What it takes to start
Most software a school buys arrives with a project attached: an integration, a data feed, a training day, a person who becomes the owner of it. DataVot does not work that way, and the reason is simple — it reads the file the state already sends you. This page is the whole of what starting looks like, so you can judge the effort before committing anyone's time.
The four steps
1. The paperwork, before any student data moves
Us and your business office
- We sign your district’s own data privacy agreement, or the New Jersey SDPC National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) — whichever your board already uses.
- The price is agreed in writing before anything is invoiced. Payment is by purchase order; there is no card to enter and no online checkout.
- Your business office will need the usual vendor paperwork to set us up and raise the order. We have it ready — the table below lists exactly what, so nobody has to chase it.
- Nothing renews automatically. Each year is a decision you make rather than one that happens to you.
2. Your account
Ten minutes, one person
- We create the district account and email a setup link to the administrator you name.
- That person clicks the link and sets their own password. We never see it, and we never ask for it.
- There is nothing to install, nothing for IT to deploy, and no integration to build. DataVot runs in a browser.
3. Your first data set
One screen, one file
- Your administrator uploads the NJSLA file exactly as it arrived — no reformatting, no cleanup, no deleting columns first.
- DataVot recognizes NJSLA and shows you which test, year and season it detected, so you confirm rather than configure.
- The dashboards work from that moment. There is no build step, no overnight processing and no import queue.
4. Your staff
One screen, one decision per person
- Invite staff by email address. Each invitation is a link that lets them set their own password.
- For each person you choose what they can see: every school in the district, only named schools, or none.
- Your subscription includes a set number of user accounts, one of which is the lead administrator, and more can be added in blocks of ten at any time. The Pricing sheet has the figures.
- You can promote a second administrator, change anyone’s access, or remove someone, at any time.
Who does what
| Task | Who |
|---|---|
| Signing the DPA | Us — we sign yours, or the NJ SDPC NDPA |
| Vendor paperwork for the purchase order | Us — sent on request; see below |
| Creating the district account | Us |
| Setting up the NJSLA test definitions | Us — already done; NJSLA is recognized out of the box |
| Uploading the official results file | You — one screen, or we load your first file for you |
| Deciding who sees which schools | You — this is the part worth a meeting |
| Inviting staff | You — by email address, one screen |
| Building the first dashboards | Nobody — they are there once the file is uploaded |
| Keeping reports current | Nobody — saved reports follow their data set; a new year is one click on Compare across years |
The one part that deserves a meeting
Everything above is administration. The decision that actually matters is who sees which schools, and it is a policy question rather than a technical one: a principal usually wants their own building, a curriculum supervisor usually wants the whole district, and reasonable districts disagree about where teachers sit between those two.
DataVot does not decide it for you. Access is set per person and changed whenever you like, and there are two school-wide settings beside it: whether teachers may publish reports their colleagues can open, and how many saved reports each teacher may keep (twenty unless you change it). Deciding all three takes one conversation, once.
What your business office will ask us for
Everything above is about getting DataVot working. This is the other half, and it is the part that quietly holds a purchase up: before a business administrator can raise a purchase order, the vendor has to exist in your system. We hold all of it and send it on request — you should not have to chase a supplier for a certificate.
| Document | Why your office needs it |
|---|---|
| Business Registration Certificate | New Jersey requires proof of a vendor’s business registration before a public school contract is awarded (N.J.S.A. 52:32-44). Ours is available on request. |
| W-9 | For your accounts payable file, so the vendor record and the purchase order can be set up before anything is invoiced. |
Ask for all of them in one email and you will get them together, alongside the signed agreement. If your district requires something not listed here, tell us what and we will say plainly whether we have it — we would rather answer that before you raise the order than after.
Two things your office would otherwise have to request are already published, so a reviewer can read them without waiting on us: the Security Overview, which covers most of what a district security questionnaire asks, and our accessibility self-assessment against all 50 WCAG 2.1 A and AA criteria. Both are our own assessments rather than independent audits, and both say so on the page.
Seeing it first, without committing anything
You can open DataVot right now without an account, upload a file, and build a table. Nothing is stored and nothing is saved until you sign in — it exists so you can watch how it behaves before involving anyone else.
If you would rather see your own numbers, email info@datavot.com a year of your existing results with the student name and ID columns removed, and we will load them and send you the dashboards. Judging it on your own district beats judging it on our demo data, and stripping those two columns means nothing identifying moves before the agreement is signed.
If you stop
You can request an export, return or deletion of your school data at any time by contacting us. Because terms never renew automatically, stopping requires no notice period and no cancellation procedure — you simply do not renew. The full commitment is in the School Data Assurance Letter.
Salesforce Hub LLC (makers of DataVot)
225 Arlington Avenue, Clifton, New Jersey 07011
info@datavot.com · https://datavot.com