Welcome

Welcome to RocketScan’s Income Form add-on!

Image One’s RocketScan software has been a reliable scanning solution for processing family meal applications for almost 20 years. With our add-on, you may utilize RocketScan’s capabilities to process Alternate Income Forms (also known as “Local Control Funding Formula Forms (LCFF)” or “Income Forms”) and generate reports on the results. This guide will get you started with using your RocketScan system to validate your surveys and obtain reports. You can use RocketScan’s Income Form processing for a variety of programs, including CEP, eRate, Textbook Assistance, and other grant programs that may benefit from a survey of local income in your district. Our software generates a report for use in applications for grant and special programs offered by the State and Federal Government.

FMA versus Income Form

When RocketScan is used to process Family Meal Applications (FMA), the application data is collected and exported to a flat file or a web service so that it may be imported to a Point of Sale. The Point of Sale imports the application data from RocketScan to evaluate student eligibility for “free”, “reduced”, or “paid” meal status.

When RocketScan is used to process Income Forms, data is not exported to any of our Point of Sale or integration partners ¹ . RocketScan uses National School Lunch Program (NSLP) requirements to evaluate an Income Form for benefit eligibility. This data is stored to the RocketScan database as a snapshot. You may access this data using the RocketScan interface to generate an Income Form Report. Retrieving this data outside of RocketScan's interface may result in outdated or irrelevant information.

How our reporting module works

When an Income Form is processed through the RocketScan software, we calculate the benefit that the students on the form would qualify for if they were applying for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).   The calculation happens when the form goes through the validation process.   We use the current year published USDA eligibility guidelines for the NSLP, which are valid from July 1 of the current year – until June 30 of the following year.

The eligibility guidelines are updated in RocketScan each year during our rollover process.   So, it is important to ensure that your system is updated and configured each school year by the RocketScan support team before collecting surveys from your families.

Also: we use Direct Certification (DC) data in our calculation of benefits if it is supplied to your RocketScan system.   We usually get this information from your foodservice Point of Sale (POS), however this data sometimes is not reliable for later reporting because of DC expiration. If a student is marked as “DC”, we will mark that student as having qualified for “Free”, and all others identified students on the form will be judged to be free as well by extending the DC status (only in RocketScan, not in the Point of Sale) to other students on the form.

Conversely, a student who is not on the list of DC students at the time of validation will be calculated using other criteria, like income, for RocketScan to determine if the student would qualify for a benefit.   If the student is added to the DC list after the survey has been processed in validation, then their status must be updated in our system before the next report is generated to ensure an accurate report.

Validation module

Once you have received your applications — either by receiving them through your online RocketScan site or by scanning them — they will need to be validated before they can be included on your Income Form Reports.

Log in to RocketScan. From the RocketScan Launch Pad, click on the Validation button.

If you are using RocketScan to process both FMA and Income Forms and there are both types of applications waiting for Validation, then you will be prompted to select which type you would like to work on. Select Income Forms and click Validate .

Otherwise, the Validation module will simply open to the first application waiting in the validation queue.

User Interface

Before you begin validating, you should take a brief look at the Validation module interface and features.

In title bar of the Validation window, the Application ID will be displayed followed by the Batch ID .

At the top left area of the Validation window are 2 tabs: Application and Related images . The Application tab displays the image of the application that is being validated. The image is zoomed in to the section of the application that is being validated in the Data Entry Frame. For example: If the Data Entry Frame is asking the user to verify the applicant's benefit number, then the Application Image Frame will be zoomed in to the part of the application where it asks for the applicant's benefit number. The Related images tab displays supporting documents (if they exist) and images of previous applications (if they exist and have been processed in RocketScan) for students known to be on the current application.

The top right area of the Validation window has a row of buttons:

1. Hotkeys F2 – Click this button or press the F2 key on your keyboard to open to view a list of keyboard shortcuts that can be used in Validation.
   

In the bottom left of the Validation window is the Task list. Applications are divided into a series of tasks for Validation; the tasks that will need to be completed will depend on your district's application design. The Task you are currently working on will have an arrow pointing at it. Completed tasks will have a check mark. Tasks that have yet to be completed will have a question mark. Tasks that will be skipped (due to special circumstances) will have a line crossing through them.

The section to the right of the Task list is the Data Entry Frame. You will interact with the fields in this frame to ensure that the values highlighted in the Application Image Frame match the values shown in the Data Entry Frame.

To the right of the Data Entry Frame are 3 timers:

1. Average time per application – This is a calculated time based on how much time has been spent per application in one Validation session.

1. Time remaining in application – This is a countdown timer for how much time is left for you to validate the current application before it is returned to the Unvalidated queue.

