MIS - easy to manage 3 separate schools (dfe's)

[wat4rd]

I know this is a bit of a long shot, but is anyone aware of any MIS that deals well with managing 3 seperate schools. We are now one organisation but have 3 seperate dfes still. Is anyone aware of any MIS systems that might handle this set up well.

We currently have 3 seperate versions of Integris which is only used by admin staff (as letting more staff would become problematic due to the multiple logins for each DfE instance), obviously this means the potential of having the MIS is currently limited and also means collating information is tricky, and has to be exported from the MIS and done manually in excel.

 

Any guidance or similar experiences would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[john]

I know that in Progresso you should be able to do a Cluster option so you can quickly switch between schools, never saw it in practice but that maybe usable in this option?

[wat4rd]

Thanks John, that sounds like it may be a useful feature. Swapping between instances easily would definetly be a help. Do you know how powerful Progresso is for exporting info as csv? Integris is seeming a little limited as to what you can export as csv, and as we are combining a lot of data to do analysis, exporting as much data as possible to csv when needed gives us the flexibilty to combine the data as we need it for analysis.

I'm definetly going to check Progresso out at BETT, hadn't really considered them previously.

[vikpaw]

DoubleFirst has a built in capability for specifying the cluster and the school.

[wat4rd]

Is Progresso on the DfE suggested suppliers list do you know? Who is the provider for Progresso?

[PhilNeal]

It was on the framework when sold by Serco. No allowance was made for Serco selling Facility/Progresso and Advanced Learning, the new owner is not on the list.

 

That shouldn't really worry you as you could get on the framework without a product!!

[PhilNeal]

Actually I wanted to ask - why do you want a single database if all the schools are separate?

[wat4rd]

We all come under one umbrella organiastion. Ideally we would have one DfE I think, but politically that isn't possible just at the minute. Esentially we have a KS3 building and KS4 building. But students from 3 seperate schools (3 dfe numbers) are based across the 2 buildings. So you end up with 2 students in the same class but technically registered to different schools/ rolls.

It's not an ideal arrangement, but one we have to work with currently.

[wat4rd]

We need to report for each school individually, but also break down data for classes/ each building/ the whole organisiation, all of which currently involve administartion on 3 seperate systems and manual data analysis from exported data.

[vikpaw]

Oh boy!

Well I know how to make you weep :

 

C-e-n-s-u-s

[matt40k]

God your evil @vikpaw!! Surprised @PhilNeal hasn't pulled out the Partnership Xchange guns :S

[PhilNeal]

@matt40k - PX might be able to handle this but it would be a kludge. This is really a single school, shared teachers, resources and timetable.

[vikpaw]

God your evil @vikpaw!! Surprised @PhilNeal hasn't pulled out the Partnership Xchange guns :S

moi? :nono:stop creating work for the :mod:s

[GREED]

It was on the framework when sold by Serco. No allowance was made for Serco selling Facility/Progresso and Advanced Learning, the new owner is not on the list.

 

That shouldn't really worry you as you could get on the framework without a product!!

 

I know you like to keep mentioning that @PhilNeal, and it was true, however it should be clear that everyone on the framework does indeed have a product (Less Serco now, obviously)...

 

C'mon 's do your thing!

Edited December 18, 2013 by GREED

[matt40k]

Someone's just had the annual Capita licensing bill drop in front of him

[GREED]

You I take it? Don't think they would send it to me!!

[matt40k]

Lol, no, I'm sure I can arrange them to send it to you instead, just remember to pay within the 28 days otherwise the Capita mob come after you - oh and no tag backs!!

[GREED]

Damn it...

[PhilNeal]

Yes everyone does have a product now but my point stands. I've nothing to gain from my statement which is don't limit yourself to what's on that framework.

[woody]

To get back to the question in point.

 

We ran for 3 years with two separate Academies who shared a 6th form. We tried Partnership X (it was in it's early days) but it just didn't work at the time but we were trying to 'fudge' it as Phil Neal says.

