Nightly SIS Imports are an important part of the routing process.  When you first start importing data, it may be important to review many of the records individually to ensure that information is flowing correctly from your SIS.  Once you get into the swing of understanding the data coming from your SIS, the process below is the suggested methodology for processing the nightly updates.  Remember – if your data is coming from your SIS – such as addresses, school assignment, ridership etc., then that information should be updated in the SIS rather than in the routing system.  For example, if you have a student listed as not a rider and a parent calls and says they need to ride the bus, you should direct them to the appropriate process for updating this in the SIS and let that information come through in the nightly process.  Otherwise, if you change it in the routing system and the SIS never gets changed, the nightly file will show a change when the information comes over.  So your source of changes should ALWAYS be your SIS data and let it flow over to the routing system.

It is recommended that you view and process the nightly imports each day.  However, if you don’t process them, they will still be waiting in the report as each nightly file that is sent from your SIS is compared to existing data in the routing system.  Keeping up with these daily is the best policy.

To get to the nightly import report, go to the Profile in the upper right and select “New/Change requests”.  The indicator in red will tell you how many updates you have.     When you first begin updating, this number may be high.  After you settle in during the year, it should be much less.

Any changes to the student record will flag an updated record.  Most of these you will not need to do anything with other than to accept them into the system.  Changes in parent phone numbers, contacts etc. are not consequential to the routing process.  However, changes in a student’s primary address or school require a transportation review to potentially adjust bus schedules.  If a student changes from a rider to a non-rider or vice-versa there are also actions that you will need to take but most of these can be done in batch.  The process below outlines how to process these updates.

First, if there are any linkable requests you HAVE to review these individually.  These are new students that are ready to be imported but MIGHT be a duplicate of another student.  The system compares the last name and address of the incoming student with the list of students in the routing system.  If both students have different dates of birth, the system won’t flag it but if the DOB is missing in one of the students it would be flagged.     For example, the student could be potentially listed as Sue Smith on one student record and Susan Smith on another.  If the SIS has them both in the system, this will help you to locate those.

When you pull up the New/Change Requests, you will see some links at the top that allow you to filter for specific types of changes that you may want to review.   Click on the number next to  “linkable requests” above the list to see just those entries.

Click on View next to each Linkable Request

The area in the blue shows the EXISTING student in the routing system that is POTENTIALLY the same student.  In this case because the existing student in the routing system doesn’t have a date of birth and the student has the same last name and lives at the same address, it has been flagged. It can be a good idea to review the student id’s are the same.  If this incoming record is NOT the same student you can simply click on Accept at the top to pull in the new student.  If the incoming new student (below the blue screen) IS the same as the student in the blue section at the top, click on the Link indicator to link them together.  

Click on the number next to the Total Requests in the New/Change Requests report.

Click on the check box at the top next to “Requested By”.     This will check all entries below.

Click on Accept Selected.

NOTE:  IF you DID NOT review the students needing Transportation Requests

If a student has a change of primary address OR a change in school, the student change will be marked with a “Transportation Request” check mark.  If you DID NOT do these individually on Step 3, you can do those now.  IT IS IMPORTANT TO CHECK THESE AS THE CURRENT BUS SCHEDULES MAY NOT BE CORRECT FOR STUDENTS WITH AN ADDRESS OR SCHOOL CHANGE.

To see any students who need a Transportation Review, click on the Students Tab and then on Filters, General, Transportation Review Needed.

The panel on the right will indicate in red what has changed.  Since these are requests needing transportation review, we can see that the address has changed.

Click on Accept at the top to accept the address change.  Once you accept, the new address will be listed as the PRIMARY address and the old address will still show (this will help you when looking at the transportation changes). Note – at the top you will see this ATTENTION indicator.     This will stay on this student’s records until you check the checkbox – DON’T CHECK this UNTIL you have made any needed transportation plans.  That way if you get sidetracked, you can find records that need adjustment later.

Review the dots on the map.  Both the old and new addresses will show as blue dots on the map – You can click on the dots to see which one is which address.  The orange dot is the stop that the student is currently assigned to.  You can see in this case that the new address in the bottom right is not close by and the student needs to be assigned to a new stop.   

To adjust this student’s transportation, first check to see if there are any transportation plans.  (open the Transportation Plans tab in the left panel).     If there are transportation plans you will need to either edit those to indicate the correct stop or remove the transportation plans (delete icon) if you want to assign the student to the nearest stop.

Next, you will want to remove the student’s current bus schedules and assign a new bus schedule.  Delete the bus schedules using the red trashcan icons.  Click on Save at the top.

use the Search and Add Bus Schedule to add a new bus schedule.  

