Adding Fields to eSchoolPlus

If your district needs to track information that is not addressed in eSchoolPlus, you can create district-defined fields for storing the data. Additionally, for students' demographic information, you can choose whether to use a district-defined field or a program tracking field.

This topic provides information about the advantages and limitations of the two options for adding fields for students. The state reporting requirements for your district may determine which option is appropriate.

Program Setup Option

Advantages

Interfaces with Entry/Withdrawal page.
Interfaces with and is available for Student Test Score Tracking.
Programs can be used to update existing fields in Student Demographics with most current status (for example, Meal Status).
Automatically tracks start and end dates, along with a value, for each Program Element.
Ad-hoc reporting may be easier because start date, end date, and program element's value are all stored in single record.
The Registration Assignment mass update utility can create new program records when assigning homerooms, counselors, house-teams, and other select fields.
Rollover is available. You can close out Programs (Date Tracked Elements) at the end of the year.
Parent/child relationships between elements is allowed. For example, if you needed to track Title I Eligibility and Title I Service and you only want a student to have a Title I Service if the student is eligible for Title I, you could link these fields with a parent/child relationship.
Can include an entry reason and withdrawal reason and an override.

Limitations

Only one value per start and end date.
Multiple Program Elements appear on separate lines.
Not available as a filter or selection criteria for mass updates to demographics information.
Not available as a filter or sort option for reports and for most utilities programs.

District-Defined Setup Option

Advantages

District-Defined pages can have multiple data elements on one line ("List Type" field is set to "Allow multiple field values to be entered as rows").
Fields are available in a Registration Mass Update.
Several reports and utility programs allow filter and sort selection on district-defined fields.
When you add a value for any district-defined field for a student, a record is automatically added for all other fields on the district-defined page. If the user does not specify the value for a field, the record will be created for the default value specified in the District-Defined Field Detail or with an empty (NULL) value if no default is specified.

Limitations

Does not automatically track start and end dates, but those fields may be defined like any other user-defined fields.
Does not update, and is not updated by, any other fields in the database.
Ad-hoc reporting can be difficult when allowing multiple field values to be entered as rows (start date, end date, and value stored in 3 separate records).

Additional Notes about Program Tracking and District-Defined Fields

Two options are available for mass loading data for selected students: Generate Programs and District-Defined Setup. Each option has a separate utility program to generate records for students:
Both options can be secured by limiting access to specific users per program or per district-defined page.
Both options allow a program to be included in the registration sequence.
One program and one district defined screen may be included in the mail merge details for Attendance Letters and Discipline Letters.
Up to one Registration District-Defined Screen and up to one Medical Records District-Defined Screen may be included in the mail merge details for Medical Records Immunization Letters.

Program Setup Option

Advantages

Limitations

District-Defined Setup Option

Advantages

Limitations

Additional Notes about Program Tracking and District-Defined Fields

Reports and Utilities that Use District-Defined Pages