Please ask your staff and coworkers to sign up for our GovDelivery notifications. This will ensure they receive the latest updates about the ESIT DMS system as well as our monthly Known Issues Document.
In the month of December 2022 ESIT Help Desk staff processed 111 data fixes and 308 administrative changes in the DMS. We also processed 233 requests to give school districts access to IFSPs, based on written parent consent retained on file in the local provider agency. If your program is implementing changes and you can anticipate that administrative changes in child records will be required, please notify the ESIT Help Desk ahead of time so we can anticipate the influx in requests.
When reporting errors to the Help Desk, please include the child ID or the child’s DOB and the first two initials of the child’s first and last name in the subject line of your email. Screenshots are also helpful to problem-solve issues where error messages are displayed. Inquiries to the Help Desk email inbox and messages through the DMS have the fastest turnaround.
Please note that our average turnaround time for your request is 24 business hours. Please send Help Desk requests directly to esit.help@dcyf.wa.gov to ensure that we can answer your questions as soon as possible. Emails sent to our staff directly may go unanswered if staff is away from their computer or out of the office.
The easiest and fastest way to request access to a child record for a school district is via email to esit.help@dcyf.wa.gov .You can list multiple child records in the same email and you do not need to specify which district needs access (this is automatic based on the district that is assigned in the child record).
The compliance period for FFY 2022 (July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023) is from January 1-March 31, 2023. During this time, we will pull reports for Indicators C1, C7 and C8 (compliance indicators) from the DMS and vet them for accurate data entry. Users can be proactive in anticipation of the upcoming compliance period and ensure that all data is entered accurately and in a timely manner. If data fixes are needed, these should be requested as soon as possible to allow time for the work to be completed prior to the beginning of our compliance monitoring work. Users have access to the federal indicator reports in the DMS and can pull the data at any time. For assistance with accessing the reports, please contact the ESIT Help Desk.
There are many sections in our data management system that require users to enter text. To save time, many users copy and paste the text they need to enter from Word documents. This can create errors in the DMS because the system cannot process the paragraphs and special characters used in Word documents. Here are a couple of tips to avoid errors in the system:
- Copy from your Word document to Microsoft Notepad before copying to the DMS. The Word text will show as a plain text in Notepad and make it “safe” for the DMS.
- Avoid using special characters like bullet points, emojis, and the following signs “, @, #, $, ^, &, *, /
We absolutely understand that mistakes happen! Data entry often happens at the end of the month and often times we have to rush to get the work completed on time. The Help Desk tries to be very responsive but certain data entry errors require data fixes from our program developer which can sometimes take several days to complete. To avoid inaccurate billing counts or other challenges, we suggest Users take a couple of extra minutes to double check your data entry for accuracy. Here are some common data fields you may want to double-check before submitting any data in the DMS:
1) Child Name 2) Correct IFSP issue date 3) Correct Address 4) All providers added to the IFSP and Evaluation Team? 5) All services and outcomes included?
If you do initially overlook a needed correction, please contact the Help Desk as soon as possible to request the data fix.
When a child referral is received, it needs to be entered in the system before an evaluation takes place. Once the child is evaluated, the evaluation should be entered in the DMS, regardless of the eligibility decision. An initial IFSP has to be issued within 45 days from receipt of the referral. A review IFSP is issued every 6 months, and an annual IFSP is due 1 year after the initial IFSP was issued. Review IFSPs can be issued as needed throughout the year but the annual IFSP requirement does not change.
Issuing a review IFSP multiple times throughout the year could lead to glitches in the DMS that will overwrite the annual IFSP task. Please create a manual task reminder for the annual IFSP due date to avoid missed deadlines.
Our lean but effective team works on data fixes once a week and releases the script into our production environment after we have tested it to make sure the changes are correctly implemented. Some data fixes can take our developer multiple hours to complete. We try to be mindful to schedule all data fixes in priority order and our goal is to complete them within seven business days of receipt. The FRC will receive an email or DMS message once the data correction is visible in our system.
For Assistance with ESIT DMS, email esit.help@dcyf.wa.gov.
- This is the most efficient way to get in the queue for assistance.
- Send a description of your problem and include the child ID.
- In some cases, it may be helpful to send a screenshot.
- You may send a message directly through ESIT DMS if you do not need to attach screenshots to resolve the issue.
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