CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Hello, everyone. Good morning. I'm Christopher Soran, the application support manager here at the State Board. Thanks for coming to March's accessibility forum. We'll go ahead and get rolling. So we've got some updates today on OAAP and things are going on in the world of accessibility with CDC link. 

As always, at the end of the slides are current statuses and all the open service requests we have with Oracle, as well as all the acronyms you might see on some slides and what they mean, and that terms and definitions section. So we're currently reviewing PeopleTools 8.59.21, and we're planning to deploy it on Saturday, April 29. 

And with it, there is a variety of accessibility fixes, and we're reviewing them right now and working on putting together an image overview document or IOVD, detailing all the changes that are coming. And so, we'll get that posted when that's ready. 

MONICA OLSSON: Do you want to share this slide? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry. I mis-clicked. I missed. 

MONICA OLSSON: So this is Monica, and the following update and comments are a little bit review and add-on to some conversation that happened last month's open forum or, perhaps, the last two open forums. So to refresh everyone's memory, a particular issue that we were looking at and developing a solution for is when people in our system are employed with more than one job that have the exact same title. 

When those folks navigate to the Enter Time page in the [INAUDIBLE] to report their payable time, making a distinction between their job titles and selecting the correct job to report on and then the other jobs report on was difficult because there wasn't enough information distinguishing the two different jobs. 

And as we talked about last week, the solution of just simply changing or modifying a job title is not really an option available to, at least, the accessibility group. It's a much larger conversation around job classifications, and OFM is involved in that process. 

So instead, SBCT developed and coded a fix on that page where, now, people can see and review additional information attached to each job selection that will help them differentiate between job titles and select the correct one. And so, I think we shared a screenshot shot, some more visual explanation of what that fix looks like and how it functions at last month's session. 

And then Vicki, after a developer worked on that solution, Vicki went in with some assistive technology tools and did some accessibility evaluation of the new code on the page. So I believe that's what I want to say for that screen, and then we can navigate to the next slide. 

Now, Vicki, I'm wondering if I could hand this slide over to you to, basically, briefly summarize the information that's on the slide around the issues you located on the page that don't necessarily directly correlate to the code fix that had been developed but other issues that we're investigating on these Enter Time pages. 

VICKI WALTON: Sure. So after the fix was done, I went in and did some accessibility testing with a screen reader. And what was found was, depending on what the job title, whether it was elapsed time or punch time, elapsed time had some issues, where the focus ended up on the back button and not down at the job title. 

And then the back button read out all of the job title contents. So that was way more than what a back button was meant to do. And I learned that each time a person's job title, whether it's punch time or elapsed time shows different content in the window, which we will be testing those that content in the future. 

So I will now be going into the DMO log in and getting some information testing with a screen reader to see if we can find out if it's something from Oracle that they can help us fix or if it's something that we still need to do work on our end. 

MONICA OLSSON: Thank you, Vicki. And DMO environment, I actually forget what those three letters stand for. But essentially, it's an environment where Vicki will go in to do some accessibility evaluation and testing, where it's just Oracle's code. So there's no additional SBCTC code in the mix. 

And that's going to help us, as Vicki was saying, distinguish if this is the issues that Vicki's [INAUDIBLE] are isolated in decisions that were made by Oracle team. And therefore, we need to document it for them in a SR or service request ticket and follow up on asking for fixed and/or if there's additional things, maybe, on our side that we need to be aware of or work on. 

And then, I'm not sure I can speak super thoroughly to this precise differences between elapsed time or punch time, but my high level understanding is it's a different way of inputting your payable time on the job, depending on your unique job classification. Kris or Josh, are there any additional comments you'd like to add or clarity you want to offer to what Vicki and I just shared? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, that's fine. We like to do testing in that environment, that plain vanilla environment. Because Oracle always likes us to replicate the issue, provide a trace or detailed explanation with that, just ensuring that there's no customized code on our end that has any impact on it. 

