We've helped hundreds of districts implement SameGoal successfully with a 99%+ annual retention rate.
We are excited to have you join our community!
Below are standard implementation steps we recommend districts consider and which we go through on a typical implementation planning call. Many are quick, can be done in parallel and/or are optional.
How fast or slow your implementation goes is typically up to your district. We've done lightning speed setups one day with training the next, while some are planned over the course of a year. No matter your district's situation, we are dedicated to working with your district team to help ensure your implementation is successful.
Implementation Steps
- Planning call
- Environment creation
- Authentication
- Bulk load users
- SIS integration
- PDF migration
- Bulk load key program data
- Medicaid integration
- TestHound integration
- Other third party integrations
- District banks
- Training
- Transition to general support
Let's meet. On your planning call (typically 60 mins over Google Meets/Zoom), we'll:
- Discuss each implementation step
- Identify district and SameGoal stakeholders best suited to complete each step
- Set key dates and timelines required for a successful implementation
During the call, your implementation team will document the discussion and next steps. We'll get started by identifying:
- Special program teams going live on SameGoal
- District desired go-live date(s)
- Possible district training/PD dates
- Contract and/or access termination date for prior vendor
- Any other key district constraints/considerations
Please invite any key district staff that will help with implementation, including member(s) of your technical team that may be involved. As needed, we will schedule follow-up technical calls, but it is helpful to have both special programs and technical staff jointly set implementation expectations and timelines from the jump.
Confirm your district's email domain. The unique identifier for your district's SameGoal environment is the district email domain you provide (eg applegrove.k12.ca.us).
Once confirmed, we will create your district's SameGoal environment, as well as user accounts for key district staff involved in implementation. New users will receive an email once their account is created. To login:
- Your district-specific login URL after setup will be http://samegoal.com/a/domain (eg https://samegoal.com/a/applegrove.k12.ca.us)
- Staff can also always login by clicking the "Sign In" button on samegoal.com in the top right, then select the district in the district directory.
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Optionally create a district-specific
login page link with our logo for your district website that's easy to spot.
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If your district uses ClassLink, users will login by clicking the SameGoal app icon on their LaunchPad.
Decide how district users will authenticate. We recommend districts use single sign-on (SSO) or LDAP/Active Directory to streamline user authentication when possible. SameGoal supports:
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If your district uses a different OpenID Connect identity provider than listed above, SSO should work "out-of-the-box" provided the IP follows the OpenID specification.
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Many districts contract with outside providers that do not have a district email address and/or are not in the district's authentication scheme. These users can be added to SameGoal, and set to authenticate with a password instead. They do not need to be added to your authentication server.
Prepare to add users. Users can be manually added in the web interface at any time. However, it is usually helpful to bulk load users during implementation. To bulk load users:
- Make a copy of the samegoal-user-loader-spreadsheet and populate it.
- Share/return this spreadsheet to your SameGoal implementation coordinator.
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You may add an unlimited number of users. This can optionally include general education staff.
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Users typically should not be loaded until after student demographics integration is setup and students are populated into your environment. This helps ensure users are assigned buildings which match students in your student information system (SIS).
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When users are loaded, they receive an email immediately which provides access. For this reason, we typically wait until the day of or day before training to run this bulk load (prepped in advance).
Automated account provisioning is also available.
Setup SIS integration. SameGoal can integrate with student information systems (SISes) in three main ways:
- Demographics integration (SIS -> SameGoal)
- Alerts/document viewer integration (SameGoal -> SIS)
- State reporting integration (SameGoal -> SIS)
Integration methods available vary by SIS. Your implementation team will be able to provide feedback/options as needed.
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Setup demographics integration first. Most other implementation steps block on having student demographics loaded into your environment. The remaining two integration methods are optional, and can be enabled at a later date.
Historical PDFs. SameGoal can automatically bulk import PDFs from your prior system. Depending on your prior vendor(s) and district size, your implementation team can recommend the best options for getting exported PDFs from your prior system loaded into SameGoal. Typical steps include:
- Set a date by which all documents will be completed/finalized in your prior system.
- Extract PDFs from your prior system.
- Bulk import these PDFs into SameGoal. See PDF directory and naming conventions
- Required. Download and/or move extracted PDFs to a district location for long-term storage. Not all PDFs imported will be associated with a student in SameGoal when imported (eg if no matching student is found).
Tips regarding PDF association:
- The bulk PDF importer attempts to associate PDFs with students already in SameGoal.
- It will not create students in SameGoal if they do not already exist.
- For this reason, a demographics integration must first be setup with your SIS before PDF import.
- Because most SISes send information for students enrolled in the current school year, PDF association "out-of-the-box" will only attach PDFs to students enrolled during the current school year.
- Optional. If you wish to bulk load PDFs for students not enrolled during the current school year, you can optionally do a one-time bulk load of historical students. To do so, populate students.csv with only required fields populated (see spec). For District Enrollment, you may set INACTIVE. This file can be imported by visiting Settings > Bulk Loader using an administrator account.
