Cimarron Software Services, Inc.

The SPS database and client installation files are installed on a Windows computer, to a shared directory that can be accessed by every SPS user throughout the district. After the database is installed, the client portion of the program is installed on the end user's computer by running the client installation file. Once the client software has been installed on a user's computer and their user name has been setup by the SPS Administrator (see question #7), they can login to the application.

The SPS database can be installed under Windows NT 4.0, 2000, 2003 Server, or XP Professional. SPS users can run the client portion of the program under Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, 2003 Server, or XP Professional. Additional requirements for user's desktop PCs include:

• Pentium II - 300MHz
• 64MB RAM(128MB or higher recommended)
• 110MB available hard drive space
• 800x600 screen resolution or higher

Requirements for the SPS Server will vary depending upon which database is used.

SPS has an optional feature to automatically create Gantt Charts for Action Plans and Steps, by interfacing with Microsoft Project. Users wanting to use this feature will need to have Microsoft Project 2000 installed on their computer. Users that do not have Microsoft Project 2000 will be able to perform all other SPS functions. Microsoft Project 2000 is not distributed with the SPS software and will need to be purchased separately from Microsoft. Microsoft Project can be purchased in an academic version or with an open license to help minimize costs. These versions have the same functionality as the full retail version. See the following links for more information:

• Microsoft Academic Open License:
  http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=Open
• Microsoft Authorized U.S. Distributors:
  http://members.microsoft.com/partner/usa/licensing/distributors/
• Pricing of all Microsoft Products, including Academic Open Licenses:
  http://members.microsoft.com/partner/usa/licensing/pricelists/

Large school districts may want to purchase SQL Server 2000 or 2005.
Additionally, Macintosh users will need to purchase a Windows emulation software package.

SPS does not run directly under the MacOS Operating system, but has been successfully tested under Windows 98 and Windows 2000 emulation software on the Macintosh running Microsoft Virtual PC 6.0. Additional requirements for Macintosh users include:

• G3 Processor
• Windows 98/ME - 64 MB RAM above what is required for the Macintosh operating system
• Windows 2000 - 128 MB RAM above what is required for the Macintosh operating system
• Windows XP - 256 RAM above what is required for the Macintosh operating system
• 110MB available hard drive space (in addition to the minimum space required by Virtual PC)

SPS will not currently run under Unix, but future plans may include development of a web-based interface for SPS, which will allow access from any compliant web browser under Windows, Macintosh, and Unix computers.

SPS can run under Microsoft SQL Server 7, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, the Microsoft Database Engine (MSDE 2000) or SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. MSDE is a database engine based on SQL Server technologies and is included at no extra charge on the SPS installation CD. Up to several hundred users can be defined in the SPS database, but if using MSDE, a maximum of 12 users are allowed to be logged in and using the database at the same time. If a district needs to allow for a higher number of concurrent users, SPS should be installed under SQL Server 7, 2000 or 2005: SQL Server will allow up to several hundred users in the database at the same time. The Microsoft SQL Server product is not included with the SPS installation CD. Districts installing SPS under SQL Server should have a person on staff that can install and administer SQL Server. SQL Server 2000 and 2005 can be purchased at academic pricing. See the following links for more information:

• Microsoft Academic Open License:
  http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=Open
• Microsoft Authorized U.S. Distributors:
  http://members.microsoft.com/partner/usa/licensing/distributors/
• Pricing of all Microsoft Products, including Academic Open Licenses:
  http://members.microsoft.com/partner/usa/licensing/pricelists/

The person responsible for maintaining the district's network will not be impacted greatly by SPS. The network administrator is generally the person that installs the server portion of SPS. This installation generally takes only an hour or two. The network administrator might also install the SPS client on each end user's PC. A client installation generally only takes a few minutes and is very simple to perform. Some network administrators may choose to have each end user perform the client installs. After SPS has been installed on the network and client PCs, the network administrator will only be involved when normal database maintenance is required. These activities generally include database backups, restores, and occasional reorganizations. Most of these activities can be automated and will require very little of the network administrators time. If running SPS under SQL Server, your network administrator should also be familiar with administering SQL Server. The SPS application also has an application administrator. This task is generally performed by a non-technical person. Some districts may choose to have their Network Administrator also function as the SPS Administrator but this is not necessary.

