[sims] Line Breaks in Individual Reports via comment Aspects

[tben2505]

Hi folks,

 

Trying to create simple reports (for target setting in the sixth form) which feature a few grades, then a comment. I want to put the grades and comments onto an individual report which eventually shows only the rows for the subjects the sixth formers study. All fine.

 

Only issue so far is that the comments don't feature any of the line breaks that I've put in (as tests) into the excel file (which is then imported).

 

The line breaks themselves come from Word, and then are pasted into the excel cells. This is because this is how the teaching staff will likely enter the comments.

 

Is there a way of importing the line breaks successfully?

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

 

 

SIMS: 7.114

MSOffice 2010

Windows XP

[vikpaw]

When I imported via Excel many moons ago, it used to actually be a hindrance when they copied in paragraphs, and it came through in whatever form. Will try to remember what or how it happened. Have you tried putting in things like \n

[tben2505]

Thanks vikpaw.

 

Unfortunately having to manually adjust each of the many excel spread sheets, and replace breaks with \n (or whatever) wouldn't be terribly desirable.

 

And there's no way I could ask teachers to do that!!

 

I mean, it's not the end of the world, but you'd have thought that if SIMS wanted people to use the Individual Reports arm effectively, they'd at least allow for line breaks in comments (which constitute a large part of what a report for a student is).

 

Tom

[vikpaw]

I just did a test, typing straight into excel and it's fine if you put an ALT+Enter so it's something to do with the way it's pasted from Word.

 

To be honest, i'd advise against using this method as i tried it just over a year ago, and it muddled up some of the inbound data, so needed manual checking.

 

If you do use it, try to get them to put data straight into Excel, which is what we used to do and then if they want a line break they have to ALT+ENTER. I also tell them to assume line breaks wont come up when it's merged to an individual report, but it does seem to accept them in SIMS now which it didn't before.

 

Here, to do paragraphing we utilise multiple comment aspects, so we can guarantee the output.

 

Can you not use something else to make input easier? SLG or TASC software / TeachersWebFolder...

 

Here they have to do it in SIMS direct until we get SLG up and running, so it's straight from Word to SIMS. It should be better at understanding the line breaks that way, i'd hope. It shouldn't take them long to copy paste.

Edited October 18, 2011 by vikpaw
sense

[tben2505]

Ah right, I thought ALT+Enter might work, actually...

 

Unfortunately our staff don't have access to SIMS.

 

What I'll do is I'll tell them they can import from Word if they want to sacrifice line breaks, and that line breaks can exist if they manually enter it in and use Alt + Enter...

 

...Although I bet that confuses them... you know what teachers are like !

[vikpaw]

...

Unfortunately our staff don't have access to SIMS.

...

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?! No access to SIMS???

Incidentally, are you really on 7.114?

[tben2505]

I am, yeah; is that too old?

 

No we use another MIS for staff, vikpaw!

[vikpaw]

You shouldn't be more than 3 upgrades behind, to make sure you maintain support. So you'd want to be on at least 7.132, maybe 136 or 138.

Also, the upgrades bring cool new functionality that you're missing out on, not to mention updates to help with CENSUS and returns, so i'm guessing you must be independent.

Sorry, was just shocked you don't let the staff get access to the MIS, even if their data is stored on another system.

[tben2505]

Well we basically run two MIS systems for one reason or another, so they have access to our other MIS, just not SIMS

 

Thanks for your advice; will try and steer the staff into typing directly into Excel and use ALT + ENTER!

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

[vikpaw]

I'd do some random tests after import to make sure it's all okay, or if you can convince them it's required, export the marksheets again, post import, and use them for proof reading, this will also double check that the data is properly lined up.

[tben2505]

Cheers mate appreciate that.

 

Although the ALT + Enter, I've discovered, doesn't actually transfer over onto the Individual Reports in word!

 

Looks like line breaks can't make it from excel to word via SIMS' Ind. Report facility!

[vikpaw]

Cheers mate appreciate that.

 

Although the ALT + Enter, I've discovered, doesn't actually transfer over onto the Individual Reports in word!

 

Looks like line breaks can't make it from excel to word via SIMS' Ind. Report facility!

 

It did for me, i tested before posting. I'm using Office 2007, installed on top of Office 2003, so don't know if that makes a difference. It may depend on what you're running, there are problems with Office 2010, but recently, we've found a few hotfixes from Microsoft that resolve those issues.