MattMitchell

From what I've seen about so far, any MIS is only as good as the way it's set up and used. The biggest problems people have with sims and cmis come down to the fact that they can be configured to do things the way you want. If a mis prescribed how things work, what you can do, what reports and analyses are available, etc, then they'd be a lot simpler to use (and to maintain).

What's a behaviour management system got to do with APP???

Most of the permissions setups are fairly logical - it's just a question of working out who needs to do what, and adding the roles to their account as needed. It's no more complex than the process of setting up an external set of access rules.

I've changed ours from S to A*! having said that, I'm using the points value externally, or doing the analysis in SIMS. Older fft stuff used + which sorts ok with text though. S doesn't!

Fair enough Phil - it wasn't meant as cynically as it probably sounded! Mobile provision would be a serious improvement, especially for things like taking registers. I love my iPhone and the apps, but I can't help thinking that there must be cheaper mobile devices out there for deployment of this kind of thing though. I'm guessing it's not hard to have a flagship prettied-up version though, especially if it's a webapp type thing.

Maybe iPhone support is more of a marketing ploy / USP: think how popular SIMS can sometimes be in this forum, and think how "cool" an iPhone app could seem. Maybe it's about that?

Ok, slight thread hijack here: is anyone recording APP assessment focus data in SIMS? How awkward has it been to do it and has it brought any benefits?

Audited exports is probably the best way - although it's always possible to get round that by accessing the backend RBDMS directly. There will be times when it's reasonable and necessary for someone to export a list of contact addresses to other software, or get a contact list for a school trip; maybe the trick is to make sure that if you don't feel you can trust someone with that kind of information, then they aren't allowed access to it/a school/children...

No, only the ones with effective software for management do. Most business management software, ESPECIALLY where interactions between staff and customers are managed (e.g. sales management, support ticket systems), will link some of the personnel data to some of the customer data to some of the "interaction" data. The alternative is to have the same information stored in separate locations, which is a severe no-no for data integrity, and really does not work well in terms of scalability. The way to do it, is to have a sufficiently granular and sophisticated access control system that allows staff (and sometimes customers) to see what they *need* to see, to change what they *need* to change, and not to access what they do not need to. You could do this by implementing a second system, in parallel with SIMS: one major drawback to consider, is that you would need to update SIMS from the personnel system, or to update the personnel system from SIMS. How would you implement this? Obviously, having someone copy the data manually is unacceptable from the point of view of accuracy (as humans make mistakes quite frequently). Another solution would be some kind of import/export script that copied data out from one system and then into the other. If you went this route, then you'd have to restrict the access, so that the script was only allowed to output the data it needed to. How is this a better solution than making sure that the relevant staff can or cannot access the data directly from within SIMS? I'm assuming that you have students' work, internet email traffic, student assessment data, teachers' files, and administrative data (finance, personnel, etc) all on your network. Do you run each set of data on a separate set of physical wires, along with separate network cards on each machine, etc? I'm guessing the answer is "no", because you have access control measures in place instead. SIMS (and any other decent MIS) can do this as well. To be honest, to have completely separate personnel, finance and academic management software systems would be a severe backwards step, and is likely to raise far more issues of security and data protection: I'll bet large sums of money that staff will send sensitive data of various sorts around in things like excel files, emails, and printouts. Learn the permissions system in SIMS, consult to find out who needs to know what (you may want to change things from the defaults), and set up your permissions accordingly! It'll be a lot simpler, more effective, less painful, and also cheaper. If training or knowledge is an issue then get some training/consultancy/manuals. It's cheaper than trying to write an in-house system, and it's far better than trying to link a third-party solution. If you have trust issues with data management/admin/it staff then these should be addressed, and installing two software systems will not fix them.

Keith - I'm curious: what are the features that timetabler has that are missing from nova?

Is it just me or do people have varying concepts of what APP means?

