Avoid common end-of-year wizard mistakes

The Aspen End-of-Year Rollover wizard a sequence of dialog boxes which walk a user through a potentially complex task, such as the Build Study Locations wizard handles the most common operations and conditions associated with changing a district’s school year. There is, however, potential for the wizard to create erroneous enrollment data if some of its assumptions are not satisfied.

Important: Contact your Aspen system administrator before proceeding if you have concerns about the existing student and enrollment data in your district.

Below are some common pitfalls to avoid when using the End-of-Year wizard:

Out-of-order of execution

When you use the End-of-Year Rollover wizard, you can execute only the steps you select. However, the steps were designed to be run in order overall. Some steps later in the wizard will have different (and undesirable) results if an earlier step has not been run.

Example 1: Preserving step order

Assume you run the wizard initially for steps 1, 2, and 3. Then, you run the wizard later for steps 4, 5, and 6.

The results would be identical to running the wizard once with all steps selected.

Example 2: Not preserving step order

Assume you run the wizard initially for steps 1 and 5. Then, you run the wizard later for steps 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The results would be different from running the wizard once and executing all the steps. For instance, Step 5 of the wizard (archiving non-active students) will archive pre-registered students, because you did not run Step 2 (activating pre-registered students) beforehand.

Some out-of-order combinations are valid and generate the desired results. Contact your Aspen system administrator if you have questions regarding the order of execution for your district.

Multiple executions

When you use the End-of-Year Rollover wizard, you can execute the same step multiple times. Some steps will not have any effect if run more than once, while others will have undesirable results.

Example 1: Valid multiple execution

Assume you run the wizard initially and include Step 3 (transfer students to next school). Then, you run the wizard later and execute Step 3 again. The first time you execute Step 3, the system moves all students to their next schools. The second time you execute Step 3, there will not be any students left to transfer; therefore, the step will have no effect.

Example 2: Invalid multiple execution

Assume you run the wizard initially and include Step 4 (withhold repeating students). Then, you run the wizard later and include Step 4 again.

The first time you execute Step 4, the system withholds the students in the selected snapshot a static picture of a particular group of records that you can file and easily retrieve and increases their year of graduation by one. Because Step 4 is based on a snapshot, running it again will withhold the same students a second time. The combined result causes the system to demote the students one grade level.

Contact your Aspen system administrator if you have questions regarding the execution of the same step multiple times.

Verify the next school for withheld students

Verify that the Next school is the same as the Primary school for students in the selected snapshot you use in Step 4 (withholding repeating students). If the Next school is different than the Primary school, the system includes these students in Step 3 (transferring students to next school), which moves them to another school and creates undesirable enrollment records.