Frequently Asked Questions

Contact your local CHRIS data facilitator or Prekindergarten Exceptional Special Education (PESE) representative to gain access to the CHRIS program.

A username and password are required to access CHRIS. The username will be determined by the data facilitator. Each user should choose his/her own password. Passwords should be more than eight characters long and include numbers and/or special characters (names of family members or pets are not good passwords). Passwords should not be shared with anyone.

Users experiencing password issues should navigate to the CHRIS Login screen, enter their username and then click the “Forget Password?” link. The user will then receive an email invitation to reset their password.

Internet access is required to access CHRIS. Typically, access is granted through an office's Local Area Network (LAN). If working remotely, CHRIS can be accessed via mobile data or a commercial hotspot. If accessing CHRIS using public internet service, please keep in mind the confidentiality of the CHRIS data. To access CHRIS from any web enabled device, navigate to the login website.

CHRIS is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Users who have an existing CHRIS account or have completed the steps to receive a new CHRIS account should navigate to the following URL to login: https://portal.chris.miami.edu.

This is a security feature designed to protect children’s confidentiality. You will be logged out of your CHRIS session after 20 minutes of idle time. You can log back in by navigating to the login screen, https://portal.chris.miami.edu.

1) Check your local Internet connection.  Open a web browser and determine whether the Internet is working. For example, visit a popular website such as Google. 2) Check your Local Area Network (LAN) connection. If the problem appears to be your internet connection, contact your IT department. If you are unable to determine the cause of the problem, contact your data facilitator or the CHRIS Help Desk .

Yes. You can access CHRIS from home provided you have Internet access and authorized access to CHRIS. Contact your data facilitator or the CHRIS Help Desk for assistance. Use the same username and password that you use at your office. When accessing CHRIS from home, please keep in mind the confidential nature of the CHRIS data. Take extra steps to protect the data including logging off when not actively using the system.

Yes. You can download CHRIS reports from home. CHRIS will place any downloaded reports in your computer’s download folder. When creating CHRIS reports from home, please keep in mind the confidential nature of the CHRIS data. Reports that are downloaded to your home computer should be deleted from your downloads folder once you are done using them and the computer trash emptied.

If you will be away from your desk for more than 20 minutes, exit completely out of CHRIS. If you remember to do this, you will always be able to access the system at your convenience.

The live CHRIS database is copied to an external cloud-based server every hour. If users need to access data from one of the CHRIS backups, please contact the CHRIS Help Desk.

You will not lose any CHRIS data if the power fails at your work station while working in CHRIS. Users access the database in the cloud via the Internet.

Once you have permission from your Prekindergarten Exceptional Special Education (PESE) representative, please click on this COS Training Video.

Generally, information regarding children younger than 3 years of age should be recorded using Service Coordination events (particularly Referral First Contact, Referral Out, and Contact Log). Districts may serve birth to 2-year-old children in certain categories. However, in most cases, they are serving them as Part C children, so service coordination would be managed just as any other child served by Part C until they move to Part B services. If your district serves children who are under age 3 and who are served as Part B eligible children, pertinent information can be entered into the Timeline. Entering data into the Timeline for a child under age 3 will result in several warning messages. Respond to these warnings appropriately to proceed with data entry. You must determine through the school district ESE department whether these children are being served under Part B and are receiving Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).

No. If you discover a duplicate record for a child, you should contact the CHRIS Help Desk to have the duplicate record deleted.

Users cannot delete a timeline. If you accidentally create an unneeded timeline, contact the CHRIS Help Desk for assistance.

Please contact your local CHRIS data facilitator for assistance.

Record review consists of a review of printed or electronic child records relevant to the referral request.

Screening detail for multiple screenings should be entered in the detail of the Screening event or in an appropriate Service Coordination event. If a re-screening has occurred during the current Screening event, enter information pertaining to the most recent screening and put information pertaining to the preceding screening(s) in the Notes field.

Yes. The Birth County list only includes Florida counties. If the birthplace is outside Florida, leave the Birth County field blank and enter the state or country in the appropriate field.

Copying and pasting is discouraged because it can result in errors. Shortcuts in data entry should, in general, be avoided. Suggestions for ways to simplify data entry can be submitted for consideration in future versions of the program (see “How do I suggest a change to the CHRIS program?” below).

A report can be generated by contacting the CHRIS Help Desk where this field can be made any length you wish.

Yes, Race is a required field in CHRIS. If a child is of mixed race, you can select more than one race option (select all the race options that are appropriate). If race information is not available, select "Unknown" or "Parent Refused Designation" as appropriate. The Race field cannot be left blank.

