Bromcom_John

@pete, you will need to forgive my ignorance but it is very hot here and the brain isn't firing on all cylinders.. MFA? Do you mean Multi Factor Authentication? If you do then it can be activated in a couple of forms on the system, including the standard package.

@supportman It was my pleasure. Lovely sprawling site with lots of open space (despite the quantity of scaffolding!). It is always good to put a physical face to the usernames on here!

Just wading in to assist the decision making process, as BI keeps getting mentioned. BI is probably one of the simplest learning curves I personally have encountered in any analysis product out there. Kudos to Microsoft on this, I certainly won't be taking any credit for it. So, while correct that you are going to need someone proficient in order to get the "really" shiny toys out of the toolkit, getting someone to that level is not as arduous as you might think. Example from Quora (where I admittedly spend far too much time reading responses from) - https://www.quora.com/How-easy-is-Power-BI-to-learn Plus there are a metric tonne of free tutorials. In my experience with our users (and beyond), there are probably 4 different kinds of BI user MAT or school that have little or no time to develop their own content ; These should talk to their MIS provider and see what the provider can deliver out of the box (or at least with a minimal amount of config, everyone does Assessment slightly differently after all). MAT or school that have a bit of time but limited expertise ; Take the templates your given and copy them, adjust them, use them as springboard from which to develop. As long as you work on the copy then you're not going to break anything. This is great if you have personnel that have the learning itch but little time. MAT or School that do their own "ground up" analytics ; This user is likely to have personnel who already commit the time to do these task. The right tools really help that user get more efficiency. The number of schools I have dealt with who have ssomeone spending "days on an excel spreadsheet that could be replaced with a few charts etc. This category also covers 3rd party support teams who write content for their schools. Large MAT's with their own data warehousing etc. ; Well, these users know who they are (eg. Oasis, Harris) and they are always looking for means to make things take less time. Plus MAT's can and DO continue to create dashboard content that work at an individual school level. So even the single schools in these MAT's may benefit from being in category 1 or 2 Each of these groups stands to benefit from the "right" implementation of BI or similar tools. A "good" dashboard to use Rootschimp's term is any dashboard that gives "you" the information "you" need. Just make sure you know which one you are and pitch your data project at the right level. You don't need to be an expert, and you can always build on what you achieve later! I've seen users move up categories in short order.

Liked the xMas episode, and the twist, but did think the new master was a little over manic. We'll see if that continues to this weekend or not. Overall score 7.5/10

Quite a few schools have used early published shadow measures (or even just use last years figures) to get an indicator value. You'll obviously need some means to get the values into your reporting engine, excel can be used at a pinch. Your MIS provider "may" have an option to include custom benchmarks. This could give you a couple of months head start.. you'd need to evaluate the benefits that this "extra early" but wholly inaccurate indicator would give you.

Others have already answered but in the interest of keeping it brief and in one post 1 - Yes, with our own tool, Keith Johnson's Timetabler, Nova-T or direct within the MIS 2 - Yes to each and every separate bit.

@Bill8 It sounds like you need to get us in front of a shared desktop to get all these questions answered.

At Bromcom we are most definitely NOT targeted specifically at MATS or Primaries. The majority of our users are secondaries but the system works for all phases and scales. <=== Entirely affiliated with Bromcom!!

Hi Panos, For the satellite staff I wouldn't use a blank class. The system has Non-teaching codes configurable for that purpose. So you could have a Non-Teaching code of "Main Site Meetings" (or whatever you want to call it) which will show up on their calendars and have impact on cover etc.

Hi @themightymrp If you need any additional tech assist, such as with data structure advice and certainly if there are data items that you need but cannot find then get in touch. Usual routes, we'll be here over the entire summer break. If you're feeling particularly ambitious it should be noted that the BI content you can create is NOT limited to data from the MIS. So if you have access to multiple feeds from other sources (oData, SQL or even Google Sheets) you can embed that data as well and create some really impressive content. My particular favourite visualisation is the map. Visually showing admissions data etc. bound to be a nice to have for someone. One item from earlier in the thread that I noted. You were looking to look at attendance for this year and compare it to last year. We recently added a selection of insight widgets to the user dashboard. The "Attendance by Year group" one has the year to date attendance for each year group and an indicator of last years attendance for the same cohort.

@Norbert I recommend you contact the support team who will be able to assist you directly.

@themightymrp We're actually looking to have some extra tools/amendments to make this a lot easier within the next 2 releases (2018.2 build/2018.3 build) I won't go into detail here I can let you know off thread if you are interested.

Morning @themightymrp, I'd suggest using the comments features within assessment and creating a set of assessment types to collect the information. These could even be included on one of your existing template if you wish, or on their own set of templates created for the purpose. The marksheet distribution of the templates would be set for the 6th form classes that contain the students and this would also generate the subject association you need to be able to then retrieve the information via the reporting module for your reporting purposes. I think that the helpdesk have already responded to your support ticket with a request for a little more information. I'll give them what help I can but if you can provide the extra info they have asked for then the support request can be closed off asap.

I recommend you contact the customer service team. The only 10gb limit I am aware of relates to the document management System storage, not the MIS database size. and the DMS limit can be increased.

Morning Everyone We have applied a fix for this issue. If you do continue to experience any problems then please, do not hesitate to contact the support team via the usual channels. Regards John

We are aware that upon upgrade to Chrome 62 there does appear to be an issue with registration speed. The team are working on it now and we should have it resolved for you shortly.