And I'm pretty sure that's going to be the case here. This is likely with their code. We'll just need to work with them on creating a service request and fixing anything that gets found out. Yeah. We're making them fix it. 

JOSH GIHA: And this is Josh from SBCTC. And if it might be an issue that's related to where the focus goes on the page, like if it goes directly to the back button on that page, it might be an issue that I remember being talked about in one of the Oracle forums where the vice president of HCM spoke about an update coming in PeopleTools, either the one that will be going to an April or 86, where they're going to give us options to where we can decide where that focus goes on the page, whether it goes directly to that back button or if it goes to the first main content element on the page, which, I believe, that was our suggestion or our recommendation of where the focus should go on the pages, the first main content object. I'll have to add for that. 

MONICA OLSSON: Well, [AUDIO OUT]. And I think the main takeaway is that elements of this conversation have been brought up previously by Oracle staff in the HCM monthly meetings. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. 

MONICA OLSSON: Cool. So I think, we're-- well, actually, are there any questions or comments from those on the call today before we move on to the next topic? OK, I'll take silence as indication that we're all on the same page, and we can move on to the next topic. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: All right. Let's go, Monica. 

MONICA OLSSON: Oh, yeah, that's me again. Excuse me. Hey, Vicki, can I get this off to you, please, I need to mute and cough. 

VICKI WALTON: Sure. So as it says, the new OKTA Sign-In widget is coming next month, but we did find some OKTA-- we call it the OKTA dashboard landing page issues that we are testing. Because depending on what reference view you have, whether you have it in list view or grid view, depends on whether it's coded as a link or a button. 

And we happen to find this out working with a student that was having trouble he wanted to know how to get into his time card to enter his time as a student employee, and he is a screen reader user. So we found that anomaly. And we're working with OKTA, and they did get back to us. 

And they coded all these buttons now, so we still need to follow up with them. Because, technically, they are links. Because links take you to either a different place in the page or to a whole different page, and buttons perform an action. So we do still need to follow up with them on that. But luckily, we did find that anomaly and, hopefully, get it fixed. 

And then the WA Learning Lab is going well. We have listed the colleges that are part of the training, and it has been a phenomenal experience. And we have great participation, and we are really looking forward to the future sessions that we're going to have. And Monica has done a great job in being able to get this all planned and execute it, and it's been a phenomenal experience. 

MONICA OLSSON: Thank you, Vicki. I appreciate you taking the slide. And WA Learning Lab stands for Web Accessibility Learning Lab. It's a 10-week intensive training course that I worked with [INAUDIBLE] to develop, as we hope to continue offering it. And I think that's that. So thanks, Chris. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks for that. All right. So our online submission application portal, also known as OAAP. So on Saturday, a whole bunch of accessibility fixes were introduced. Those are live and active. And we also have a document here that has a details on some of the fixes that got put into place. 

JOSH GIHA: And it's been submitted to the QA team who releases these documents onto the website, and that should be up on the website this week. Yeah. Basically, this is Josh from SBCTC. Basically, what Cass Tech did is, when we had the first iteration of OAAP was launched or the online applications admissions portal was launched, it was tested by level access. 

And we did like a first wave of accessibility fixes and updates to the first pass of the application. And then, they went back out to have their VPAT written up. And they had it tested again by another company, and they came back with a number of findings that needed to be addressed, that either were coded after the level access report or weren't found by level access. 

So there were about 120 updates that went into production on Saturday. And we can go through the document. They range from inappropriate heading structures. So when a page doesn't have the appropriate heading structure, it makes it hard for screen reader to navigate. So having the correct heading structure makes it easier to pull up the shortcuts and navigate the pages here. So that was addressed on multiple pages. 

The company also came back with a finding that there were some unnecessary alt texts on, I guess, images that they considered decorative and did not present information for the user, necessarily, to fill out the form. So they removed the alt text from those decorative images. 

