ReportPlus

[stevenwba]

Hi,

 

ive installed report plus on many laptops in school and we were hoping to give them to staff to work from home, ive made each staff a power user on each laptop they are assigned, setup report plus just how we wanted, now only to find testing, that away from school users have no home drive, which is where report plus likes to save all the reports (my documents).

 

Just wondered if anyone here has report plus on staff laptops and how they set theres up, as im banging my head against a wall at the moment!!

 

Regards

[laserblazer]

My head got too sore from the banging and I went back to ReportAssist.

[kaphc]

We've got Reportplus working in our school with staff working on reports from home on laptops. However, these are set up without login accounts so there are no issues as far as access goes.

 

Have you tried File .... Save as to point the default location of where the reports are saved to another folder? There's a user called ComputingData around on these forums who works for the company who sell ReportPlus (writing a lot of the code I think) who may well be able to give a better answer than this ... I'll send him a PM.

[ComputingData]

Normally this does not happen, but with some school networks there appears to be only one profile setup on the computer - the one were the docs and settings is a network drive. When the computer leaves the profile isn't updated or switched to a second one away from the network and synced.

 

So... don't panic and stop banging your head! lol. - there is an easy solution. You can force the program not to trust the laptop's reported documents and settings! Here is a link to the resources section that contains a description of this 'override' facility and some other pdf docs you may like too: ReportPlus

 

Here is a direct link to the actual pdf doc itself: http://reportplus.co.uk/downloads/override.pdf

 

If you use the override then after you have got it working (the program should appear to start afresh), exit the program and move the files you have in your original 'docs and settings/reportplus' to the override folder.

 

Thanks to Kaphc for letting me know about this post.

Edited May 5, 2010 by ComputingData

[stevenwba]

What can i say guys, that override feature is just what is needed, thanks so much you 2, really saved my bacon today!!! much appreciated!!

[kaphc]

No problem, glad I could point you in the right direction!

[synaesthesia]

Can I borrow that wall after you?

 

Why does ReportPlus ignore double barrelled names in imports?

So if I add a teacher "Mrs J D Williams" why on earth does it come up as "Mrs J D"? Elimentary bug!

And when I correct that, and remove the old teachers and re-import the pupils why do they still go into their old teacher names? Had to remove all teachers, all pupils and start again to do it.

 

Also, even worse, the Help file doesn't work here - anyone else have that? As if a web page is unavailable or something. Phoned them up a couple of weeks ago and mentioned that, it was quickly ignored

Edited May 11, 2010 by synaesthesia

[ComputingData]

Because it is a computer program, not a human being. How could it distinguish between a double barrel forename and a double barrel surname?

 

To fix this, just select the teacher and then click 'teacher > edit teacher', retype the proper name (double barrel forename or double barrel surname), no need to re-import again (don't change the reference number - this is how it is linked to the pupil).

 

I could implement a change so that anything after the forename it considers a surname, or should it be only the last name is a surname and anything before that is a forename?

 

The help file may not appear for (at least) one of four reasons, either you have not downloaded the file (it's in reportplus/download/help.chm), or you have a block on chm files on your system (some antivirus programs consider downloaded chm files a threat), or you have a proxy server or firewall that doesn't like chm's, or your network system makes Windows 'think' that your local drive is a network rive - Windows will not open a chm from a network drive.

 

The help file is the same as the pdf file (instruction manual) on the resources section of the website. In a future release we will be including a stripped down help file in the initial download (no pictures), this will help you in your situation.

Edited May 11, 2010 by ComputingData

[synaesthesia]

Aha, I see (about the help file)

The system (CC4) does indeed use remote document locations - I wasn't aware there was issue running CHM's from those, after all why would there be! Will look into that further. It appears to work fine on the standalone station I've just this minute installed upon.

 

The name thing seems like a no-brainer to me, even as a non-programmer - instead of a field for "teacher name" during import, "title" "forename" "surname" and possibly "other names" would be more than sufficient to do the job without getting in a muddle!

Didn't think about just renaming them though - in a large site however that would be murderous! Found it quick enough to edit the CSV and manually remove the superfluous information.

[stevenwba]

Aha, I see (about the help file)

The system (CC4) does indeed use remote document locations - I wasn't aware there was issue running CHM's from those, after all why would there be! Will look into that further. It appears to work fine on the standalone station I've just this minute installed upon.

 

The name thing seems like a no-brainer to me, even as a non-programmer - instead of a field for "teacher name" during import, "title" "forename" "surname" and possibly "other names" would be more than sufficient to do the job without getting in a muddle!

Didn't think about just renaming them though - in a large site however that would be murderous! Found it quick enough to edit the CSV and manually remove the superfluous information.

 

I am also on a cc4 network which is why i was having exactly the same problems, use the same override.txt file i need to save everything in a folder in C Drive, working a treat now!!

