Schoolcomms Posted January 16, 2014 Author Posted January 16, 2014 With work on the App UI progressing well, we are starting to look the school administrator side. What configuration options would you need to make this work for your school? This is what we have come up with at the moment: • For each functionality area you will be able to switch it on or off for any of Parents, Students and Staff (if you switch it off it will just show a “not available” message when clicked on in the menu) • For behaviour and achievements you can set the earliest date that you want to show data (in case older data is less good, or inappropriate to show to parents) There is a “role” field and a number of points for behaviours. You can for example record someone as being a “witness” or “bystander” - not sure if schools would want to share this with parents/student? We thought that maybe an option to NOT share behaviours that received 0 points? There are some others that are probably going to have to come shortly after the first release to co-incide with some back-end changes we are making to our e-mail sending services: • Destination Email address for unexplained absence responses (if not using Schoolcomms messaging to manage attendance) • Destination Email address for Pupil Premium responses • Destination Email address for Student Details and About Me changes Are there any other settings you would like to see? If you wanted to try the product before buying it are there any other settings you would need?
howartp Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 Hi, Just on your bullet points: 1) If functionality is switched off, could it be hidden completely from menu's (or greyed out) rather than saying 'not available' after being clicked on. 2) As well as an earliest date, we'd need a latest date - we don't show today's behaviour, or possibly even yesterdays', to parents in case the year team want to intercept and upgrade/downgrade the behaviour. 3) I think we only show that a behaviour event has taken place, and possibly the number of points - we don't show any detail of the behaviour to parents. Peter
tombry Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 I'd like to make it so parents would not see any comments. I'd also want to make sure that it wasn't sharing bullying incidents with parents, as those are things we track internally and decide if it is bullying - don't need a parent to see that their child was put down as a victim, when they might not actually be a victim. We actually use 0BP for a couple things that we give detentions for, that I would want parents to be aware of too. Not sure if you're covering it, but I don't think I'd want parents reading the comments on behaviour incidents, as some of our staff put some inappropriate comments in there at times (not too mention spelling/grammar errors)
GREED Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 Not sure if you're covering it, but I don't think I'd want parents reading the comments on behaviour incidents, as some of our staff put some inappropriate comments in there at times (not too mention spelling/grammar errors) While I agree it is important to have the option, is that not a user training issue? Not using a potentially very useful communication tool because teachers need to be told what is and is not appropriate to write?
Edu-IT Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 While I agree it is important to have the option, is that not a user training issue? Not using a potentially very useful communication tool because teachers need to be told what is and is not appropriate to write?But on the flip side, if there's things you need to write, where do you write them if you can't write them in SIMS? Sometimes it's handy to be able to put comments in for other staff, so they're aware, but you wouldn't necessarily want that available online.
GREED Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 But on the flip side, if there's things you need to write, where do you write them if you can't write them in SIMS? Sometimes it's handy to be able to put comments in for other staff, so they're aware, but you wouldn't necessarily want that available online. Agreed. There is a bit of a missed part on the part of SIMS there. Another MIS I formerly worked for * has a public and private comments section for behavior (and markbook feedback incidentally).
tombry Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 goes both ways - there are some comments that are useful - but @GREED has my main concern in one. but it's all well and good to say it's a training issue - staff don't half listen to what they are told, so I can't imagine they would amazingly do so now. Personally I think it'd be great for them to learn by having a parent see something they shouldn't put - but if the option wasn't there to limit parents from seeing it, I can see SLT saying to not allow that access at all, which completely removes the tool.
GREED Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 goes both ways - there are some comments that are useful - but @GREED has my main concern in one. but it's all well and good to say it's a training issue - staff don't half listen to what they are told, so I can't imagine they would amazingly do so now. Personally I think it'd be great for them to learn by having a parent see something they shouldn't put - but if the option wasn't there to limit parents from seeing it, I can see SLT saying to not allow that access at all, which completely removes the tool. It is a sensible precaution to have. It would allow your school to a) tidy up past data (a concern!) and b) give the SMT a buffer to say 'we will be publishing comments in 6 months, so learn to write decent comments'.