They found some elements that were given keyboard focus to be not interactive elements that didn't need keyboard focus. One of those being the application status bar at the top of the page. We thought it was something that was important for a user to know it's there, but I guess they decided that it was not an interactive element that didn't need keyboard focus, so that was removed. 

And also some other elements on some models, like college selection, there are some fields there that were not interactive, that the focus was on reform as well. Insufficient color contrast was found on a few items. They did a pretty good job, overall, on color contrast. There wasn't a whole lot of findings on that. 

But the ones that were found, they were addressed. Identical labels for form fields. So when you have a form, and, let's say, you get to the section where it says, enter previous education. And you entered your high school, and then, let's say, you went to another college or another high school, there was add another section of fields for the school address. 

But those in the background, those fields, had the same label ID as the previous one. So that's against best practice, so they gave each field a new ID when you added a new field to that page, dynamically. And there was also some missing instructions for mandatory fields. Those were on the first page of the application, as well as the security questions. 

They just circled the question with a red box, which is for people that are colorblind. That is bad practice. We can't convey information only through color, so that was addressed. And they put in the actual messages for the mandatory fields. There are some invalid code when they ran the pages through the W3C validator. 

So there is about 259 errors that were addressed through that. A lot of those are in the background of the source code markup and not necessarily things that users will see, but those were all addressed. There are some missing air messages as well. 

Those were added. It goes back to the mandatory fields. Non-interactive elements receiving keyboard focus, that's pretty similar to what we addressed earlier, including the application complete status. You can move on to the next one. And that's about it. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks, Josh. Thanks for all that great work, working with Cass Tech to make all happen. It was a integral part in getting these through. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yes. This is Monica. Thank you, Josh. That was a lot of hard work and a lift on your part. Thank you for collaborating with them to get these fixes push through. 

JOSH GIHA: Yeah, my pleasure. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I have a much more accessible application, even more so. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yeah. Cass Tech's great to work with. There are a lot of fixes. 

JOSH GIHA: Yeah, I think the thing I like most about working with Cass Tech is when I came back to them with, hey, I don't think this was really fixed, or this is really wasn't addressed in the way that the company suggested it, there was no pushback. They're just like, oh, OK. I see what you're talking about. And they just did the work. It's good. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: No back and forth submitting business reasons why we need it, sometimes, like we have to do on Oracle. It's quite lovely. So is there any questions about those ones? 

MONICA OLSSON: Chris, this is Monica. Can you remind-- or Josh. Sorry. Can you say once more when the document will be available online? I missed that. 

JOSH GIHA: Similar to the QA team who usually goes over at one last time and does any final edits, and then they usually post it within a couple of days. So that should be sometime this week. 

MONICA OLSSON: OK, beautiful. Thank you. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, that will be on the accessibility page with all the other image overview documents. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yeah. 

JOSH GIHA: Yeah. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: We didn't have any status changes on any of the currently open service requests we have with Oracle in this last month. Still working with them on anything we got open? Please continue to submit through the online submission form. Let us know what you want to hear about, and we'll talk about it. 

The accessibility page that I was just mentioning there, there's a link to it in the slides here, where we have all of our well the documents like this for each of the updates we put out in the system, explaining all the new features. And our next forum, this month out, on Tuesday, April 11, same time, same place. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yep. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. 

MONICA OLSSON: And I think we've reached the end of the new updates we've prepared to share. The remainder of the slides are the ongoing record of currently open SRs with Oracle, correct? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: That's correct. 

MONICA OLSSON: OK. Awesome. Really great exciting updates around PeopleTools upgrade coming, great collaboration between Josh, SBCTC, and Cass Tech. Some good work happening between Vicki, myself, and OKTA with a multifactor authentication tool. So before we close out of today's session, are there questions or comments? Or it's our other issues that people might need to raise? 

OK. Well, as always, thank you for being here and for listening and learning alongside us. Chris, and Josh, and their team are working hard every day in the role of accessibility for us, as is Vicki and myself. And we'll see you here again next month in April, same time, same place for more updates in conversation. I'm going to go ahead and pause recording now.