On your Home page, you’ll need to click on the Auto Pilot Alert. The Auto Pilot box will be red when there are new accommodation updates that need to be approved. The number beside the alert will tell you how many students are in the alert that need to be approved.

The Auto Pilot Alert box will be green when all accommodation updates have been approved and there are no new accommodation updates are pending.

Clicking the Auto Pilot Alert title will show you all students with pending accommodations as well as Last Ran information for all vendor files associated with Auto Pilot for your district. The Auto Pilot - Last Ran message will tell the campus user when there is a mapping error that needs to be corrected at the district level.  The Last Ran message box will tell you which map(s) has the error so you can communicate with your DTC. Mapping errors are new external subject or associations at the district level that need to be associated with TestHound Accommodations. The mapping and publishing process has to be completed at the district level before campus users will see updated accommodation data.

Click “View” next to the individual student entry. Do not click “Approve All” as this will approve all changes to all students at once. You can print this page before you make any changes if you’d like. Producing a Master Accommodations Report is a great way to verify all student accommodations after the verification process.

Be sure to look at the items highlighted in GREEN. These are the accommodations that are being added to this student from your accommodation management system. Check these with the information provided by the program leads on your campus.

Items highlighted in RED are accommodations that are NOT in the accommodation file. These will be removed when the accommodations are approved. Check these with the information provided by the program leads at your campus. 

If there is no change on a specific accommodation, you will see a checkmark next to the accommodation and it will not be highlighted at all.

Moving the mouse cursor over a green highlighted or checked accommodation will identify the map the data is coming from (i.e. eSped, SuccessEd, Skyward, etc.)

Important note: If you are not seeing accommodations that should be associated with your student, notify your DTC so that he/she can check the current mapping configurations for Auto Pilot. Also, any accommodations that are not locked, archived, etc. will not be sent by the vendor via the file.

Accommodations and notes can be approved for all students at once or on a student-by-student basis.

Approving All Accommodation Updates

Begin by clicking on the red highlighted Auto Pilot Alert on your campus home page. You will see a list of all students with Pending Accommodation Updates and an Approve All link at the top of that student box if the DTC has enabled the approve all function.  If not, you will not see the Approve All link and will need to contact your DTC or approve each student individually using the View link.

When you click the Approve All link, you will receive an APPROVING STUDENT ACCOMMODATIONS alert. Clicking Submit will approve all changes which include new (green) and removed (red) accommodations and any vendor notes. IMPORTANT NOTE: After clicking submit, changes cannot be undone. It is important to view and verify all student accommodations prior to approval.

The Approve All feature is only available if it has been enabled by your DTC in the district Auto Pilot interface. Contact your DTC for Approval All access.

Approving Accommodations for Individual Students

Begin by clicking on the red highlighted Auto Pilot Alert on your campus home page. You will see a list of all students with Pending Accommodation Updates. Each student will have a clickable View link to the right of their name. Clicking that link will take you to that specific student's pending accommodation page.

You can view all accommodations for a student or approve accommodations by subject. The individual student page will default to the ALL Acc tab. Clicking Approve All while on the ALL Acc tab on the student page will approve all accommodations in every subject for the student.

Once you have verified the Auto Pilot accommodations in TestHound with your Accommodations Spreadsheet or Master Accommodations report for this student, you can click Approve All. It is not necessary to check or un-check the individual highlighted boxes. TestHound will do this for you upon clicking the Approve All link.

You can click on the Next icon to move directly to the next student in the alert list.

The Removed from AP alert is an alert that is given at the campus level when a student who has been in the Auto Pilot file, is no longer in the file.   The campus can then check to see what the reason is.  Perhaps they have withdrawn, moved to another campus in the district, or have had accommodations removed from the vendor program.  If the campus deems it necessary to remove the accommodations in TestHound, the user can check the box beside the student's name and choose "confirm checked" at the bottom of the alert, and TestHound will remove the accommodations.  This cannot be undone.  Student status and accommodations should be verified in the vendor program to ensure the accommodations do, in fact, need to be removed.  Once removed, the accommodations would have to be entered back in manually or when the vendor file runs again.  This list can also be downloaded for reference using the download icon beside the confirm all button.  Once a student has been confirmed, they will no longer show up on the list.