1. Applications left to validate – This is the number of applications that need to be validated, not including the one currently being viewed.
   

HotKeys

Some important keyboard controls for Validation are as follows:

1. Enter – Next task
   

1. Ctrl + B – Previous task

1. Tab – Move cursor to next field

1. Shift + Tab – Move cursor to previous field

1. Alt + A – Save individual to final list
   

For more information on using your keyboard to efficiently control Validation, review RocketScan’s full list of HotKeys .

All data entry fields are automatically in all-caps so there is no need to use the Shift key for capitalizing letters.

Tasks

Below are the various tasks that may need to be completed and how to complete them.

Benefit Number

Once you have completed this Task, hit Enter to move on to the next one.

Students

Even if the highlight color is blue, you should still compare the Application Image frame and the Data Entry frame to make sure the information is correct.

In the Data Entry Frame, there is a large area to the right of the Save, Remove, New, Delete, and To HHM buttons. This area contains the list of students that you have confirmed to be on this application. Use the buttons to move the highlighted individual in or out of this list. The Save button will add the highlighted individual to the Students list and move on to the next one. The New… button will create a new student that doesn’t exist on the application and you will need to type in information. The Delete button will remove the highlighted individual from the application and draw a line through it on the application image. The button marked To HHM will move the highlighted individual down to the Household Member section if it exists in your district’s application design and if there is a clear space in that section.

Everyone in the student section of the application must be added to the student list OR added to the household member list OR deleted from the application in order to complete this task and move on to the next one.

Student Income

Household Members

Everyone in the Household Member section must be added to the Household Member list OR added to the Students list OR deleted from the application in order to complete this task and move on to the next one.

Income

The applicant will either make a selection from the provided bubbles OR they will enter their household size and total monthly income – they cannot do both. Ensure that the Data Entry frame is accurate to what the applicant indicated on their form.

Household Count

Signature

Guardian Info

Address

If there is a student in the Students section that is matched successfully, the address that they have on record in the Student Lookup will display in the lower section (labeled “Previous addresses found”) of the Data Entry frame. If you select an address from that list, then it will auto-fill the Data Entry fields with that information.

Final

1. Complete – Click this button to finish validating the current Income Form and move on to the next one in the queue.
2. Send To Hold – Click this button to send the current Income Form to the Held Applications queue for further review. If no validation rules are broken, you will need to provide a reason for why you are sending it to the Hold queue. This will also finish validating the current form and move on to the next one in the queue.
3. Start Over – Click this button to go through the Validation process for the current form again.
   

Admin module

The Admin module is used to manage your RocketScan system settings and your processed application data. This guide will focus on the features relevant to processing Income Forms and obtaining reports.

Mission Control screen

The initial screen that appears when you launch the Admin module is known as Mission Control. The Mission Control screen provides a quick look at your RocketScan system’s status and processing statistics. It also has some utilities for managing the workflow.

System Status Displays

The top of the Mission Control screen has an array of 8 boxes. If your district is utilizing RocketScan for processing both FMA and Income Forms, then your Mission Control screen will have another array of boxes below that in a subsection labeled “Income Forms”. The “Income Forms” subsection contains the same status information but for Income Forms processing only.

The first box on the left on the top row is the Scan Status . The first bar shows how many applications you have scanned and the second bar shows how many applications you have left that you can process according to your license with Image One. The bottom of the box shows the total number of applications scanned during the current day (since 12 AM).

The next box is the Online Status . The top bar shows how many online applications you have processed and the second bar indicates how many online applications you have left that you can process according to your license with Image One. The bottom of the box indicates how many online applications came in during the current day.

The next box is the INR Status and it indicates how many scanned applications you have processed. INR, or Intelligent Name Recognition, is the part of Rocketscan that attempts to interpret the handwriting on applications. The top bar indicates what percentage of students were matched through scanning, while the second bar indicates how many applications are currently awaiting INR (in other words: have been scanned, but have not yet gone into Validation).

The Validation Status box indicates how many applications are awaiting Validation. The two bars indicate how many applications have been in Validation for the time frame noted in them respectively. The note at the bottom tells you how many applications per hour have gone through Validation during the current day, system wide.

The first box on the left of the second row is the Held Apps Status box and it indicates how many applications you currently have in the Held Applications queue. The two bars indicate how many applications have been in Hold for the time frame noted in them respectively. The number at the bottoms informs you how many applications that are in Hold that have never been opened.

The Missing IDs Status box indicates how many students you currently have waiting in the Missing IDs queue. The two bars tell you how long each respective number of applications have been in Missing IDs. The final number tells you how many matches are possibly found, but need confirmation.