Each PDF will be uploaded to the student as an "Upload" document (owner will be archives). The original PDF will appear as an attachment to this document. Users may review and copy/paste from these PDFs as necessary. They may also star these documents to identify the most important ones to them, thereby placing these documents on their caseload and the associated students on their "My Students" list.
Bootstrap your environment. "Key program data" from your prior system can be loaded into SameGoal when provided in the format shared during your planning call. Loading this data is optional, but can be a helpful way to bootstrap the system. This data:
- Creates "stub" documents in SameGoal
- Stub documents "badge" students as participating in each Special Program
- Stub documents set annual and triennial deadlines
- Each stub document can be assigned to a particular user (owner) during load
- The user is assigned deadlines going forward for the student for that category of program documentation
- The stub document is automatically starred and placed on the user's caseload
Additionally, other users that work with the student can star these documents, thereby placing these documents on their caseload and the associated students on their "My Students" list. The data in these documents is also "live" and included in reports.
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Typically, key program data can be extracted from administrative reports in your prior system.
Integrate Medicaid information. SameGoal partners and integrates with Medicaid billing providers. To setup integration:
- Sign and return the Data Sharing Agreement provided to you
- Your implementation team will initialize a data export
- Approve the API access email you receive for data export
- Confirm "cutover" date (date on or after document data should begin flowing)
- Turn off the data feed from prior system to your Medicaid vendor
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No district IT assistance is required.
Integrate testing accommodations. SameGoal partners and integrates with TestHound, a testing coordination software vendor. To setup integration:
- Sign and return the Data Sharing Agreement provided to you
- Your implementation team will initialize a data export
- Approve the API access email you receive for data export
- Confirm "cutover" date (date on or after document data should begin flowing)
- Turn off the data feed from prior system to your Medicaid vendor
- District assessment coordinator maps accommodations from SameGoal
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No district IT assistance is required.
Integrate other third-party applications. This is not too common, but every now and then districts have additional third-party applications they wish to sync data from SameGoal to. The SameGoal API:
- Exposes each report as an API endpoint
- This endpoint can be configured to send CSV (and/or JSON) files over SFTP nightly (most common API use)
- This endpoint can also be accessed at any time (REST-based API)
Your implementation team may be able to suggest/recommend the best API configuration for a particular integration/vendor.
Help staff along. SameGoal allows districts to create district banks and default templates which auto-populate into fields when a document is created. While optional, populating district banks and templates (at least a few) helps users:
- See district content/language they are familiar with in a new program
- Better see how their previous processes will map into SameGoal
- Better understand district content expectations and process improvements
- Recognize and appreciate district admin staff buy-in to making the program successful
- See how authoring documents in SameGoal will save them time
Your implementation team may share example bank values and templates other districts in your state have agreed to make available.
Exciting! This is the time to share with your staff:
- Why the district is moving to SameGoal
- How to perform all the basic actions and workflows in SameGoal (SameGoal trainer)
- How prior district processes map into SameGoal (and/or what you're still figuring out) (district staff member)
- Additional opportunities/avenues to learn more and get support
Trainings work best when briefly opened by a district staff member, then passed to a SameGoal trainer. The SameGoal trainer will lead users through software training, but the district staff member may interject when helpful how a prior district process will now be handled in SameGoal and/or to answer district-specific questions.
Format: Training can be scheduled:
- In-person
- Remotely
- In either format as train-the-trainer
Time: In general, and if your PD time allows, we recommend:
- ~2-2.5 hr sessions per role for Special Education, ~1.5-2 hr sessions for roles in other special programs
- An additional ~1.5-2 hr session for admins (assuming they also attend a non-admin training for staff they oversee)
- Leaving the last 15-30 minutes of each training open for questions (also provides some flexibility in scheduling)
- That said, we can generally work within the time constraints your district has available if more limited
Number of attendees: We can perform trainings for staff of any size.
- In person: Number of attendees recommended depends on school facilities available. Attendees should have space and power available to work comfortably. Typically, in-person trainings of up to 40-50 staff require one trainer, whereas a training in a gym with 100 attendees requires at least two.
- Remote: Unlimited attendees. When large group sizes are expected, an additional SameGoal trainer will attend to assist with chat/questions.
Expectations: All attendees should plan to bring a laptop and work in the software during the session.
- Attendees are typically assigned a training student to work with.
- Near the end of training, attendees will work with/verify real students and documents they work with.
- Training students can remain in the environment as long as desired, and be deleted by the district at any time.
Cancellations: Trainings cancelled less than 24 hours in advance are non-refundable or transferrable.
Minimum training requirements: It's great when districts can complete all implementation steps prior to training. That said, we know sometimes things just get busy for districts. As long as we have an environment created and can add user accounts prior to training (or at the door), training can be conducted in your environment with training students.
After your district has completed training, your SameGoal implementation team will continue to check in over the course of your first several months to ensure everything is running smoothly. Additional avenues of ongoing support available to all district users include:
- Daily helpdesk
- Online guides
- In-app notifications of program updates
- Blog descriptions of updates
- Events (online fall/spring refresher trainings and product update webinars) (must be logged in to access)