Dr_bob

this for me is the nub of it all. Sims, in itself, isnt a bad product but I do get the feeling that Capita want to milk it for all its worth with the sale of add ins\ons and additional modules. The ability to make accurate decisions based upon data relating to education and what after all is the future of the country isnt one that IMO should be restricted to thsoe institutions who have enough money to pay to get access to their own data. Education shouldnt be about commercial interests and profit but about enabling schools to make decisions that will enhance their capability to provide the best education they can. and now back on reality beach ....

IMO spreadsheets are not an elegant solution. They may allow you to analyse your data but then ytou have the problem of the data being in multiple places which can cloud its accuarcy (you either have to have a link to the back end databse or risk not knowing of data has been updated since you performed your extract). Its much better to have the reports as an option from the source database imo with as little end user input as necesary required. This mitigates the risk of user errors and ensures that you have consistancy in the data being used for any analysis. Not saying spreadsheets are not useful - far from it - but if the data you are using in them is inacurate (for any reason) then the analysis you are performing is useless.