The Export Status box indicates how many students have been exported by your RocketScan system. For Income Form processing, the only statistic relevant in this box is the top number which displays the number of students exported. “Export” for Income Form processing means that the application data has been saved to the RocketScan database’s Income Form table and will be included in the Income Form reports. The rest of the statistics in this status box may be ignored.

The last box is the Export Verify Status . For Income Form processing, this box may be ignored completely.

Income Forms System Status

If your RocketScan system has the subsection labeled “Income Forms”, then it will have another array of system status boxes. The main difference with this subsection is that it combines the Scan Status and Online Status into one status box and omits the INR Status box.

The Income Forms Status box shows how many total Income Forms have been processed, how many of those forms were scanned, how many of those forms were from online, and how many forms you have left that you can process according to your license with Image One.

Refresh Student Database

RocketScan may automatically refresh its Student Lookup table on a daily basis (usually midnight) depending on its integration configuration. However, it is recommended that the Student Lookup is refreshed at the start of each day before you begin processing or reporting . You can trigger this manually at any time by clicking on the Refresh Student Database button on the Mission Control screen.

If your system does not have this button, you can go to Administration > Integrations then click on the button that says “update student lookup”. Which finished, close the Integration Configuration window.

Income Form Reports

You may obtain the data processed from your income forms by navigating to Income Form Reports from the Reports menu.

The Income Form Reports wizard will open, first asking if you need to make any updates to DC statuses, then showing several options for obtaining a report.

If you have not already done so, it is recommended that you refresh your student database before generating an Income Form Report.

Direct Certification Update

Review the “Direct Certification Update” section. If necessary, you may click “Update” before proceeding to the “Reports” section.

Clicking the “Update” button will update the DC statuses as described.

If no updates to DC statuses are needed at this time, click “Skip” to continue to the next step of the wizard.

Reports

First, select the desired school year from the “School Years” drop down.

Use the Schools dropdown to select the school or schools you would like to use to generate the report. Check the box(es) of the school numbers and/or names for the report.

The selected schools will now appear on the “schools” line.

To generate a report for all the schools simply select the “Check All” box.

If no schools are selected, the report will include ALL School IDs found in your Student Database, including blanks.

Next, select the type of report you would like to run: Current, Full or Not Submitted. Click “Generate Report” to obtain the report with your selected options. You will be prompted to save a file – this is the Income Form Report that you are generating. When finished, click “Close”.

CURRENT

To include the statuses from Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications be sure to check the box prior to generating the report.

The report will be generated as a CSV (comma separated values) file. Sample for ‘Current’ report without the Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications included.

Information included in this report is:

1. Student Number - This is the student’s ID number.
2. School ID - This is the Site/School ID for the school which the student attends.
3. Grade - This is the student’s grade level.
4. First Name - This is the student’s first name.
5. Last Name - This is the student’s last name.
6. Date of Birth - This is the student’s birth date.
7. Application ID - This is the RocketScan Application ID number
8. Eligibility - This is calculated benefit determined by RocketScan.
9. Reason - This is the reason for the calculated benefit displayed in the “Eligibility” column.
10. Date Submitted - This is the date when this student’s Income Form was submitted
11. Date Evaluated - This is the date when this student’s Income Form was last evaluated.
    

The Totals for Free, Paid, Reduced, Direct Cert, Direct Cert Reduced and Declined Participation will be displayed at the bottom of the report.

Sample for ‘Current’ report with the Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications included.

This report will have a higher total number at the bottom of the report if you have processed Rocketscan FMA Applications.

FULL

If you would like to obtain data on all of your district’s students regardless of whether or not they have a processed Income Form, then you should select ‘Full’ as your report option. To include the new Direct Certification statuses be sure to use the “DIRECT CERTIFICATION UPDATE” above prior to generating the Full report.

The report will be generated as a CSV (comma separated values) file. Sample for ‘Full’ report without the Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications included.

