Getting Started with FAST Tracker

The Texas Comptroller’s FAST Tracker is a powerful application that lets you easily find and compare financial information for Texas school districts and campuses.

This tutorial will guide you through common FAST Tracker tasks, and guides you as you become more familiar with FAST Tracker’s workspace and features.

Note: The district and campus search pages and profiles all work the same way. To keep things simple, we will focus the instructions on districts, but they generally apply to campuses too.

A Note About System Requirements

Before you get started, determine whether your Web browser is capable of running FAST Tracker.

FAST Tracker is compatible with the following Web browsers:

Safari 5.1 or above,
Internet Explorer (IE) 10.0 or later,
Firefox 15.0 or later,
Chrome 25.0 or later

In addition, JavaScript and cookies must be enabled in your browser for FAST Tracker to work properly.

The Workspace

The FAST Tracker interface is designed to help you easily navigate and interact with the workspace. The primary workspace is divided into three sections:

The left column is for navigation.

The left margin of the page contains navigation elements that let you jump quickly between search options, including FAST Metrics, Academics, Finances, and Demographics.

The center is your search palette.

From here you will select specific districts, campuses and other characteristics to be compared.

The right column is for managing your search selections.

This column lists your search selections. From here, you can review and delete search criteria and run your search.

The navigation on the left and the criteria list and buttons on the right are ‘sticky,’ so they should always be visible for reference no matter where you are on the page.

The top is for navigation.

The top of the page contains navigation elements that let you jump quickly between search options, including FAST Metrics, Academics, Finances, and Demographics.

The main body is your search palette.

From here you will select specific districts, campuses and other characteristics to be compared.

The bottom is for is for managing your search selections.

Here you can review and delete search criteria and run your search.

FAST Tracker Search Tips

The tutorial Setting up a FAST Tracker Search demonstrates how to set up a search step by step.

Here are a few quick tips to get you started.

To run a search, you need to select at least one district or make at least one selection for any criteria.
Your selections will appear in the “My Search Selections” list in the right column.
Districts must be selected one at a time.
Use the left-column navigation to quickly jump between District Selection, FAST Metrics, Academics, Finances and Demographics.
“My Search Selections” sections can be expanded and collapsed by clicking the linked headers, or by clicking the ⊕ or ⊖ symbols.
Clicking on a district, campus or criterion in the “My Search Selections” list deletes that item from the search.
Districts selected by name will automatically be included in the report, along with districts that match other criterion you select.

Open/Close

Delete Selection

That means for the selections in the screen-shots above, the results would contain Austin ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Eanes ISD, Round Rock ISD and Pfugerville ISD plus all the districts with 5-star ratings.

Note: Because the search tool processes a large volume of data, results may take a few moments to load.

Tips for Reading FAST Tracker Results

FAST Tracker is a powerful tool that generates a wealth of data related to Texas public school district and campus spending, academics, and demographics. To better harness the power of these custom reporting features, we encourage users to “dive in” and become acquainted with the tool and its many features.

To help you get started, here are a just a few features to help you explore data.

For best results use the “Refine Search” button to make changes to your search selections as opposed to using your web browser’s back button.
Dive deep into data by selecting “See as Table” or “See Over Time,” or download the data as a .csv file.
View data over time by clicking the “See Over Time” link. View how a campus or district compares to its FAST fiscal peers over time by clicking “See Fiscal Peers” next to the number line.
Use the left-column navigation to “quick jump” between FAST Ratings, Academics, Finances and Demographics.
Compare a district or campus’ performance to the state performance on a number line.
In the Finances and Demographics sections, compare a district or campus’ performance their FAST fiscal peers’ performance on a number line.
See how a district or campus compares to its FAST fiscal peers by clicking on the colored dot in the number line next to the selected district or campus’ name.
Clicking on any header with a “+” sign at the beginning of the name will expand to show related data.
When viewing multiple entities in a table, hover over the blue bar to search and sort data.