Schoolcomms Posted January 16, 2014 Author Posted January 16, 2014 If functionality is switched off, could it be hidden completely from menu's (or greyed out) rather than saying 'not available' after being clicked on. We are working out the best option for what starts on, what can be switched off etc. It's complicated slightly because as a parent you might have children at different schools. As well as an earliest date, we'd need a latest date - we don't show today's behaviour, or possibly even yesterdays', to parents in case the year team want to intercept and upgrade/downgrade the behaviour. We hadn't thought of that, but I can understand the reasoning, we'll quiz people at BETT to see how common this is. It's not challenging but not trivial either (e.g. due to push notifications for new events) we need to figure out the best way to do it. I think we only show that a behaviour event has taken place, and possibly the number of points - we don't show any detail of the behaviour to parents. We have made it so you can switch on behaviour (or achievements) without having to show comments. Alternatively you could use the "only show data from X date forwards" option to only switch on behaviours after staff had been told to keep them clean. Hopefully those two options are sufficient. Worth remembering that parents are allowed to make a request for a full copy of the data you hold on them. There have been cases of businesses being sued based on comments left by call centre staff in customer records. I'd also want to make sure that it wasn't sharing bullying incidents with parents, as those are things we track internally and decide if it is bullying - don't need a parent to see that their child was put down as a victim, when they might not actually be a victim. We actually use 0BP for a couple things that we give detentions for, that I would want parents to be aware of too. The 0BP option we are going to do, which would hopefully keep the bullying victim record out (presume 0 points). But that would also keep your desirable 0BP events out. Can we persuade you to give them just 1 point? Discriminating based on behaviour type is probably a step too far for us in this first release, but we will quiz people at BETT and if it is a common need we will find a way to bring it in. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and feedback - really really useful.
mark80 Posted January 17, 2014 Posted January 17, 2014 With respect to the "date buffer" for behaviour events i have found that the other argument from a school i worked with wanted behaviour notifications to be sent out at the end of the school day. This allowed for any concerns the school had raised during the day be sent ot parents who, if bothered, could challenge/praise the student on their behaviour. The staff were well trainined and knew they had a professional responsibility to not record garbage. I think speaking to people at BETT is all well and good but for every reason a school will give you that its a good idea there will be a school say that is a bad one. I suppose your job is to provide the ability to turn functionality on/off. This is where developers can get lazy because its easier to hard code functionality than offer choice. 2
Schoolcomms Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 We got some great feedback from BETT - overall really positive. People were really impressed with responsiveness of the app, especially given the awful WiFi available. Configuration screens are coming along: If you fiddle around with the configurations (and hit save) the changes impact all the users on web and in the app instantly which is pretty cool. We also like to get rid of pointless process steps, and make it easy to get going. So this will be the process for a Schoolcomms messaging or payments customer to start using Online Reporting: Go to the Online Reporting menu in Schoolcomms Click "Turn on Online Reporting" Decide if you want to turn anything off Hit save Congratulations your live. (We'll ring you up after 30 days and if you're happy with it then we'll ask you to pay for it ) 1
GREED Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 It looked great at BETT from what I saw... which was every time I shuffled past the stand!
LisaJMarks Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 It will be interesting to see how it works cross platforms, many groups out there made up of different MIS solutions, that need a solution to sit over all.
matt40k Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Surprising as it might seem, especially after Capita released InTouch, @Schoolcomms is SIMS only. Means they have less problems and are more focused. Does however mean they are basically under Capita control.
GREED Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Does however mean they are basically under Capita control. I wound't say that really. Schoolcomms weathered the storm of InTouch being released, and well. It means they sell to 85% of the market. I don't see how that makes them under Capita control?
vikpaw Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Surprising as it might seem, especially after Capita released InTouch, @Schoolcomms is SIMS only. Means they have less problems and are more focused. Does however mean they are basically under Capita control. I wound't say that really. Schoolcomms weathered the storm of InTouch being released, and well. It means they sell to 85% of the market. I don't see how that makes them under Capita control? @Schoolcomms are SIMS only, they could work with other systems via CSV or other imports but it would be messy, at best only semi-automated, and not as tight an integration. They do a job and they do it well. They have weathered the storm well, as have other partners - it's an interesting discussion and the posts have been moved to this thread http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/131212-capita-partners-api.html to maintain the focus on this one. 1
jenny_urey Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 Groupcall are also bringing out a parent reports app soon. It will be interesting to see how these 2 apps compare. Its a great idea. TASC insight also runs quite well on an ipad, not tried it on an iPhone yet though. Yes...100% compatible on iPad
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