tben2505

It's best to arrive at your decision with the knowledge there there is no 1 system that will fit 100% of your needs. Every single school does things in their own ways, and the trick is to find an MIS that fits most of them. I've been in this profession since 2003, and PERSONALLY my option is SIMS - having moved from troubled times with Engage at my current school; it wasn't at all popular. However I know some people do like it and embrace its flexibility. It took us over a year of consulting and demonstrations, research and communication to come to our decision, involving about a dozen people and even an IT consultant. It's not a decision to be taken in a week or so. You need buy-in from staff (key staff particularly) and consider training and implementation implications. Moving is a huge project in itself, and my advice would be to take your time with it. And good luck!

I've considered this - eg a Q for equipment... if these be exported easily to excel it shouldn't be too bad. However I'm not sure if they may require 2 per lesson - I'll look into that! Cheers

I know this might sound a little OTT - and I have already got thoughts about how to avoid this - but the PE dept record things like equipment, no kit, incorrect kit, etc on a daily basis and were asking if it could be done in SIMS. They then analyse the data by term (I believe) and obviously make decisions on the data. I wondered if anyone else did this or if people had suggestions of how this might be done in assessment. It seems ridiculous to have an aspect/result set for each school day... Cheers T

That looks slick!

That's a gamechanger. Extraordinary that it's incompatible with chrome. I suppose we'll have to seek guarantees that September will indeed bring an HTML5 version, as other systems I've looked at don't have the same features as Eclipse, that we're looking for! Grr. Always something!

Hi folks We require a new system for the library and I wondered what people's thoughts were? I know of none! Our existing one is an old one which was built in-house. I suppose the only requirements we'd have is that it would talk to SIMS, so as to keep the database of staff and pupils up-to-date, and work well on active directory. Desirable features would be web-based (as we're a mostly mac school), maybe an app too for kids/parents to see what's available - and we're looking to maybe get a fingerprint sign-in system (BIO STORE) for the (late) senior kids, so might be worthwhile having a library system that can integrate with that too. Hope that's not too much to ask! Cheers all T

Cheers, Bob! The conditions and therefore problem occurs with the grades too - they are coloured if a hidden column (the VA) is +/-0.5 so it's across the whole sheet. In any event the average VA is useful to keep, to track a pupils overall progress by term/year

OK so removing the result in the history and recalculating will fix this issue - just have to make sure it's done for each incorrect colour T

This screenshot might help show what I mean - in the FINAL column it should be red if it's under or at -0.5, and green if at or over 0.5 You can see some are red (-0.39 for example) that WERE red, but new grades updated their value and now should be "clear" (eg no colour). I understand that if there were a rule to activate a colour for these values (ie amber), it would work, but since there's not, it stays red, and I want it to have no colour. Or is there a way just of "resetting" all colours so that I can just recalculate? Any help welcome guys! Cheers T

The colours change, if it goes from, say, red to green. But I have an condition where there is: No Colour Red Green Ie if a pupil is +/- 0.5 their prediction they go RED or Green If they're not; eg they're on target, they stay with no colour. If, therefore, a cell was red, but now it needs to be "NO COLOUR", after recalculating, it stays red. I guess the solution is to have a colour "white" for the 'in between' values...?

Hi Bob Shame - other than a UDG with everyone as a supervisor I suppose!? I may take it to the support desk... In this particular case (though there are more) I want staff to see all YEAR 11 pupils mock results - particularly HODs, as pupils start making choices for A-Level; and these grades are important for HODs to see when making cases for/against pupils chosing their subject... Cheers T

Hi Folks, I have a marksheet which colours certain cells red/greed if they are under/over - only thing is if the grade changes and I recalculate, it retains the old colour. Is there a way of "resetting" these colours? Cheers T

Hi folks, I'm trying to have a marksheets for an entire year group - that all staff have access to I'm wondering if I use ALL YEAR GROUPS then include a group filter, if all staff can see these marksheets? Any other ideas people have? Cheers T

A nifty feature - thank you

Yeah - not to worry - It was from a safeguarding PoV, where our safeguarding officer(s) would like to keep tabs on a handful of kids, and determine if they're in or not by just checking their mail, it's not a big one - just wondered if it was there! Thanks for asking around, Phil. T

Thank you, sir@PhilNeal!

Hi Phil, I did double check this; but alerts only exist for behaviour and achievement, and can be customised only by type, and not pupil/year. Is there somewhere else I should be looking? Cheers T

Hi folks I was wondering if it was possible to generate alerts when someone is absent. I know using discover groups we can alert the owner(s) of a custom discover group if someone enters or leaves (eg a discover group for pupils with <95% attendance) - but does anyone know a way to alert certain staff if a pupil is not present on a particular day? Another thing with discover, is that the attendance categories seem pre-defined - I can't remember how to change them - eg to look at kids in a different percentage category, eg <80% - can someone remind me how to do that!? Cheers all! Happy Friday... T

Indeed - I think there was a desire to see if anyone encountered this issue and had a sensible workaround - catching the absences early in the day and changing the DT date is useful but still involves cross referencing with the DTs, of which there are several a day... Change request seems a sensible idea!

Yes there's a red D for a DT and R for Report. However this issue is around the DT register itself. If a pupil is put into a DT for next Monday, and then they are absent on that day, their name still appears in the DT register. The DT supervisor has no (quick) way of knowing if they are absent from the DT, or absent from school. Simply adding the AM/PM mark to the DT register would resolve this very easily.

Hey Vikpaw! Just tried this - seemed to be saving but then the folder is just blank afterwards!

Hi Rich - can you let me know how you can create this batch file? I've tried to create a file with your text and saving as ".bat" or ".cmd" but nether seem to work.. Cheers Tom

To be fair, in WORD you can SAVE AS PDF, so Pro isn't needed, since this script is opening the XML and saving as DOC/X I assumed it might be possible to simply change that filetype, I just can't figure out how!

Yep that's what's needed - and I'd certainly do it myself on the script if I knew how - but that's why I'm asking!

Hi vikpaw, this can't be done from XML - and once converted to Word - it's painfully slow to convert - I have Adobe Pro. If only SIMS exported the files as PDF quickly!