Note:  If you are routing on particular days of the week, check the suggested routes to make sure they are on the correct day of the week.

Once the student has been added to the new bus route, go back to the General Tab and click on the check mark that you have reviewed the transportation.  If you are using real-time notifications, you can also send an email to the parent to notify them of the new schedule.  

Optionally, you can go to the addresses sub tab for the student and remove the old address. Note – when you look at the addresses, you can see the date last updated which helps when deleting an old address.

Do this step ONLY if you have ridership information being imported from your SIS.

Next we will look to see if there are any students that are listed as Non Riders or  Not Specified (depending on how you indicate this) and that have bus schedules.     On the Students tab, click on Filters, Riders, Not Specified (or Non-Riders).

Then add another filter for those students who have bus schedules.  You may want to check students who are Routed or Partially Routed.

To remove the schedules for all of these students, go to Operations, Batch Edit.

You can remove both the Transportation Plans AND the Bus Schedules by selecting “Remove All” for both options.  Then click on the green save button at the top.

Do this step if your SIS is importing the ridership indicator nightly.  From the Students tab, filter on Riders, All Riders and then filter on Bus Schedules Unrouted.

This will show you all students who have indicated they are riders but need to be routed.

Note – if you have any other criteria such as Non-Sped or an indicator for alternating days, you will want to filter for those as well if you are going to use an Auto-Assign.  Otherwise you can open each individually and do a Search and add bus schedule.

Periodically you will want to review any students marked as withdrawn.  To do this click on the Students tab, Filters, General, Withdrawn.

You can either remove these students from the routing system or make them inactive.  To remove all withdrawn students, click on Operations, Batch Edit after you have filtered for withdrawn students.

You can optionally decide to mark these students as Inactive, which will keep them in the portal, but will not list them on any routes.  This is good if you want to keep the bus schedules in the system in case the student returns.

To remove students

OR

At this point, you can pull in all of the remaining requests, but if you WANT to look at the new students coming in, especially when you are new to the nightly import process, click on the number next to the words “new requests”.  In this example, the number 7 – there are 7 new students flagged to be pulled into the routing system.  Otherwise, skip to step 5 to accept all requests.

This will allow you to click on View next to each new student.  Note – if you are pulling in data about whether a student needs transportation or not, there will be a checkmark in the “transportation  requested” column.    If a students has an indicator that transportation is needed, you can click on view and go ahead and assign a bus schedule if you want.

For the most part, you will simply want to accept all new students in once you are confident that your nightly file is sending the correct information.  You can do this by clicking on the check box ABOVE the list of names.  Click on the Accept Selected.

If a student has a change of primary address OR a change in school, the student change will be marked with a “Transportation Request” check mark.  These changes can be accepted into the system and reviewed later OR reviewed from this list individually.  Typically students with a transportation review need to be handled individually.     If you want to Accept all students in the list and review later – skip to step 4.  Continue here if you want to go ahead and review the transportation changes needed.

To review students with Transportation Review Needed, click on the number next to the words “transportation review needed” at the top.

Click on View next to each request.

The panel on the right will indicate in red what has changed.  Since these are requests needing transportation review, we can see that the address has changed.

Click on Accept at the top to accept the address change.  Once you accept, the new address will be listed as the PRIMARY address and the old address will still show (this will help you when looking at the transportation changes). Note – at the top you will see this ATTENTION indicator.     This will stay on this student’s records until you check the checkbox – DON’T CHECK this UNTIL you have made any needed transportation plans.  That way if you get sidetracked, you can find records that need adjustment later.

Review the dots on the map.  Both the old and new addresses will show as blue dots on the map – You can click on the dots to see which one is which address.  The orange dot is the stop that the student is currently assigned to.  You can see in this case that the new address in the bottom right is not close by and the student needs to be assigned to a new stop.   

To adjust this student’s transportation, first check to see if there are any transportation plans.  (open the Transportation Plans tab in the left panel).     If there are transportation plans you will need to either edit those to indicate the correct stop or remove the transportation plans if you want to assign the student to the nearest stop.

Next, you will want to remove the student’s current bus schedules and assign a new bus schedule.  Delete the bus schedules using the red trashcan icons.  Click on Save at the top.

use the Search and Add Bus Schedule to add a new bus schedule.  

Note:  If you are routing on particular days of the week, check the suggested routes to make sure they are on the correct day of the week.

Once the student has been added to the new bus route, go back to the General Tab and click on the check mark that you have reviewed the transportation.  Until this checkbox is marked, the student will still be flagged needing a transportation review. If you are using real-time notifications, you can also send an email to the parent to notify them of the new schedule.