PowerSchool links removed

The links to PowerSchool on the various district web pages have been replaced with links to Infinite Campus. If you still need to access PowerSchool, you can do so by typing in the appropriate URL listed below.

PowerSchool for Office Staff: http://ps.oregonsd.org/admin/
PowerTeacher: http://ps.oregonsd.org/teachers/

PowerSchool "frozen"

Data is being sent up to Infinite Campus, so no changes should be made to PowerSchool except for building schedules. Most user groups have been set to read-only access to PowerSchool to prevent changes from being made. If you think you need to make a change to PowerSchool, please contact the IT office.

PowerSchool rollover complete

Katie and Lynn fixed our problems and the PowerSchool rollover is complete. Don't change stuff, but if you are making a schedule, go ahead and work on that.

Navigator page is up and down- here are some links you need.

Update: Aaaand, it's down again. (08:20). Apparently we haven't figured out the root cause yet. See below for links you may need. Note that some of these services rely on the same server that is having problems, so they may not work even though you have the link.

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Update: The OSD Navigator page is working again (08:07 AM).

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Here are the links it normally contains. (It's being updated on the fly, so check back soon if what you need isn't available yet).

PowerSchool for Teachers- http://ps.oregonsd.org/teachers/
PowerSchool for office staff- http://ps.oregonsd.org/admin/

Moodle- http://moodle.oregonsd.net

Skyward self-service- https://skywardea-win.iscorp.com/cgi-bin10/cgiip.exe/WService=wsermaoregonwi/seplog01.w

Staff mail- http://mail.oregonsd.net
Student mail- http://mail.students.oregonsd.net

Aesop online substitute system http://www.aesopeducation.com/

PowerTeacher login blank

Staff Security Settings Screen: Teacher Login ID and Teacher Password intermittently blank

SUMMARY

PowerSchool administrators use the Staff Security Settings page to modify security settings for selected staff members. Intermittently the Teacher Login ID and Teacher Password are blank when the fields are populated with data. Refreshing the screen sometimes causes the Teacher Login ID and or Teacher Password to show. If the screen is submitted before being refreshed, the Teacher Login ID and Password may be overwritten and password will need to be reset.

PREREQUISITE

• Teacher Login ID and Teacher Password fields were previously populated on the Staff Security Settings Screen.

REPRODUCTION

1. Log in to PowerSchool
2. Start Page > Staff > Select A Staff Member
3. View Teacher Login ID and Teacher Password fields.

ACTUAL RESULT

Teacher Login ID And Teacher Password fields are empty.

EXPECTED RESULT

Teacher Login ID and Teacher Password should display data.

WORKAROUND

Refresh screen.

Issue is being researched.

PowerSchool planned outage Tuesday, Dec. 15, 5-6 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable Tuesday, December 15, 5-6 PM while new drivers are installed. This will hopefully resolve the issues we've been having with random reboots following an error with a driver.

PowerSchool planned outage Thurs., 10/29, 7-9 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable while the server is upgraded on Thursday, 10/29, from 7-9 PM. Please plan accordingly.

PowerSchool planned outage Wed., 10/14, 7-8 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable on Wednesday, October 14, 7-8 PM, for a version upgrade. Please do not log in during this time.

In addition to some important bug fixes, the upgrade has one significant improvement: the parent portal will show exactly what teachers have entered in the grade book.  For example, if a teacher marks an assignment as an "M" for missing, or "L" for late, it will show up for parents to see.

Update- PowerSchool planned outage Thursday, 10/1, 5-9 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable on Thursday, October 1, from 5-9 PM so that we can correct some configuration issues which caused Tuesday morning's unplanned outage.

Teachers must be logged out of PowerTeacher prior to 5:00 PM or else risk losing data. Parents and students will simply see a "not available" message during this period.

Please plan accordingly. Thank you.

PowerSchool is back online

PowerSchool is back online. Many thanks to Lynn for working on it starting at 4 AM. The issue was resolved by Pearson Technical Support, and we are making changes to prevent the root cause from recurring.

Thanks for your patience.

Planned PowerSchool outage Thursday, 9/17, 5:00 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable for several hours beginning 5:00 PM on Thursday, Sep. 17. This is regular server maintenance including installation of Windows security patches and an incremental upgrade to PowerSchool software. Please plan accordingly.

