[Progresso] A2C - how to configure with progresso?

[Ditto]

We still quite new as a school, but we've now got to the stage of exam entries. A2C has been raised as a requirement by our relatively newly appointed Exams Officer. Does anyone have any advice on configuring this in the progresso world?

I've seen the need to download A2C software on to a some kind of Windows device. I'm guessing this would normally be installed on a central server. We have one now, but last year we were GSuite for Apps and Chromebooks - would there been a solution for school with no Windows environments (good ol' days!)?

[Mic_Impero]

From my best recollection (around 2 years ago) the application is a transport agent for the file exported from the MIS (or downloaded once Progresso has generated it in your case), and was only available for windows. In our case, we simply installed on the exams officer's pc and had progresso download to the folder it monitored, and away it went.

[djrscally]

Mic is right; all that program does is download/upload files to/from the exams board. It needs no configuration with Progresso per se, you just set an IN and OUT folder for it and download files from Progresso to the OUT folder, upload files to Progresso from the IN folder.

 

I'm not sure what the alternative would be for a school with no Windows at all. Presumably you'd have at least linux running on a server somewhere? I'm sure the A2C Migration program would would work on WINE.

[Ditto]

Thanks @Mic_Impero and @djrscally. Progresso support have now confirmed the same. In terms of non-Windows, until this year we were effectively 90+% Chromebook, so Linux wasn't onsite. In truth, we had a small number of staff with Windows, but it's interesting to see where the need is. So much of what we use is cloud/browser based. It's a relatively small list of things that we needed Windows - and mostly in truth it's really MS Office Suite . The biggest groups were teachers want MS Office resources - usually Word and Powerpoint. Whilst Google documents converts these, we find as soon as we have diagrams/images etc. it struggles. If Google improve that, the MS Office need will reduce. Excel generally converts to Google Sheets fine. MIS is fine cloud based. Learning apps are either browser based or Chrome apps. I guess for A2C, we would bite the bullet and accepted we'd need a Windows PC and cough up. But perhaps I should ask JCQ to consider a browser based solution?

[djrscally]

Thanks @Mic_Impero and @djrscally. Progresso support have now confirmed the same. In terms of non-Windows, until this year we were effectively 90+% Chromebook, so Linux wasn't onsite. In truth, we had a small number of staff with Windows, but it's interesting to see where the need is. So much of what we use is cloud/browser based. It's a relatively small list of things that we needed Windows - and mostly in truth it's really MS Office Suite . The biggest groups were teachers want MS Office resources - usually Word and Powerpoint. Whilst Google documents converts these, we find as soon as we have diagrams/images etc. it struggles. If Google improve that, the MS Office need will reduce. Excel generally converts to Google Sheets fine. MIS is fine cloud based. Learning apps are either browser based or Chrome apps. I guess for A2C, we would bite the bullet and accepted we'd need a Windows PC and cough up. But perhaps I should ask JCQ to consider a browser based solution?

 

Apparently you can install the Android WINE app onto a Chromebook, so that might be an option too. But yeah some other method might be better. I wonder if LibreOffice runs on the Chromebooks; conversion to .odt has always worked quite well for me including for graphics and things (that said I use office programs rarely)

 

I'm sure at one time a few years ago I heard rumblings about a replacement for A2C that was in the pipeline; I think with the intention that they liaise with MIS providers to have the functionality to send to the boards built in to an MIS. Not sure if that is still happening or fell by the wayside.

[Ditto]

I've also just seen that VirtualBox can be made to work on a Chromebook, which triggers some interesting thoughts around the NEA requirements for Computing - except that the boards have effectively dropped it!

 

For Word, that's an interesting thought - DOCX -> ODT -> Google doc - I'll have a try, but for staff, simply we just need Word/PP documents straight to Google docs to work better. Against my personal preference of trying to stay free from MS Windows and Office Suite, the school succumbed to teacher demands and ended up spending a shed-load of money on a server/PCs and of course all the licensing costs.

 

For A2C - I suspect JCQ would not want to spend any money. More years ago than I can remember (20+), I worked at what is now the AQA, implementing Basedata via EDI - it doesn't appear to have changed too much.

[CAM]

To set up A2C, you need to install it on your Exam Officer's computer and point the system to the EXAMIN and EXAMOUT folders for your MIS (this example is for SIMS, another MIS this is the location where exam files are stored for download and upload). You will then need to log in to each exam board's website and acquire an A2C Access Key. This encrypted file is then saved anywhere you want and you point A2C to the file to authorise it to access that exam board's file repositories. Your Exam Officer can then press a button to receive data from all exam boards at once.

 

As far as I know it doesn't use MS Office. The files are result files in their own strange format anyway and it collects the data from the exams board and dumps them in the EXAMIN folder for you to import in your MIS. You can also point it to any old folder but then you'd need to copy the files across to your EXAMIN folder manually which defeats the point.