nySTART Performance Guidelines and Benchmarks
GUIDELINES/KNOWN ISSUES:
Tested/Not
Tested || AVRs (Accountability
Verification) || Interactive
Reports ("Guided Analysis")
TOOLS/TIPS:
Benchmarking Form (Excel file) || Benchmarking Timer || nySTART
Tips
Performance Guidelines are intended to provide general estimates for report return times and specific known issues for various report sets. You may want to Bookmark this page (and the nySTART Tips page) and keep a browser window open with these pages in the background while you work in nySTART. This will allow you to refer back to them to determine whether or not to retry a report or use a workaround.
Review your technical settings (see nySTART Tips page) for optimal capacity to run and download reports, consult benchmarks for the reports you plan to run (an Excel form with sample data and data collection format is available above), and use the timer (the link above will open the timer application in a new window) to either track the elapsed time that the report has been running or count down the expected time (based on the posted benchmarks.)
Performance guidelines may be dependent on:
- Business rules, which vary for each report;
- Number of records per page (and/or total pages);
- User type (for example, district-level users can experience longer run-times than school-level users);
- Report drill-through level (for example, depending on the report, any drill-through level—district or school summary, subgroup summary, or student detail—may run longer than the other two);
- Population represented (while some reports are directly proportionate to the population returned, others are not significantly influenced by the number of records);
- Format of the report (default HTML on-screen report versus the .PDF or .XLS file download—if available); and
- File generation process (dynamically generated Verification Reports reports take longer, as a query must first be processed, returned, then formatted in the chosen file type—HTML, PDF or XLS; static reports, on the other hand—Report Cards, Summary Reports and ISRs—have been previously created and are already available for download.)
The default report view on nySTART is HTML (Web/onscreen version.) PDF and Excel (.XLS) file download options may also be available (primarily for Verification Reports.) The two main categories of reports are Assessment Reports (including Interactive Reports, aka "Guided Analysis") and Verification Reports. Each is displayed to the screen somewhat differently:
- Assessment Reports: All default (HTML) Interactive Reports are populated within the same browser window (using java), however all file downloads (.PDF, .XLS) open in a new window;
- Verification Reports: Each default (HTML) Verification Report opens in a new window (using Cognos ReportNet), however all file downloads (.PDF, .XLS) are populated within the same window.
AVRs (Accountability Verification Reports)
- Excel (.XLS) file downloads for AVR reports do not return.
Workarounds:
~ Use the PDF option to capture a downloadable file.
~ You may also go to our Tips and Help page to see how to manually create an Excel file.
- The AVR student detail ("C") reports may exhibit much longer return times when accessed by
district-level as compared to school-level account-holders. District-level users may need 20
minutes or more on large populations (and even 4-5m on smaller
populations), whereas—by contrast—school-level account-holders rarely experience times beyond the 2-3m mark (and most come in under one
minute.)
RECOMMENDATION:
Districts should use school-level accounts wherever practical to retrieve student detail reports for Grades 3-8 and High School AVRs. Districts who manage their school-level nySTART accounts may wish to create a Regular Staff-level account for this purpose; other districts may ask their school-level nySTART Administrator to create such an account for this purpose.
- PDF files for the AVR student detail ("C" reports)
generate at approximately 115 students per minute. Please use
this benchmark when estimating how long it may take to return
a student detail PDF.
- If the AVR student report you are attempting has a population of 1,179 simply divide by 115 and the result (~10.25) is an estimate of ten and a quarter minutes. You may wish to "pad" this estimate somewhat and give the report 11 or even 12 minutes to return.
- Use the benchmarking timer in count down mode to alert you when your estimated time has elapsed. (Open the timer in its own window, and follow the instructions for counting down. If your computer's sound is turned on, the timer should alert you when it reaches zero.
T/NT (Tested/Not Tested) reports
- PDFs do not generate for student detail ("C" report )
file downloads.
Workaround:
Please use Excel downloads. XLS files return consistently in 1-2 minutes.
Interactive Reports ("Guided Analysis")
- Most HTML Interactive Reports ("Guided Analysis") run in less than 30 seconds, but school level summaries may take 1-2 minutes.
For questions about nySTART reports or data, contact your Level 1 Big 5 Cities or Regional Information Center (RIC) data coordinator (see Tips and Help Support Contacts.)
For questions about nySTART access and accounts, contact your nySTART administrator (details on our Tips Page.)
To contact us regarding interpretation of NYSED policy or data definitions/guidelines, please send e-mail to studentdata@mail.nysed.gov.
To send us feedback or suggestions about the nySTART web application, please send e-mail to nystart@mail.nysed.gov.