SPS requires an application administrator that is generally not a technical person. SPS administration can be assigned to one or more persons in your district. Most of the administration tasks are relatively simple, and do not require an extensive technical background or much ongoing time. The SPS administrator is primarily responsible for:

• defining the sites or schools to SPS
• defining users that can access the SPS application
• specify which users must complete Mutual Commitments & Expectations
• giving users read/write permissions to the district plan and to the site plans
• creating a new plan year
• copying the plan data from one year to another

The SPS application has easy to use screens that perform all of the functions listed above. The biggest task the SPS Administrator will have is defining the sites and users to the SPS application. It should take the SPS Administrator only an hour or two to define site and users for a small to medium size district having 10-15 campuses and 20-30 users that will access SPS. Extremely large districts may take as much time as a day to define the sites and users. Once the sites and users have been defined the SPS Administration tasks will take only an hour or so each month. Some months may require no SPS Administrator time.

Each user that the SPS administrator defines will have read-access to all data in the SPS database, for all years, including all district and site data, and all Mutual Commitments and Expectations. Additionally, the SPS Administrator defines which site(s) a user has write-access to, and defines if a user has write-access to district data. Users provided write-access by the system administrator can assign write-access to specific users for specific Action Plans. These users will only be able to edit the Action Plans they are assigned. They remain read-only users for all other screens.

When the planning cycle has been completed for a year, the SPS Administrator defines a "new year" in the database. They are also given the option to copy all data from an existing year into the new year, so items such as the Mission Statement, Beliefs, and any ongoing initiatives will only need to be modified as needed in the new year (not re-entered). All data is available from the SPS database for all years that have been defined, so a user can view any district or site data for any year at any time.

SPS can be accessed over the web in a variety of ways. If the end user has the client application installed, they could connect with the database over a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. The end user could also use a third-party software like PCAnywhere to connect to a computer on the network and use SPS. SPS has been tested and is supported under Citrix MetaFrame XP, Feature Release 3/Service Pack 3. The system administrator must install the client software on the Citrix server for users to access SPS, however, it is then only accessible by one user at a time. A third solution is to open access to the SQL Server through the network firewall. The system administrator must open port 1433 (SQL server default) for incoming and ports 1024 to 65535 for outgoing.

The SPS report format built into the application is a read-only format that cannot be altered by the user; SPS data can only be changed from the SPS forms, not in the final reports. However, all SPS reports have an export option, allowing the user to save their document in any of the following formats, after which the user can modify them:

• PDF: Portable Document Format
  Adobe PDF is a universal file format that preserves all the fonts, formatting, and graphics of the SPS report. Adobe PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with the freely downloadable Adobe Acrobat Reader software. This is a very popular format for documents on the Web, and can be used by the district and sites to share their Strategic Plan (or other SPS reports) with the public. SPS reports saved in PDF format can be edited in the Adobe Acrobat program.
• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language
  HTML is the most common standard for publishing hypertext documents on the Web. HTML uses tags such as <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc. SPS reports that are output as HTML documents can be loaded on a web server where they can be viewed by the public from a web browser. SPS reports saved in HTML format can be edited by programs such as Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Word, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or in any text editor.
• RTF: Rich Text Format
  RTF is a document interchange format created by Microsoft as a standard for exchanging documents among Windows applications. SPS reports saved in RTF format can be edited in Microsoft Word and some versions of WordPerfect.
• TXT: ASCII Text format
  ASCII Text files have had most of the document formatting removed, allowing the user to simply edit the text from SPS reports in any text editor (including Notepad, Wordpad, Word, and WordPerfect).
• XLS: Excel Spreadsheet
  SPS Reports that are exported as XLS files can be opened and manipulated in Microsoft Excel, which can be especially useful for performing cost calculations and graphing SPS data.

Once SPS data has been exported into another report format, any changes made in that report by the user will not automatically be updated in the SPS database. The only method of updating data in the SPS database is from the SPS forms in the client application.

Predefined terms in SPS (words such as "Strategy", "Tactic", and "Objective") cannot be customized. If desired, users can export reports to an editable format and change the terminology from there.

Site Names, User Ids, and Objective Indicator Evaluations for System-Wide Indicators can be imported by the system administrator.