Information included in this report is:

1. Student Number - This is the student’s ID number.
2. Last Name - This is the student’s last name.
3. First Name - This is the student’s first name.
4. Date of Birth - This is the student’s birth date.
5. Grade - This is the student’s grade level.
6. School ID - This is the Site/School ID for the school which the student attends.
7. Direct Cert - This is the student’s Direct Cert status.
8. FMA Application ID - If it exists, this is the RocketScan Application ID number for the Meal Application that was processed for this student. **If “Use Rocketscan FMA NSLP Applications” was checked**
9. POS/SIS Meal Status - This is the student’s meal status obtained from the Point of Sale or Student Information System. (If using the Rocketscan Eligibility module, this will be the Rocketscan Eligibility Meal Status)
10. FMA Date Submitted - This is the date when this student’s RocketScan Application was submitted
11. FMA Release Date - This is the date that this student’s Meal Application data was exported to the Point of Sale.
12. Income Form ID - If it exists, this is the RocketScan Application ID number for the Income Form that was processed for this student.
13. Income Form Status – If it exists, this is calculated benefit determined by RocketScan.
14. Income Form Reason – If it exists, this is the reason for the calculated benefit displayed in the “Income Form Status” column
15. Income Form Date Submitted - This is the date when this student’s Income Form was submitted
16. Income Form Release Date - This is the date when this student’s Income Form was last evaluated.
    

Sample for ‘Full’ report with the Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications included.

You will notice the first few entries have a “FMA Application ID” to indicate that a NSLP application was processed through Rocketscan.

NOT SUBMITTED

The ‘Not Submitted’ report can be generated and used as a reminder/follow up list to encourage the student’s family to submit an Income Form.

Sample of ‘Not Submitted’ report.

Information included in this report is:

1. Student Number - This is the student’s ID number.
2. Last Name - This is the student’s last name.
3. First Name - This is the student’s first name.
4. Date of Birth - This is the student’s birth date.
5. Grade - This is the student’s grade level.
6. School ID - This is the Site/School ID for the school which the student attends.
7. Email - This is the primary contact email address on file for this student
8. Phone 1 - This is the primary contact phone number on file for this student.
9. Phone 2 - This is the secondary phone number on file for this student.
   

To include the statuses from Rocketscan FMA NSLP applications be sure to check the box prior to generating the report.

For the ‘Not Submitted’ Report if you have checked the “Use Rocketscan FMA NSLP Applications” and the students have a Meal Application that was processed through Rocketscan on file those students will not be included on this report. To get a complete report of students who have Not Submitted an Income Form please uncheck “Use Rocketscan FMA NSLP Applications”.

After you save the CSV file to your desired location, you may use a spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel to view the report.

How to obtain your Income Form Report

1. Log in to RocketScan and launch the Admin module.

2. Click on the “ Refresh Student Database ” button and wait for it to complete (usually takes 90 seconds). If your system does not have this button, you can go to Administration > Integrations then click on the button that says “update student lookup”.

If there is nothing waiting for validation, you may skip steps 3 and 4.

3. Return to the Launchpad and launch the Validation module. If prompted, select “Income Forms” and click “Validate”.

4. Use the Validation hotkeys to complete the Validation tasks. Ensure that the data in the Data Entry Frame matches what is shown in the Application Image Frame. Click the appropriate button at the bottom of the Summary window (“Complete” or “Send to Hold”) to finish validating a form. Repeat until all forms have been validated.

Forms that are sent to hold do not appear in the Income Forms Reports.

5. Return to the Admin module and click on the Administration menu. Select Income Form Reports to launch the wizard. If applicable: update DC and DC-Reduced statuses accordingly on the first screen of the Income Form Reports wizard. Otherwise, click “skip and continue to reports”.

6. Select the desired school year from the “ School Years ” drop down.

7. Use the “ Schools ” dropdown to select the school or schools you would like to use to generate the report.

8. Select the type of report you would like to run: Current, Full or Not Submitted. Click “ Generate Report ” to obtain the report with your selected options.

9. Give your report an appropriate name and choose a location to save the file. Click “ Save ”.

10. When finished generating your desired report(s), click “ Close ”.

11. Navigate to the location where you saved your report(s). The report can be opened using a spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel.

Best Practices

We recommend that our customers ALWAYS get the latest, up-to-date data by Refreshing the Rocketscan Student Database and then updating DC and DC-Reduced statuses prior to generating your report.   There are exceptions to this rule (If you want to see students who have responded, for example) but be advised that data presented becomes out of date as information (such as enrollment status) changes.   For accurate reporting: always use the latest data and update DC/DC-Reduced statuses prior to exporting your report.

Support

Image One Corporation is committed to providing the best possible technical support for all of our products. RocketScan software support is offered on an annual service contract basis. You can submit software support requests to support@image-1.com or call 1-800-956-9000 option 2 . This will allow your case to be properly logged and resolved as soon as possible. You can also visit support.image-1.com and submit your issue directly to the RocketScan support queue.

NOTE : Cases are routed based on availability.

We also have an online knowledgebase for RocketScan that contains articles with various topics: how-to, best practices, frequently asked questions, and more.

Notes

1. Development pending for some Point of Sale partners. Contact RocketScan support for more information.