Sods_Laur Posted May 15, 2015 Posted May 15, 2015 Or rather what system do your teachers use to write reports for parents? The system we are currently using finishes at the end of July and we need an alternative. I have heard good things about Go4Schools but are there any others? We don't have time to build something ourselves as it needs to be up and running before the summer holidays!
LosOjos Posted May 15, 2015 Posted May 15, 2015 Which MIS are you using? Our current system is SIMS based; we have a set of templates each linked to a set of gradesets, those gradesets containing comment banks. We print using Individual Reports. There is a module in SIMS called "Profiles", but we were advised by our support team to avoid using this as it's fraught with [unspecified] problems. One major issue I remember them pointing out when I went on a training course about it a few years ago was that once reports were finalised (there are various stages reports are set to during the process) then they could never be edited, so if a mistake is spotted at that point, your only option was to start from scratch (!!!)
Sods_Laur Posted May 15, 2015 Posted May 15, 2015 Sorry I should have put that in my post! We use Facility CMIS, there seem to be a few SIMS-based things around but v little for CMIS.
CAM Posted May 18, 2015 Posted May 18, 2015 SIMS here and I use Assessment Manager to enter data (simply because Profiles is absurdly complicated and inflexible, I can't get my head around managing it!).
Jenis Posted May 19, 2015 Posted May 19, 2015 Edit: sorry @Sods_Laur, just saw that you use CMIS, well post below for anyone considering Profiles... I made the switch to Profiles, and yes, @CAM and @LosOjos are correct, it can be absurdly complicated, inflexible and fraught with difficulties if you don't get it right first time. However, once you do get your head around it, just like any system in SIMS, you can adapt it to your needs and understand the tricks to get around things. Key point being, if your teachers aren't allowed to edit the report, then you can change the comment banks around almost as much as you like. You can't change the order, so once it's in an active session, any new comment banks get shoved to the end. But, you can edit them for content as much as you like. Once the comment banks are created you can create a session, test them all out and if you're not happy with it, simply delete the session (obviously before teachers have started completing reports!) and go back to the comment banks to edit them. I guess the only really inflexible things can be once the session is active is associating courses with comment banks. Once a course is associated and the session is active, you can't change or add courses. Likewise, if you create a new area because you forgot a subject, you can't associate a course with it. There's also no recognition of positions staff hold in course manager, so subject heads can't see all the reports for all the classes they are responsible for - teachers can only write reports for the classes they are timetabled for. (Or, give Subject Heads the permissions for Profiles Operator). Also, you have to constantly, constantly stress to teachers that if they share a class only the lead teacher can complete the report, otherwise two reports will come out. For the most part it's pretty foolproof on their end, though. That's the only issue I've had with teachers screwing things up (post-non editing of comments...), and then I just got their subject heads to tell them off for being stupid. But really, I feel these things come with experience. I've used Profiles for two years now, and while the first year was a bit bumpy and full of sharp learning curves, it sure as heck was easier than proofreading the free text comments in Individual Reports. And, on a more personal opinion note, I feel like some of the reports are better quality and oddly enough aren't as generic as they can be when teachers write one report for the whole class.
Bev Posted May 20, 2015 Posted May 20, 2015 We use Matrep, it works very well for us and the staff all really like it. It doesn't use comment banks, but if the staff copy a report from another child, it will change all the appropriate names/pronouns etc. I used to use SIMS and it took me months but this is fantastic, I can turn them around in a couple of days.
SouthCoastSaint Posted May 20, 2015 Posted May 20, 2015 @LosOjos Agree that a steep learning curve needed when starting out, and complications if you link a course incorrectly and open the session. However, there is definitely no limit to when they are edited. Ours go through the entire checking process within profiles (fully editable there), but when generating, if you edit then just before printing and save, the linked document is updated. I use this to check for any paging issues, flicking through them all at the last minute.
Sods_Laur Posted May 20, 2015 Posted May 20, 2015 Matrep looks great @Bev - hopefully it's just what we need. And it's cheaper than the system we have now. Thanks for that, I was beginning to get a headache with the seeming lack of options for a CMIS school - I was getting so desperate I'm meeting a consultant to talk about developing reports in CMIS tomorrow.
bobsmith Posted May 22, 2015 Author Posted May 22, 2015 I've moved to a school using SIMS after nearly 10 years on CMIS. SIMS appears to offer more flexibility in some ways, but I've got to admit that setting up and managing the reporting process was much much easier in CMIS. If you are on CMIS then getting someone to show you an existing report is the way to go, CMIS uses lot's of quasi programming to get the reports just so, but once you've got one set up it's pretty straight forward to adjust the layout, the other beauty is the WYSIWYG arranging of template layouts.
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