The data provider MUST provide information on the availability of all functionality that was used to complete certification. That information MUST include both the geographical areas where the certified functionality is available and version information that applies to those geographies. This information is submitted by using the form provided below.

The Alliance will publish information from this statement as part of the certification record, so that the Ed-Fi community can understand availability of the certified functionality.

Format

The information MUST be submitted by the data provider seeking certification using the following form. Information from this form will be published as part of the product's certification record.

Requirements

• Geographic information MUST be (at a minimum) precise enough to allow any local education agency operating within the United States to determine if it is or is not within the specified geography. 
• Version information MUST be for versions generally available on the market (i.e., version information MUST not include development or future versions). Note that for Ed-Fi certification generally, only functionality actually available in the market can be certified, not functionality under development.
• Non-specific information MUST NOT be included (e.g., “Please contact us for availability information").

Rationale

The main goal of collecting availability information is to enable users of Ed-Fi certification records to determine if they have access to certified product functionality, and for providers to clarify their customers or users expectations on availability.

In the initial years of Ed-Fi certification, a number of issues emerged from the lack of clarity on where and if an education agency could get access to data exchange functionality defined by Ed-Fi standards. In some cases, an education agency took a dependency on certified functionality based on a certification record only to later discover that they did not have access to that functionality.

Data providers likewise experienced customer misunderstandings based on certification records, and expressed a need to clarify where and when the certified functionality was available.

Resolution Process

The certified product availability is initially provided by the vendor based on their understanding of their product’s implementation and the regions they do business in or other requirements of the certification.  An LEA implementation can escalate any gaps if they are within a supported region and are using the credentialed data model and on a recent supported version.  Ed-Fi will evaluate the gaps with the vendor to review their product's ability to support all requirements of the specific Ed-Fi certification within the region.  If there are any Ed-Fi gaps to the data that can not be resolved, then the vendor’s certification will no longer apply for that region.

Report availability issues to certification@ed-fi.org.