PowerGrade not accessible until after registration

This is a reminder to teachers that, as in years past, you will not have access to PowerSchool until after district-wide registration. District registration occurs August 13 and 18, after which all the updated student data must be processed and imported into PowerSchool. Given the scheduling complexities reported this year, my estimate is that teachers will have access to PowerSchool not earlier than August 21.

PowerSchool is back up- new server, new version, new year!

PowerSchool is back online, on a new server, with a new version (6.0), and in the new academic year.

Many thanks to Lynn S., who worked on the rollover process until 12:30 AM, got a few hours sleep, then started again at 5:30 AM, to make sure it all went smoothly. Thanks also to Chris B. for configuring the new server and doing some practice runs to make sure all the data was successfully migrated to the new server in record time.

The new server is much faster at data-intensive tasks such as running reports. (For example, transcripts took 38 minutes to complete on the old server, versus just nine minutes on the new server.) PowerSchool 6 has some great new reporting features, better management features, and PowerTeacher 1.6. All in all, this is a major upgrade that was accomplished with minimal disruption. We hope you find the new features helpful.

Planned PowerSchool outage Friday 7/24, 5:30 AM - 5:00 PM

PowerSchool will be unavailable tomorrow, Friday, July 24, beginning at 5:30 AM and continuing throughout the day as we complete three major tasks: rollover students to 2009-2010, upgrade to version 6, and migrate to a new server. Please do not access PowerSchool tomorrow. Although you might technically be able to get in, any changes you make will not be saved.

PowerSchool rollover and upgrade

The annual PowerSchool rollover from 2008-2009 to 2009-2010 is scheduled to occur the week of July 20-24. We will notify everyone when the rollover is complete. There will be several subsequent periods when PowerSchool will be unavailable while we upgrade to PowerSchool 6 and migrate the data to a new server.

PowerGrade fix

Since the PowerSchool update to version 5.2.1, some teachers have experienced problems with attendance not showing up correctly in their PowerGrade grade book.  CESA 5 support has fixed the problem on the server.  Each teacher should do the following to make sure that attendance is accurate in their grade book

You must do the following for each class:

1. In your grade book, select Utilities from the top menu
   
2. Select Rebuild Data from Server
3. Find attendance at the bottom of the table
4. Click on it and then select OK.  

This will sync attendance with the office and overwrite what you see in the
grade book right now.  Remember it has to be done for each class.  Feel
free to call or email with any questions.

2009-01-05 PowerSchool outage info

PowerSchool went down unexpectedly at 11:00 AM on January 5. The issue was escalated to PowerSchool support, who resolved the situation around 2:20 PM.

The cause of the outage was actually due to a "kernel panic" error in Mac OS X, which runs the district's PowerSchool server. The kernel panic dump caused the database to become corrupt because it could not shut down gracefully. Support had to spend time repairing and restoring the database.

A patch to resolve the kernel issue in OS X will be applied during evening hours on January 5.

Thanks for your patience.

2009-01-01 PowerSchool upgraded and back online!

In a happy start to the new year, the PowerSchool server is fully upgraded to version 5.2.1.0 and is online. There is still a little bit of data cleanup to do, which will be done soon, as well as the batch conversion process to link students to the new FamilyID field. However, the system is usable immediately, even while those are getting finished.

PowerGrade is already at the most recent version on all district computers, so no upgrade is necessary. From the teacher perspective, everything should be the same.

2008-12-30 PowerSchool planned outage 12/31-1/2

PowerSchool will be unavailable beginning at 5:00 AM on December 31 for an upgrade to version 5.2.1. Although it is difficult to predict the duration of the upgrade process, we anticipate the outage will last through January 1, and possibly January 2.

This upgrade provides updated state reporting capabilities, ODBC access to custom fields, improved performance, and a new Oracle database backend.

Thank you for your patience.

2008-12-29 PowerSchool is back online

Early this morning, PowerSchool came back online after four days of processing database schema updates required for the upgrade to version 5.1.3.

(Tips of the hat to Mike Way of CESA 5 support who worked on this over break, including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the weekend, and to Chris Brown for his preliminary testing and ongoing support.)

The schema update should not have taken that long (even though Chris told us to expect that it would); PS Support is investigating the cause.

The server is now at version 5.1.3. Our hope was to be fully upgraded to 5.2.1 by the end of break, so we are evaluating options and tentatively planning to perform the upgrade on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Another post will confirm any planned downtime for the additional upgrade.

Thanks for your patience.