South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
CREATING AND FILTERING DATA TABLES
1. Login to your Excent© website.
2. Select the “Reports” Icon at the top right and click on
“Administrative Reports”
3. Click on the radio button of the report you wish to review (in this
example, S/F – 618 Tables 1 & 3 will be used).
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Office of Exceptional Children
4. In the new window, select the radio button that reads “Crystal
Web Client,” and click on “View Report.”
5. The data will appear on the next screen. From the top menu,
select the “Export” button at the top left. (It is the second Icon
from the left at the top).
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Office of Exceptional Children
6. A new page will appear. From the drop-down list, select MS
Excel 97-2000 (Data only).
7. Ensure that the “ALL” radio button is selected and click “Export.”
8. Save the Report to your computer. We recommend that you
save the report by entitling it
DATAYEAR.DISTRICTNAME.TABLENAME.xls, such as
“09.Florence5.Table1.3.xls”
You will want to ensure that you have the date or “preview” with
the first, and designate revised originals as with an “R.”
9. Open the spreadsheet. This is your original file. This file should
be protected so no changes should happen to these data.
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10.
Copy the original file, and rename the new file in some
way that identifies it as the analysis file, (e.g.,
“Analysis.Table1and3.10122009”).
11.
At this point you have two separate files, an original file
and an analysis file. The master file should be protected so that
no changes are made to it. This permits you to have an
unchanged workbook of the dataset. Only work on the
analysis file. In the case that your analysis file becomes corrupt
(e.g., you accidentally delete 20 rows), you can go back to your
original file and make another analysis file.
12.
Open the Analysis (duplicate) file. In some worksheets,
Row 1 may contain instructions or some other entry, rather than
headers such as “School Year,” “Last Name,” etc. If this is the
case, delete the unneeded information in Row 1. To accomplish
this, click on the number 1 on the far left. All of Row 1 should
highlight. Delete the row by hitting the delete button (or right
click and delete row). The data from Row 1 should disappear,
and the data from Row 2 should move to Row 1.
13.
At this point, each column in Row 1 should have a heading,
such as “School Year,” “District ID,” etc.
14.
Click on the square above the number 1 (designating row
1) and to the left of the “A” designating column A. This will
select the complete worksheet and all cells in the worksheet
should be highlighted.
15.
In the top menu, click Format  Column  Autofit
Selection. This should increase the width of the cells in each
column so the data are readable.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
16.
Click on an empty cell to un-highlight the worksheet if
needed.
17.
Scroll across the worksheet to the first fully empty column
(e.g., X). NOTE: DO NOT SKIP ANY COLUMNS OR YOUR
DATA ANALYSIS WILL NOT WORK. Use the first fully open
column. In this, X is meant to be a variable.
18.
In Column X, Row 1 (designated as X1), type in the
following new heading: “Counter”
19.
Assign each student the number 1 in order to sum and
count them later. So in X2, type in the number 1. Make sure no
other characters are in X2, otherwise Excel won’t recognize the
value of the number 1.
20.
Copy & paste the number 1 for the remaining students
(remaining rows) in Column X. IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE
THAT EACH STUDENT (each row) HAS A 1 IN COLUMN X –
NO MORE, NO LESS OTHERWISE YOUR DATA WILL BE
INACCURATE.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
21.
Click on an empty cell to get out of the Copy & Paste
function.
22.
Return to the far left of the worksheet and highlight the
worksheet using the instructions from #14 above.
23.
Using the top menu, select Data  Filter  Autofilter.
24.
Arrows should then appear in each of the Columns in Row
1. Click on an empty cell to un-highlight the cells. Your dataset is
now in the “Filter” mode.
25.
In the “FILTER” mode, you can click on an arrow to see the
data contained in each column. When clicking on an arrow for a
particular column, you should see the following options:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Sort Ascending
Sort Descending
All
Top 10
Custom
Each entry, alphabetically or numerically depending upon
the column you’ve chosen. For example, if you click on
“SchoolName,” you should see alphabetically all the
schools listed in the column.
g. Blanks (if any – this means that certain of those cells are
blank)
h. Invalids (if any – that means there is an invalid entry into
a specific students file).
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
26.
NOTE: Once you’ve selected an option in the dropdown menu of a column (except sorting), the arrow in
that column header should turn blue. This means that
you’ve filtered by that column. To un-filter, simply return
to that column header drop-down and select “All” to
display all students. For each column, address any “Blanks,”
“Invalids,” and/or aberrant entries in cells, such as:
a. School- If “Blanks” is an option in the dropdown filter, click
on “Blanks”. All students must have a school assigned for
reporting.
b. SSN and StateID– If “Blanks” is an option in the dropdown
filter, click on “Blanks”. This will generate the students for
whom no SSN or StateID is entered into their Excent© file.
Although not required, for quality purposes, you may want
to ensure their SSN and StateID are in their file.
c. Birthdate and AgeDec1– Check for Blanks (as in 26a
above). Also check for aberrant entries. For example,
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
identify if you have children too young or too old, or
incorrect entries (i.e., born 10/12/2010). (Sometimes the
system catches these errors, though.)
Gender – Check for blanks
Ethnicity – check for “Invalids.” If “Invalid” is an option in
the dropdown menu, click on “Invalid” to filter. What will
appear are those students who have an invalid/missing
race/ethnicity entry in their Excent© account. Ensure
that the new race/ethnicities are included.
