Date:

To:

From:

Subject:

September 23 , 2010

BOCES State Aid Designees

BOCES SAMS Project Team

BOCES SAMS Deployment

 

Dear Colleagues:

The BOCES SAMS Financial System has been deployed! Please read this release memo carefully before submitting your data.

General Submission Information

  1. Please submit all of the following as soon as possible:
    • 2008-09 school year data (2009-10 claim)
    • 2009-10 school year data (2010-11 claim)
    • 2010-11 school year projections for estimated 2011-12 aid.

  2. Immediate submission is needed so that we can resolve substantive problems before November 1st, in time to include reasonable claim and projection data in the November 15th frozen data file used by the executive to develop the executive budget proposal. Remember: November 15th projection data is extremely important!

  3. Remember: the BOCES SAMS Financial System User Manual provides detailed instructions, as well as other important information about the system. The manual is available on our website and a word version accompanies this release e-mail.

  4. Not all the features/ reports available to you at this time on the menus are functioning 100% correctly. We are continuing to make corrections and updates. We appreciate your patience and your time over the next several weeks as we work together toward accurate aid and projections for your BOCES.

  5. Loading your data into SAMS the first time will take a long time, possibly more than an hour. We are continuing to work on performance in various areas of the system. Thank you for your patience. (Subsequent submissions containing revisions should take less time to load.)

  6. All problems and questions should be reported to us via email at omssams@mail.nysed.gov. This link is available on the top right of the SAMS screen. Please include your phone number and extension in the e-mail. Please do not hesitate to contact us!

Specific Submission Information

Please follow the instructions below, some of which reference specific units of the training manual. (Instructions that apply only to WinCap BOCES are identified.)

  1. (Wincap only) Create a fresh 2009-10 Claim Year (08-09 School Year) BOxxxxxx.XML data file from WinCap.

  2. Login to SAMS from http://portal.nysed.gov (or from the State Aid Web site https://stateaid.nysed.gov/) using your userid and password. (Unit 1).

  3. Change BACK to 2009-10 Claim Year, and click "Set Values" – IMPORTANT!

  4. Import your BOxxxxxx.XML data file into the Official Data area (please be patient – see Unit 2). Be sure to enter your email address on the Import Screen - SAMS will email the import report back to this address.

  5. Examine the Import Results. If errors exist that can be corrected on your end, fix your data, recreate the 09-10 Claim Year file and again Import the BOxxxxxx.XML file into SAMS Official Data area until you are "reasonably satisfied" with the results. We do not expect files to load without some minor issues (Unit 2). In addition, there may be many lines of error messages associated with the same error, all of which will disappear when the error is addressed. If you experience critical errors, please contact us at the OMSSAMS email address right away. If you are having trouble understanding the problem associated with the error message, we can assist you.

  6. Examine the forms and schedules to confirm data completeness and accuracy. We suggest opening all the various forms and schedules affecting aid for several aidable PSNs, making sure for example that if you submitted a miscellaneous deduction form amount that it is appearing on that form, that Schedule X information is displayed correctly, etc.

  7. Use the SA111 report available on the menu to verify that SAMS contains Schedule 4 data for every CoSer (provided and purchased) for which you claimed 2009-10 BOCES Aid. (Unit 3). Depending on the choices you make to view this report, you can look at a Schedule 4 page for a single service, or you can look at the summary page for a service area. It is likely that "missing" services correspond to unresolved validation error messages.

  8. Run the Edit Report (Unit 6) and peruse the results. Due to issues we have not yet addressed, many of the edit exceptions at this point in time may not be due to your data errors. However, it will be useful to become familiar with how the edit report functions; e.g., try looking at PSN level report links associated with service area edits. Feel free to enter comments for edits that are clear to you, and questions if you don't understand the intent of the edit. Again, do not worry about the actual results of the edits at this time. We will work with each BOCES to clean up any critical issues before November 1st. (NOTE: SAMS is designed so that you must run the edit report before you can certify your submission.)

  9. View some component output reports for your districts. We believe that this report is currently calculating correctly for each service area for the current aid year. Reviewing this report may help you identify some problem areas with your data. For the 09-10 claim year, you can also compare the results of this report with the actual 09-10 CMP report  posted on the State Aid website.

  10. To certify your submission, mark the Edit Report as READY - very important. The BOCES District Superintendent account can not Certify and Submit the data to SED until the edit report is marked as Ready. (NOTE: Although this step is required to submit the data to SED, you may wish to hold off on certification until major issues have been resolved. Because this is a web-based system, we have access to your data and your validation report and can work with you to resolve problems even though you have not yet certified.)

  11. Request that your District Superintendent login to SAMS with their own User Id and password (only the Superintendent can Certify data) (Unit 5).

  12. The Superintendent will need to Choose Certify and Submit from the Official Data area form tree (Unit 5).

  13. Confirm that the Activity log reflects the Certified data state (only the Edit Report will be marked as Certified, the actual Certification form will only say “Saved”) (Unit 9). You may continue to use your own BOCES Entity User Id for access to SAMS after Certification. Superintendent sign on is only necessary to Certify data and not needed to submit future revisions.

  14. After Certification, please follow instructions for the revision process to resubmit your file. (Unit 7).

After you have completed the above tasks for the 2009-10 Claim Year, please create a 2010-11 Claim Year (09-10 School Year) BOxxxxxx.XML file (see step 1) and repeat the above process for the 2010-11 Claim. You will need to change to the 2010-11 Claim Year, and click "Set Values" before you import and work with your 2010-11 claim year data.


Additional Important Information

  1. SAMS can only accept and process financial data for unique PSNs. We are aware that some BOCES assign the same PSN/state activity code to more than one service, in particular where cross contracts are involved. In these instances, SAMS will only accept one of the two records. To include both services in SAMS, and where appropriate to receive aid for both services, these BOCES will most likely need to assign a unique PSN to each service.

Please look for additional communication from us on this issue in the near future, but do not take any action at this time. Based on our analysis, there are not that many occurrences of duplicate PSNs in the BOCES that use this method. Therefore, we do not anticipate that this problem will significantly affect aid calculations and projections.

  1. It is critical that each BOCES immediately enter all their 2009-10 school year cross contracts into the Coser system. In many instances, BOCES purchasing services from you will not be able to claim aid for that service in SAMS if you do not enter the service you are providing on your form. As purchasers, please make sure purchaser PSNs are entered for all cross contracted services appearing on the bottom portion of your cross contract forms, but do not enter any PSNs that reflect services you provide and that appear on your LAS. Please note that we are working on ways to improve this process, but no changes will be implemented in the short term.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and time in the coming weeks. While it will certainly be a trying experience, we are confident that when all issues are resolved, we have a new system that will be easier to use, more accurate and more informative. Please communicate with us early and often!

Last Updated: August 11, 2017