How to Troubleshoot Campus Accommodations

Download the following document with steps to assist in Troubleshooting Auto Pilot Accommodations.

The following steps should be completed when trying to troubleshoot accommodation issues.
Campuses should check their Auto Pilot alert to be sure you have viewed/accepted the student accommodations alerts.

If all pending updates have been approved, the alert will be green. If problems still exist, campus users should contact the DTC.

At the district level, the DTC will verify that the vendor file ran and if there is a mapping error to be corrected.  After the mappings have been done and published at the district level, campuses will get a new red AP alert.

If accommodations are still not showing correctly, the DTC should check the mappings to see if there is an accommodation mapped incorrectly. If so, it can be deleted using the trash can icon and remapped to the correct accommodation. (It must be deleted for all the subjects associated with the specific mapping). After fixing problems, the DTC will need to evaluate and publish again. Campuses should check their alerts.

If you still have accommodations not showing, or showing incorrectly, the file can be pulled at the district level to see exactly what was sent by the vendor. 

Still, having issues? Please email support@testhound.com or go to the help tab and submit a ticket with detailed information, campus, student ID, and problematic accommodation.

Districts that do have have the Auto Pilot Toolkit or who have a population of students not housed in an accommodations vendor through Auto Pilot can manually enter accommodations for students by clicking on the triangle next to the student's name.

Choose the appropriate subject for the accommodations from the subject drop-down menu. You will see a listing of subjects pertaining to your campus grade levels and courses.

Click in the box next to the appropriate accommodation specific to the student. The screen will flash indicating the accommodation change has been saved.

Notes may be entered in the "notes" box at the top of the accommodation page.

Important note: If your district is using Auto Pilot and student accommodations are uploaded via vendor file, additional accommodations should NOT be entered manually for those students. Any accommodations that do not match the accommodations in the file will be flagged red for removal. Approving red accommodations will remove those associations for the student.  Your DTC may have the option for adding accommodations manually for Auto Pilot students disabled and you will not be able to add them.  If you need to add manual accommodations and are unable to, check with your DTC.

If you’d like to add more notes to a student’s accommodations, you can click Manual Accommodations from the Auto Pilot menu or click the Students triangle from the main student menu. 

It is important to understand that you cannot change the notes that come to your district file via Auto Pilot.  You can however enter your own custom notes that are in addition to the Auto Pilot notes.  Adding custom notes will not cause you to be out of sync with the district upload.

When finished entering notes, clicking outside the box will save your entry and then you can go back to the Auto Pilot page.

When on the student triangle page, what you add will save when you click outside the notes box and you can then navigate to another page as needed.

TestHound utilizes three types of accommodation notes:

1. Manually entered notes: Notes are manually added to a student on a subject-by-subject basis, typically by a campus admin or specialist. These are referred to as custom notes. They can be included in accommodation reports

2. Auto Pilot notes: Notes created by a district admin during the process of building the specific map. The note is associated with an individual association and is applied to every student that gets that specific accommodation. These can also be chosen to show on accommodation reports.

3. Vendor notes: Notes that are included in the vendor Auto Pilot file, are assigned to a specific student on a per-subject basis. Not all vendors send their notes in the files. There are two types of vendor notes.

   1. The vendor can send a student note on a per-accommodation basis. In this case, each accommodation note for a specific subject is concatenated into a single string and assigned to the student on a per-subject basis.

   2. The vendor can send a single note for a student on a per-subject basis. In this case, the record in the file will contain DistrictID, CampusID, StudentID, Subject, and the Note. The Accommodation field will be left blank.

   3. Vendor and AP notes show above the Notes box on a student’s accommodation triangle page.