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May 2020 | Issue #91
 
Current Releases:   SM  8.0.087 (5/4) |  AW   3.5.058 (04/29)
ACEware Systems Newsletter - Information to Run Your Program
Welcome Back, Cheryl!
On March 22nd, 2018, ACEware Systems lost a family member.  We are happy to report that this family member is returning! Cheryl Scott will officially report to the cabin for her first day back on May 20th, 2020!

Prior to leaving, Cheryl spent  16+ years as a technician, technical write r, webmaster, and tester. While she has been keeping up with us by reading the newsletter every month, she will spend her first week or so back to catch up on all the latest and greatest developments she has missed in Student Manager and ACEweb. Cheryl will return to her role as Technician around June 1. She'll also be in charge of keeping the demo updated, write help topics (a role she excelled at before), and maintain training guides. Cheryl will be working part time, Monday - Thursday, 9a-6p. You can email her at [email protected] and her extension is 215.

What have Cheryl and her husband been up to while she has been gone? Here is what she said:
"For the last 2 years we volunteered our time (set up through our church) working on a cattle ranch in Nevada.  The proceeds from the ranch are used to supply food banks all over the world. Our main responsibilities were to take water and minerals out to the cattle in the desert pastures.  We also fixed fences and water lines when they broke, helped gather cattle for testing and vaccinating, wean and brand calves, and take them to market.  It was a lot of work but very rewarding!"

Welcome back, Cheryl! You've been missed!

Contributed by Matthew Olson (with a little help from Cheryl Scott)
 ACEware Employees No Longer Work in their Pajamas
shirt_and_tie.jpg
Last month, I reported that ACEware Technicians were working in their pajamas to keep themselves safe at home while still supporting our great customers. With restrictions being lifted in phases on the Kansas Stay-at-Home order, the cabin is opening up. Most employees are back now and the rest plan to return soon.

The cabin never completely closed; we operated on limited staff onsite to keep servers and desktops up and running. Everyone else was doing their support, testing, development, etc. from home.

On behalf of all of us, we thank you, our customers, for bearing with us during this weird time. Without you, we wouldn't be here, and you used this time to think outside the box and generate some great ideas for new features. We hope we have met your needs for the most part even though some ideas we'll hold onto until after we get the more time sensitive things done.

Contributed by Matthew Olson
June 1-5 - A Week of Learning and Sharing
Last month you responded with the topics you want offered during our 2020 week of learning and sharing. We reviewed your requests and you can see the final schedule here!  A brief summary of the week:

 Monday - Thursday 
10:30 AM CT: Customer choice topic specific to  Student Manager
  1:30 PM CT: Customer sharing session
  3:00 PM CT: Customer choice topic specific to ACEweb

Special Sessions:
Wednesday and Thursday at 12:00 CT: Open Forums with ACEware representatives! This is your chance to ask any questions (related to ACEware that is) and receive a response.

Friday at 10:30 AM CT: ACEware Integrations in New Learning Environments. This session will highlight the innovative ideas we see in programs and how ACEware is helping. We'll showcase best practices in Zoom setup, review existing integrations, and more.  

Our customer sharing sessions include:  
  • Why Bother with Student Manager Standard Operating Procedures? - Amy Littleton, Tri-County Technical College.
  • Using Pocket Ledger in Student Manager - Brittany Thomasson, Auburn University at Montgomery
  • Cashbox Reconciliation - Sara Patterson, Lewis-Clark State College
  • Coding for Success - Maxie Starr Flores, University of Texas at El Paso
  • Course Packaging:  The Total Package - Jonathan Watkins, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
We look forward to seeing you (virtually, at least) during our 2020 week of learning and sharing!

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire
Survey Says... 
In April we asked you to share how you were navigating your program through the pandemic. We had hoped for a larger response, but perhaps it was just too soon! If you can respond now, please do so here!

When having to cancel courses, here's how you managed finances. We are glad that the escrow support was useful and used in many cases.
  • Classes in progress received a credit for classes missed OR students could donate the course fees.
  • We offered prorated refunds for classes near completion.
With institutional closings and stay-at-home orders in place, you all have pivoted to online delivery methods. The tools being used for course delivery include:
  • Zoom is the "other" tool you are using.  ACEware has been working with several Zoom course providers to establish unique classrooms. The Friday morning session of our virtual conference will share some of the Zoom best practices.
When asked about partnering with third party content providers to increase your course offerings we saw the following responses:
  • JER
  • CareerStep
It appears summer plans were still under consideration at the time of the survey.
  • Other comments indicated that eyes were on July as a possible date for courses to resume with additional precautions in place.

There is plenty of hope for the fall semester.  
 
It's a trying time to be sure, but there are silver linings! Increases in funding, campus collaboration, and new distance students we are few positive results!
  • Increased interest in offering customized training online to employees sheltering-in-place.
  • Increased learning about distance delivery.
  • Main campus asking Continuing Education for support!
Thank you for all your very positive comments on how ACEware has helped you during this time.  We care and want you to continue to reach out!  

Contributed by Sharon Brookshire
Tip of the Month:  ACEweb Document Uploads
Your students have the ability to upload documents and pictures either during the registration process, or from their profile page on ACEweb.

Clicking "Attachments" will take you to the upload page:

If you have a newer copy of person.awp, then this link is already embedded (but disabled) on your template. Simply change the ".F" to ".T" on the following line:

<% IF .F. %><%= HREF('Attachments'+mapExt+'?atto='+This.Page.oName.oData.nmID,'Attachments','onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;"')%><span class="separator"></span><% ENDIF %>

You can also include this link on the enrollment card template (XEnrollcard.htm) or a supplemental data capture page!

In the current version of the attachments feature, the attachments are stored in a subfolder within Student Manager called namedocs . Each person will have a folder within which uses their ID # (nmid) as the folder name.

Those files can also be accessed from within Student Manager on the name record > Additional Info tab by clicking the "Additional Documents" button:

Remember our webinar about document uploads next Thursday at 2:00 PM CT!
Contributed by Jason Allen
Report of the Month: AW STORM Receipts
I can't help it--I'm so excited about this, I have to share it even though it isn't quite available yet! It'll be ready next month, and Jason will be showing this in his What's New in ACEweb session. I am talking about students being able to print receipts from ACEweb with the AW STORM (ACEWeb STudent Online Reporting Module).

I've also been working on a base template for you to import into your system that will be used with this feature in ACEweb (download available with the release). For students to access it, they will go to the Payment Status page and will see buttons next to their fully paid registrations to launch the receipt:
Thank you, Stein, for helping me make this button.

When the student clicks the receipt button, they then see something like:

How cool is that? And it is editable in Student Manager!

If you don't have AW STORM, you are already missing out on students having the ability to  self download certificates and transcripts. Now there will be one less thing students need to get from you!  Be ready to jump on this when it is released in June!

Contributed by Matthew Olson

Keep your peace of mind and wash those hands!  To your continued success!

- Chuck, Sharon, Cheryl, Jason, Joe, Lindsey, Matthew, Mike, Stein, and Susan

 ACEware Systems
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7480 Dyer Road
Manhattan, KS 66502

 

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