PrimaryDisability – same as d, with Invalids as well as No
Disability Currently Specified, Old Disability Codes with an
*, variant disability descriptions for the same code, blanks.
LREPlacement – same as with e with Invalids as well as
No Placement Selected, Variant LRE descriptions for the
same code, Blanks. Check new preschool LRE for IEPs
completed after the August 2010 Excent update.
ESL- Check for blanks
Reporttype- Check for blanks, variant choice for report
type description.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
27.
Using the Filter function, you can identify if “Blanks” and
“Invalid” entries are patterned, such as many “invalids” at a
particular school, teacher, or other category. This can be
beneficial by permitting the LEA to address targeted training and
technical assistance. Another way to address this is through
using pivot tables.
CREATING PIVOT TABLES IN EXCEL
1. If you’ve not already done so, SAVE YOUR ANALYSIS file!
2. Using the instructions in #14 above, select your dataset. (Once
selected, all the cells should be highlighted).
3. In the top menu, select: Data  PivotTable and PivotChart
Reports.
4. A Pivot Table Wizard should appear. Using the wizard, create a
Pivot Table using the following:
a. Make sure the “Microsoft Office Excel list or database”
radio button is selected as is the “PivotTable” radio button,
then click “Next>”
b. On the next screen click “Next>” as you’ve already
highlighted the full dataset.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
c. Make sure the “New worksheet” radio button is selected
and click “Finish”
d. NOTE: If the options detailed above are default (always
selected), you can begin with step “4a” then simply click
“Finish”
5. A new sheet will appear. You will see:
a. A table with 4 areas:
i. Drop Page Fields Here
ii. Drop Row Fields Here
iii. Drop Column Fields Here
iv. Drop Data Items Here
b. An insert screen that reads “PivotTable Field List”
i. In this screen, you should see options for all the
headers from the previous worksheet (Now referred
to as Fields), such as SchoolName, PrimaryDisability,
LREPlacement, etc).
6. You make a Pivot Table by inserting one of the Fields (described
in 5B) into the “Drop [Page, Row, or Column] Fields Here.” In
general, it is most beneficial to insert into the Page or Row area
the Field with more options (such as school name), and the
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Office of Exceptional Children
shorter Field (e.g., ethnicity) into the column area. This makes
the pivot table more readable.
7. Choose whichever 2 or more fields you want to review. Using the
Pivot Table Field List (5b), click and drag a field into the page,
column or row described in 5a. Another way of accomplishing
this is to select the Field in the Field List (5B), and in the dropdown menu at the bottom of the Field List click “Add to..Row
Area,” “Add to..Column Area,” or “Add to..Page Area.” DO NOT
USE THE COUNTER FIELD FOR THE PAGE, ROW, OR
COLUMN FIELD.
8. NOTE: You must have one Field for the Column Area and one
field in the Row Area. You do NOT have to have one for the Page
area.
9. Once you have at least two fields (at least one in the Column
Area and at least one in the Row Area), select the “Counter”
Field from the Field List described and shown in 5b.
10.
Drag it to the “Drop Data Items Here” or click and add
using the instructions in #7 above.
11.
To remove a field from the Pivot Table, click and drag the
Field from the Row Area, Column Area, Page Area, or Data Area
and return it to the PivotTable Field List (described in 5b).
12.
You can also go back to the original worksheet and repeat
the instructions to generate a new pivot table. Note: You may
want to rename each worksheet. To accomplish this,
right-click on your mouse atop “Sheet X” and select
rename. Rename the sheet and click on a cell.
13.
One way to take snapshots of the data is to identify
particular schools, disability categories, or otherwise with
“Blanks” or “Invalids.”
a. For example, in the screen-shot below, 15 “Invalid”
ethnicity entries are at South Carolina Elementary School.
In this example, it would be beneficial to address why 15
“Invalid” entries are found at this particular school, while
the other schools have only 1 or 2 Invalids. Knowing this
information might be an area for professional
development, as you discern patterns.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
14.
Using both the Filter Function and the Pivot Tables, review
your dataset thoroughly to ensure that:
a. Blanks are corrected
b. Invalids are corrected
c. Aberrant data are corrected, AND TO ASSIST WITH
d. Patterns of errors for systemic issues
e. Patterns of issues/problems to request targeted technical
assistance from the OEC.
15.
We suggest that you incorporate these quality assurance
measures at least quarterly and PRIOR to the Table Submission
Due Dates to improve the accuracy and reliability of your dataset
and to minimize any needed corrective action when the Tables
are pulled for federal reporting purposes.
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South Carolina Department of Education
Office of Exceptional Children
SELECT GLOSSARY
1. Column – a vertical column of cells in Excel identified by letters.
2. Dataset – a complete set of data in an Excel file, such as Tables
1 & 3.
3. Field – An organization of data in a pivot table that serves as a
Column on another sheet. For example a Field could be “Gender”
and the possible entries could be M (male) & F (female).
4. File – An excel file that is created and saved, ending in .xls.
5. Radio button – a choice in certain menu options identified as a
circle that can be clicked or un-clicked to select and unselect,
respectively
6. Row – a horizontal row of cells in Excel identified by numbers.
7. Workbook – An entire Excel file that has multiple worksheets.
8. Worksheet – An individual page in Excel. It can be identified by
opening Excel. At the bottom left are tabs that read “Sheet 1,”
“Sheet 2,” etc.
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