If a child has an active IEP, they have already been placed in a Part B program. All data entry should be done through the service coordination events and a new timeline should not be started. You should use the Referral First Contact and Referral In events for these children if you are expected to follow up with them once they have entered the school system. If, however, they are being referred to you because they are being served with a temporary IEP pending evaluation, you should begin a new timeline with a Screening event and enter appropriate information until the timeline is complete.

Once you have ended a timeline you cannot enter another event on that timeline. You should not end a timeline because you do not have the date of a meeting or service plan. You should get the date prior to ending the timeline. Days elapsed on the timeline are based on the date of the plan, not on the date you receive or enter the date on the plan, so there is no harm in waiting to end the timeline until you have all of the information for the Part B Service Plan IEP/IFSP event. The timeline should not be ended prematurely just because you are waiting for information. The timeline should be kept open as long as there is something still happening with the child. Service coordination implies follow-up on children to determine the status of the referral until the child is receiving services.

The purpose of the Part C to Part B conference is to discuss with the parent and others the things that need to be occurring to develop the Part C to Part B plan. A referral for consideration for Part B services is premature prior to the Part C to Part B conference. Any screening events prior to the Part C to Part B conference should be included in service coordination, not on a timeline.

Service coordination events are entered in the order in which they occur and each service coordination event is associated with a date. Service Coordination events can be sorted by the event date in ascending or descending order. To access this feature, click the “Event Date” column heading once for an ascending sort and twice for a descending sort. There is no timeline associated with the service coordination events since they can occur in any order.

In order to submit a request or suggestion, e-mail the suggestion to the CHRIS Help Desk at, chris.um@miami.edu.

Contact your local Prekindergarten Exceptional Special Education (PESE) representative.

If your question is related to CHRIS, contact your local data facilitator.
If your question is related to equipment, contact your local technical support team.
If your question is related to the network, contact your local network administrator.
If your local support personnel cannot resolve the problem, contact the CHRIS Help Desk.

The Site reports provide a summary of activities by month and year for the three most recent school years.

Contact the CHRIS Help Desk with your request. You will be asked to specify the type of Site report needed (Workload or Unduplicated) and the name of the county/counties to be included in the report. Site reports are typically available within 1-2 business days.

The Unduplicated and Workload Site reports provide summary data for the following events: Referral First Contact (First Contact Date), Part C to Part B (Part C to Part B Meeting Date or Part C to Part B Referral Date), Screening (Final Result Date), Evaluation (Evaluation Completion Date), Exceptional Student Education Eligibility (ESE Eligibility Date), and Individual Education Plan/Individual Family Service Plan (IEP/IFSP Date). The Workload Site report provides summary data for the same events as the Unduplicated Site report with the addition of Referral In (Referral In Date). The Workload Site report counts the number of times each event occurred. The Unduplicated Site report is based on the number of children served and indicates the total number of children who experienced each event. For example, a child with two separate completed Screening events would be counted once in the unduplicated report, but twice in the workload report.

All finds performed on the Reports Find screen are "And" finds by default. This means that the resulting records in the found set must meet the criteria selected in all sections. The OR option can be used to create an "Or" find. An "Or" find will result in a found set that contains records meeting the criteria specified in any one of the sections. For example, if you were to perform a find on two separate search criteria, an "And" find would result in a found set of records that meet both search criteria, while an "Or" find would result in a found set of records that meet either search criteria.

When entering find criteria in the Reports Find Screen, select a sort order from the “Sort Criteria” drop-down list at the bottom left of the Reports Find screen.

The CHRIS Help Desk is always available to help you create reports or schedule you for a Reports training session. The CHRIS Reports manual also contains step-by-step instructions on how to create reports.

The following training sessions are available: User Training, Reports Training, and Data Facilitator Training. Additional information on CHRIS training sessions is available on the CHRIS website Training section.

Contact the CHRIS Help Desk to schedule a training session.

Data facilitators serve as the primary contact for CHRIS users and as liaisons to the CHRIS Help Desk. Duties include: defining drop-down lists, requesting user authorization from the CHRIS Help Desk, assisting local users or referring them to the CHRIS Help Desk for assistance, and monitoring CHRIS project activities via the website.

CHRIS data facilitators are selected by the center manager. Data facilitators must be "hands-on" CHRIS users, comfortable with and understanding of technology, and knowledgeable about Child Find philosophy and practice (a Child Find professional).

Only the CHRIS Help Desk can add or remove user accounts in CHRIS. Data facilitators should contact the CHRIS Help Desk to request that a user account be added or removed.

No, each section must be filled in completely in order for the form to save properly.

Yes, use the Child Outcomes Form Excel Report that is listed under the Standard Reports section in CHRIS. A date range can be entered into the find criteria for "Entry COS Date" and/or "Exit COS Date". Once the find is performed, the Excel spreadsheet will be created in the Downloads folder on your local computer.