single school district setup.

Good luck!

[aorton]

Thank you so much!!!!!!! We have since started working again on each of our students, one by one, and making our edits a second time, avoiding Load/Upload/Q's like the plague and it looks like are edits are holding this time around.  Things seems to be moving quicker too, since we've already had eyes on these schedules once before... that or muscle memory! 🙂 I appreciate your help!

[JeffG9 · Accepted solution]

@aorton Running and Importing a Load in PowerScheduler will undo any and all hand scheduling you have done. The typical work flow for those that schedule with PowerScheduler is to Build>Load>Hand Schedule>Automated SH Process>Commit.

I've oversimplified quite a bit, but Loads are extremely useful PowerScheduler--you just need to make sure to stop doing them when it is time to begin hand-scheduling.  

[aorton]

This is great! Thank you!