To be fair, we get Nova-T6 as part of our LA SIMS package, along with various essentials like AM7, etc. In that situation, it makes sense to go with Nova unless there is a strong business case to do otherwise! Nova does seem pretty good. We have a complex timetable, with streams, mixed streams, sets that divide streams up, sets that cross the entire year, offsite provision, etc, and Nova handles all of these. Also, I've not tried the demo of Timetabler yet, but it looks like you have to assign teaching staff before arranging the timetable. This may not always be the best method: we have a number of staff skilled in more than one subject area, and restricting staffing in this way wouldn't fulfil our needs. Also, does timetabler cover rooming? Nova does integrate with SIMS very well, and certainly at the moment I can't see a case for moving away from it for us.

The other catch is that columnheading (for aspects) has to be unique across the system, despite being only 25 characters long! I get round this by changing the heading on marksheet to things like "predicted grade" or "ks4 target" so that it can be a bit more readable, but if you're editing hundreds of templates by hand it might not be all that fun...

Plus it would be simple to deliver an iPhone webapp a la facebook

Sims has good granular control over access - for example, I'm data manager at our site but I can't view employees' personnel records, because I don't need to. It's quite a fine level of control. As others have said, things work better when you use sims's personnel features fully. Rolling your own system will probably be far less secure.

I'm beginning to think that Sivadam is a shareholder rather than a partner! Seriously though, it makes sense for a school to continue to use their existing timetabling solution, as long as it works with SIMS. Timetabling and the software to do it are complex, and retraining to use a new package can be risky, time-consuming and costly.

The other way to do it would be to protect the file contents (I think word can do this) by a bit of vb after they've been created. Batch converting has got to be the easiest option though.