Hi themightymrp, My colleague on the support desk tried to contact you to discuss this but apparently has not been able to get through. You can phone him on the usual support number and he should be able to arrange what you need. Regards John

In the interests of agnostic information. If you want to make sure that your MIS provider (or whomever you wish to use to deliver the SWF) make sure that they are "intimately" familiar with the documentation published by the DfE here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-workforce-census-2016-business-and-technical-specification That is the full and entire scope of what is required to be returned in the workforce census (it does update so check regularly), from the detail of the most part time admin to the senior leadership member still recorded on a post 2014 leadership payscale. If it isn't in that document you don't need it for the Workforce census.

And just to confirm the "we are listening" comment. Thanks for the encouraging feedback Derek. Warts and All Looking forward to maintaining a long and productive relationship. Would obviously love to say more, but won't. I will ask the OP to make sure they are sending a representative to the presentations that the LA organised that our team (and others) are feverishly delivering this week. John

Considering your "location" I suspect you also need to add "Willing to either travel for on site training sessions or well versed in delivering online training" As a supplier representative I can't promote.. but a lot of your evaluation work will be supported by reviewing the various threads that have discussed the existing frameworks that a number of the suppliers are on. e.g. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/76154-something-keep-eye-dfe.html Other than that I will leave the floor open to your peers to offer their own personal experiences of the market.

Sorry for bringing my reply to the party a little late, but its been a busy month here at Bromcom! I just wanted to add my tuppence of experience from the supplier side. Specifically to the commentary from PCSTRU, I have to agree that close and effective project management is absolutely indispensable. It helps in managing user expectation for transition, adoption of new work flows, ownership in general and most importantly confidence in any new system. Since I've been involved in various stages in deployment on multiple new implementations I've seen the above processes done well and "not" so well. The "not so well" can still be worked with and it won't prevent the deployment of the MIS but the impact it has on the overall project implementation can be massive. I've seen the same MIS implementation plan, that completed in a matter of weeks in a school who managed their side of things well, trudge on for months and months before finally being signed off to the satisfaction of all parties. All for the absence of anyone taking the task of managing the transition properly. I know the above reads like common sense, but I am regularly amazed when things "don't" get considered properly. All of the above is of course subject to exceptions.. to which Vikpaw is a clear example Kudos to the one man implementation army!

You're absolutely correct. Usually if I use something like this I will evaluate the lowest value within a range rather than each one individually. The above simply represents the highest granular detail that such a system could implement. Also, while concatenation (is that even a word ) would work in Excel, not sure if the feature is available in SIMS marksheets. it may well be, that'd just be my limited knowledge of Sims Assessment showing.

Well from a system agnostic viewpoint why not try using some prime number mathematics. It does involve adding a couple of columns to convert your grade values into unique integers and back again but it should work. Take your first set of values and use whatever tools you have available (probably a lookup if your using SIMS, a simple nested if in our own MIS) to convert the unique values from your gradeset into prime numbers. Do the same with your second set of values but with different prime values. Multiply these values together in a third column and you get a unique integer for each combination of Column A and B. Then use "these" values in your final nested if then else. Because each integer value is unique then they can each be evaluated as what is essentially an If A = X and B = Y Then. Working example, first grades in column A = A, B, C, D, E Second Grades in column B = 1,2,3,4,5 If we assign the prime values of 1,3,5,7,11,13,17,19, 23 and 29 to the above grades (in sequence) We will get the following potential values [table=width: 500, align: center] [tr] [td]Column A[/td] [td]Value[/td] [td]Column B[/td] [td]Value[/td] [td]Product[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]13[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]17[/td] [td]17[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]19[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]23[/td] [td]23[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]29[/td] [td]29[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]B[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]39[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]B[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]17[/td] [td]51[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]B[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]57[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]B[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]23[/td] [td]69[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]B[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]29[/td] [td]87[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]C[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]65[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]C[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]17[/td] [td]85[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]C[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]95[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]C[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]23[/td] [td]115[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]C[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]29[/td] [td]145[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]D[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]91[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]D[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]17[/td] [td]119[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]D[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]133[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]D[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]23[/td] [td]161[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]D[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]29[/td] [td]203[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]E[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]143[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]E[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]17[/td] [td]187[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]E[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]209[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]E[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]23[/td] [td]253[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]E[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]29[/td] [td]319[/td] [/tr] [/table] So rather than evaluating "IF ColA = A and ColB=5" just evaluate "IF Product = 29 then ...." this way you can have potentially unique evaluation of all 25 possible combinations. Its neither elegant nor simple, but it should work.

You'll also do yourself a big favour internally if you consider the exams team closely in you evaluation. Exams entry, scheduling, seating and not to mention results, it's almost the definition of the big occasional time consuming job! It also comes with the added bonus of being massively deadline dependent. I have no idea what the above process is like in Integris, but it is one of the areas you should investigate. John (who "also" has his company represented in his profile, his location and hopes that @vikpaw is only inferring the alliterative nightmare that is "john condon @ bromcom")

I am unaware of any requirement to have a company name in my profile name? I certainly do not and neither, for that matter, does Phil Neal. I've been told that, as long as we aren't advertising or soliciting feedback that breaches the usage, it should be fine. Colleague defence rant over Back to the Original topic. matt40K is correct, through many years experience with school trying to find new suppliers and software solutions. Nothing beats doing some solid research. John (@ Bromcom)