[ComputingData]

syneasthesia: Some teachers know only have basic knowledge of exporting from SIMS, most would not know how to do that. But anyway, I'll add those extra fields to the program. In addition, the program 'understands' *lots* of optional fields and variations, I'll put together a complete list and make it available on resources.

 

Yes, Windows (now, it used to) doesn't allow remote chm files by default. You could try this: If you go in the program, click on 'options', select 'advanced settings' and double click 'NetworkHelp' - change it from a 0 to a 1. Then try help again (you may have to restart). What this does is copy the help file to the users 'temp' folder first, then view it from there. If the temp folder is on a network drive then you're out of luck unless you use this method: Blib...Blog...Blib...: Open CHM Files from Network drive

 

The problem with the cc networks is that the documents and settings folder returned by Windows when running on these networks appears (imho) to be 'flakey' at best. Most of the time it appears to return an empty string (nothing!) - in this case ReportPlus scans the other foldernames (pictures, music, etc) to see if can guess the proper location, most of the time it gets it right.

 

As another alternative to using the override, you can also use an alternative install that works great on cc3/4 networks. It's also described in the resources section. This is the possibly best solution if your users are using machines and have access to a shared drive for all teachers (not using laptops and writing from home).

[ComputingData]

Syneasthesia: I've beefed up the 'name splitter' for the next update fo the program (I looked at a few names to get a good representation of common variations), here are a few test examples of it working:

 

Miss Faye O'Neill

forename:Faye

surname: O'Neill

title: Miss

 

Faye O'Neill

forename:Faye

surname: O'Neill

title:

 

Miss O'Neill

forename:

surname: O'Neill

title: Miss

 

Faye

forename:Faye

surname:

title:

 

Faye blah bing smith O'Neill

forename:Faye blah

surname: bing smith O'Neill

title:

 

Miss Faye blah O'Neill

forename:Faye blah

surname: O'Neill

title: Miss

 

Miss J L GOODWIN

forename:J L

surname: GOODWIN

title: Miss

 

I think this appears to figure out most cases correctly now. What do you think?

 

Faye is the Girlfriend btw. and her middle names aren't 'blah bing smith'!

Edited May 11, 2010 by ComputingData

[stevenwba]

Hi ComputingData,

 

Just a quick question, we have now reportplus working on all laptops we need, and staff are writing reports away, we have one desktop that we want to have all the reports back on once everyones finished, do i simply go round with a memory stick and export the pupil file from every machine onto the memory stick, and then import onto the main machine??? also where does it stand with merging and overwriting that file

 

Regards

[ComputingData]

If you can use the online system then you can get them all to 'upload pupil file to server', you then go into 'administration', click 'select all', the 'download' will change to 'merge', click 'merge', once it's complete you take a quick look through it and either save for the head or printout.

 

If you are using memory sticks to transfer, then either get everyone to save to memory stick and then you collect the sticks, click 'file > merge pupil file' and browse to the 'reports' file on the stick. After the merge it will ask you if you want to merge another file in, swap sticks, click 'yes' and so on...

 

With a single stick, do something similar, save to the stick, go to the admin pc, merge it in, then go to the next pc, save to stick, go to the amdin pc, merge it in and so on...

[suckedsmarty]

To ComputingData

I'm glad your about "ReportPlus man". My partner's school had just started using this product and have found a bug. Apparently anything that starts with "he" (not just the he word on it's own)...as in hexadecimal changes itslef to the name of the child...xadecimal. i.e. fredxadecimal (prob same with his and history we guess).

Cheers

Tony

[suckedsmarty]

Oh yea, sorry to lower the tone a bit. Come on yow baggies. (that's for the guy who started the thread...I was born a stone's throw from the Hawthorns).

[ComputingData]

I'll look at that and get it sorted it out. Thanks.

[GavinB]

I have set everything up in as the administrator but cannot find the upload pupil file option. Could you let me know where it is thanks.

 

GavinB

[ComputingData]

When you upload settings and data it uploads your current set of pupils (usually the whole school) as the 'default set' together with any teacher allocations, subject order, custom subjects, etc...

 

Teachers then can get the 'default set' by downloading school settings, then (if they have never saved before) they will be asked if they want to use the 'default set', normally thay should click 'yes' and then select themselves from the dropdown lisy of teachers above the pupil list and start working.

(If they have already saved for some reason and want to start again with the 'default set' then they can click 'file > new pupils file' and they will be asked the question again.

 

They are the ones who use 'Upload pupil file' and 'Download pupil file' in order to save a copy on our sever for a backup, to transfer back to school or for you to merge at the end.

 

If they click the dropown menu to the right of the pink 'save' icon in the toolbar, they can choose to upload the file or to save to memory stick.

[GavinB]

Thank you for the swift reply, i was trying to update a teacher who had aready saved an older version of the pupil file using the new pupil file option worked great.

 

Thanks for the help

 

GavinB