OK, a few tips based on my experiences with AM7 so far... Always use result sets. Always. If you have an aspect that will only have one value (maybe something for CAT score on entry), STILL tag it with a result set! It changes the way that the data is stored and retrieved and could help avoid slowing things down as much. Never name a result set with a calendar year. If you structure your marksheets so that results are tagged as "Year 07 Half-Term 1" or "Year 11", then you won't have to change the templates each year. If you have an aspect to store, say, total attendance percentage for a year, then call the result set "Year 10" (or similar) and have a different template for each year. Use the categories, and use them heavily! One aspect can be in multiple categories, so you could have an aspect categorised as "Science", "Predicted Grades", "Core Subjects", "KS3" (or more). This will make life a LOT easier! For example, you could be making a review sheet that shows predicted grades for all subjects for a Y10 student. Easy-peasy! Choose "KS4", "Predictions" in the aspect browser, and you'll get the list of what you're after. When you have hundreds of aspects, you'll be glad you did it! You can also use categories for templates (and therefore marksheets) and analysis grids. This will make it easier for staff to find their marksheet or cryptically-named analysis grid from the hundreds or more that there may be. Reports also can have categories, although it's a separate set from the assessment ones. It's worth using those too, although there isn't the scope to filter by multiple categories there. But life's a lot easier if all the "Head Of Year" reports are in one place, all the "Subject Leader" ones in another, etc. Never, ever, ever mix different types of grade in a gradeset. (Well, almost never!) If you have a gradeset that allows people to enter GCSE grades, BTEC Cert grades, BTEC Diploma grades, Entry Levels, NC Levels, etc, all in the same place, then this will cause you grief later. There is a trade-off here, though, since you may find yourself trying to analyses overall performance for a subject that offers 3 different qualification routes. It also means that you need multiple aspects, e.g. "Science GCSE Prediction", "Science BTEC Prediction", "Science DoubleAward Prediction". Remember categories! Work out a naming scheme, and stick to it If you know that the predicted grade for maths GCSE is called "Maths GCSE Predicted" then it will be a lot easier to find! If you are using external programs to analyse data from SIMS, then this will be easier that way. Personally, I don't put spaces in aspect names, but that's because I tend to dump a lot of data out into Access and it's nice to know that a space is separating an aspect name from a result set name. Use a scheme for aspects, result sets and marksheet templates. Try and make it as consistent as you can, and as simple as you can - especially for the marksheets! If staff know to look for "Tracking", "Subject Review", "Progress Leader Review" or whatever, it makes life easier for everyone. You don't want to spend all day showing people how to use SIMS! Document everything you do. This holds for anything MIS-related really, but there are good reasons for doing it. First off, you may change jobs/run away with the circus/get ill. If it's all documented, then it makes it possible for someone else to come along and work with what's there, understanding what you did and why. If you get stuck or need some time off, it's feasible to get in a consultant/LA support/whoever, since they have a chance of being effective. Documenting things also means that you'll think about what you're doing, and does tend to force you to follow better practice: since it's being written down, there's a normal human instinct to try and look good! If it's not possible to document what you're doing, then you have a bad design, or no design. In six months' (or weeks', or hours') time, will you know where to find that "quick fix thing" you knocked up? Store all KS4 grades as a one-grade version (i.e. "C", not "CC") You can't compare two C's (80 QCA points) with a B (46 points) and work out correctly which is the higher grade. So don't try! If you are doing something more complex like calculating A-C counts, use a formula to work things out properly. Similarly, make sure all grades that have a points equivalent (GCSE G, ELQ E2, BTEC Merit) have a value, as SIMS is not good with blank data! In any "custom" gradesets, have a value for "This value is blank" This one's a little more subtle, but worth doing! In our in-house gradesets (I don't edit the key stage wizard or exams organiser sets), I have a grade of "_" for "no data entered" (and a blank points value...). Doing this means that 1) you can test the value of the aspect 2) you can tell if marks haven't been entered yet. Pre-populate anything that MUST be filled in, using "Select grade for column" on the marksheet, and then you can run a report or analysis to find those grades that haven't been done yet. Learn about and use the performance analysis stuff This isn't bad, and can do most of what you can do in pivot tables in excel. There are some limitations, but it will satisfy a lot of needs, and has the benefit of being *live*. Also, double-clicking a cell in a chance analysis grid will show you which students make up the numbers. E.g. "That's not good, there are three students in Year 11 predicted to get a D when their target is a B" "Who are they?" - double-click and find out. Simples! Every time you copy data out of SIMS, it becomes out of date. So try not to do it unless it is essential! If a column in a marksheet doesn't need to be changed, make it read-only. Really, really important! FFT D estimates? Read-only. Last year's final homework grade? Read-only. You can set columns to read-only in a marksheet template after the event by ticking a box in the list of columns; if you're creating a new column/template, choose the "Columns for data review" type, unless you need people to be able to change the data. Remember that you can only store one result per aspect in a result set This is actually the reason why resultsets are good. But you have to consider the implications and be aware of them. There's some to be going on with, anyway! Hope it's helpful somehow.

Helpdesk, bulletins about updates/changes/problems, documents on policies, some kind of "where to store your stuff" orientation, help files and mini-guides to software and MIS procedures. Not much else you could put on really!

Danger, Will Robinson! Doing stuff like that breaches Sims licensing terms - not a good plan... Better would be to export the data using the commandline reporting tool. Talk to people on supportnet - someone may have solved this problem already!

Woo hoo! Upns, at last. I'll put something together tomorrow - what format do you want?

Sorry, slight rephrasing required... Since some subjects are levelled on the basis of homework/tests/teachers' professional judgements within the old NC framework, and some subjects are levelled using the different APP methodology, it may be the case that one subject or another appears to be "doing better", either at student level or at cohort level. Has anyone noticed any impact (positive or otherwise) on tracking in this regard?

It is possible to record AF progress using SIMS, with a bit of work and thought. It is very noticeable that a lot of third-party solutions for recording exist though. We're working on this area now, but there are a lot of issues involved, not least in terms of giving consistency across the curriculum - not all subjects have an APP scheme available, so how do you make sure that judgements across subjects are compared like-for-like?

If you make a whole course marksheet then checking for blanks is a bit quicker than checking every single class marksheet.

Also, for certain things, edugeek may be a little too public - google often picks up these threads within a few hours. Be careful!