 

We then added students from each site as guests at the other site and duplicated the timetable. After creating a script that gave an option which SIMS to load and map the correct drive, teachers then had to fill in two registers for each class! But it still wasn't ideal and it won't help for reporting across students from both sites. But we were able to sort out the Census.

 

In the end, Management realised that the best way to sort this was to move all 6th form into one of the Academies - although there were more reasons behind this than just getting the MIS to work.

 

To be honest unless there is a magical product out there that I don't know about, you will not get anything that will give you the best of both worlds: Reporting and Census for the individual DFES entities and reporting / single registration across students who are mixing together from different establishments.

 

This isn't because it is technically possible, it's because very few establishments work like this and so there's no business model for someone to write the software.

 

Waiting for someone to prove me wrong!

[GREED]

Yes everyone does have a product now but my point stands. I've nothing to gain from my statement which is don't limit yourself to what's on that framework.

 

I agree Phil, completely. However your wording, like this statement too, suggests that providers on the framework did not at the time of evaluation have a product. I realise that is just semantics however it should be made clear to all that everyone on the framework had and has a product. I, you and others would not want is suggested otherwise.

 

But yes, look at the whole market. If you are not buying off the framework (most individual schools and small academy chains dont), use it as a guide only for providers to look at :-)

[GREED]

 

To be honest unless there is a magical product out there that I don't know about, you will not get anything that will give you the best of both worlds: Reporting and Census for the individual DFES entities and reporting / single registration across students who are mixing together from different establishments.

 

This isn't because it is technically possible, it's because very few establishments work like this and so there's no business model for someone to write the software.

 

Waiting for someone to prove me wrong!

 

I know it doesn't help you for now, but the issue you are raising with census and your schools, because of your setup, will subside in a couple of years as per the mentioned DfE transformation projects.

 

I am not aware (any more) of products currently on the market that can solve this suitably for you

[matt40k]

I've nothing to gain from my statement which is don't limit yourself to what's on that framework.

 

Yes, why would you want to undermind a framework that gives simple vendor-neutral comparison?

 

I'd really recommend the IMLS... it brought a couple of unexpected players to our attention, and we got a good deal, even if one naughty naughty player did try to lure us away from the framework with promises of better pricing.

 

Why would a vendor want to lure people away from a framework that gives simple vendor-neutral comparison?

 

I'm sure the two aren't linked. Excuse me whilst I just go hoover my carpet.

[Heebeejeebee]

Hi,

 

We've been in the same position as the OP for a year or so now and have looked at all the options for having 3 organisations (soon to be 4) under the same MIS. SIMS & PE was a messy - not really live solution which couldn't do a lot of the things we wanted (siblings in different schools, shared staff, global view, reporting across the sites etc.). The Serco product was a virtual non starter as well. The only option at the time that seemed to do it all was Aspen which still looks best in my opinion and we're about to start the process of migrating separate SIMS and CMIS databases into it.

 

My only concern with Aspen is the apparent lack of third party support (which they say they're working on but as we all know ......). Things that extract data directly at the moment are currently not supported (VLEs such a Frog etc. Truancy call, Vivomiles and many more).

 

When we started our queries we were pretty much the first people to ask and it kind of caught the MIS suppliers on the back foot as they'd not considered that this might be a requirement across a Trust. I'm sure by now many more have asked and they will certainly need to come up with a solution or loose out to those that already have one.

 

HBJB

[ProgressoGeek]

In response to the original post, Progresso's data architecture is one of multiple schools under a single cluster. This approach allows for additional MIS functionality, such as pushing reports to individual schools within the cluster, managing system settings/users accounts/learner records e.t.c without the constant logging in and out of each school, plus the ability to report on all the data within each school without the need for 3rd party interfaces to name a few.

 

If it helps, here's an example of a cluster dashboard.