RootsSchImp

My tuppence is that most school leaders overestimate the difficulty of switching MIS. Plan for it properly and it's not that hard, and you can find solutions that will do a lot of what your third parties do (class charts, for example) as part of core functionality. My big tip if you do switch is to train your admin staff properly. I see so many schools who don't use their MIS to anything like its potential and the reason is they don't invest in their support staff.

Hi John, what MIS are you using? Is same the method being used to log all the incidents?

Oo that could work, thanks, does it pull the school calendar out as well, or just pupil stuff?

Hi hivemind, I've had an enquiry about whether (and which bits) of google classrooms it's possible to update from an MIS. Looking around I've seen references to 'Gsuite directory sync' but I can't find a clear outline of what it does. I know there are some CSV import options but I'm looking for a solution for a primary that doesn't have a ton of spare admin capacity so I'd really like to automate at the very least the student names/groups. They're using Bromcom but I'd be interested if anyone's done this for any MIS. There's a thread from a couple of years ago about how this is just about to happen - anyone use Google Classroom/made any progress? Thanks Ed

I find clay tablets are a robust and reliable solution. Of course the technology-is-the-future crowd keep on at me to switch to 'paper' but it seems pretty flimsy if you ask me. Let's wait and see if it beds in.

Groupcall link to all the major MIS suppliers so I don't think there's too much of an issue there, as for the earlier point I think you're absolutely right and I'd go further and say the security benefits of moving to the cloud alone (to say nothing of the greater convenience) justify the switch. I think it's only a matter of time before a school gets hit with a nasty ransomware attack, if it hasn't happened already. In my experience schools overestimate the impact of an MIS switch on teachers (whose interactions are very basic) and underestimate the training needs for SLT and Admin staff. So much MIS potential goes unused because people in key roles are unaware of the functionality they have.

First of all, hats off for sorting your options in November - that's organisation. re the problem: is it machine specific, or happening everywhere? Is it happening for all sims users or just this member of staff? I wouldn't swear to this, but I have a vague memory about old bits of SIMS needing C:\ drive access and that occasionally being blocked by security updates - has somehting like that happened? Other solution could be trying out the cloud based SIMS Options software, has that been released to all users @PhilNeal ? Good luck gettting it sorted Ed

This is definitely true. My advice would be to take some time (and consider paying for expert advice) to answer the question: what, in a perfect world, would our MIS do and how much staffing resource would we need to maintain it? Then use that answer as the basis for a invitation to tender. In my opinion, a couple of issues schools tend to underrate in tender requests are: automation of tasks (degree to which admin staff tasks could be reduced/eliminated by the MIS) and speed of innovation - you're going to sign up for at least 3 years with a provider, at the end of three years are you going to be paying for the same product or a better one?

Hi, I'm sure this is probably the case but I wonder if a Progresso reporting user could confirm for me: can you store and report on grade values of assessment results, so that, for example, teachers could give 5+, 4- etc on a marksheet but in a report you could count number of grades with values greater than 4? Thanks Ed

Are you guys a new school that will grow every year? And do you need a proper MIS to do the census? If the latter then it's worth (really it's always worth) inviting all the major MIS companies to submit bids. You might find one of them cuts you a special deal in light of your circumstances. Ed

Hi secretary's, There sure is (as long as You've got permission). Go to reports, design report and choose focus student. On the select fields screen choose the student info you want them the behaviour subreport (subreport s are the little blue boxes) Choose the fields you want about the behaviour incidents then use the book symbol to the right to filter. Click new, then choose staff member is one of and tick yourself. Go to the filter screen, choose behaviour again (behaviour exists where...staff member is you) (The first filter is your incidents, the second is kids who gave your incidents) Then go to report output, choose excel, untick suppress duplicates and run. Good luck Ed

Hi Oliver, SIMS uses a Word add in that allows you to place assessment results in a Word Template along with a limited selection of fields from elsewhere in the MIS (Attendance %, Number of Lates, Behaviour Points etc.) There's not, as far as I'm aware, an SSRS plug in for SIMS so you might be out of luck there. As for other alternatives, Bromcom also merges reports into Word but the Cross Domain Reporting feature allows you to access any field from the MIS. They are also developing an Advanced Report Builder (ARB), a project I'm consulting on, and that will deploy an additional, more powerful reporting engine to allow the creation of reports with the flexibility/complexity of SSRS. ARB will allow Data Items, charts and tables from multiple data sources, separately filtered and formatted, to exist in the same report as well as enabling the user to embed drilldowns and links to other parts of the MIS, making the reports dynamic resources rather than just static lists. What data do your reports show, if you give me an idea of what they're like I can say whether they'd be possible in ARB. Otherwise, if you have time to wait and can get your school to send you to London in January, the BETT show is a good place to see what's out there. Ed Cadwallader

That's a good point and it's why Aspire can be useful, but really only as a tool to inform teacher target setting as, obviously, once you've imported single grade estimates that nuance is lost. I also don't buy the 'we're using top 5% of schools so they are challenging' argument because the most likely grade doesn't change for that many kids between top 50% and top 5%. The thing that makes the top 5% really good is the number of kids they get 1, 2, 3 grades above the median, ie above the grade you're telling yourselves (and your students) they should aspire to.

I would do this by creating a report listing upn and subject code then concatenating them in excel (e.g 123456778Ken) call that column upnsubs. I'd then rename the column headings of my FFT export as subject codes. And copy the pupil names and upns to a third sheet with the same subject code headings. Then in the space for the data use =if(iserror(match(concatenate($a2,D$1),upnsubs,0)),"",index(fftdata,match($a2,fftdata!A1:a300,0),match(D$1,fftdata!1:1,0)) Where column a has upns and subs start from column D. Thats a little tricky in Excel tho so if you're not familiar with all those formulas, import the whole lot into Sims, open a marksheet with them all on it. Filter it to art students, change the result date, copy and paste the data and save. Repeat for all subjects then bulk delete the grades with the original result date. While we're here, using FFT estimates as targets, while common, is not good practice. They are the median achievement of kids with similar prior attainment (so around a third of kids do better, a third to do worse). That means lots of your kids 'below target' aren't underachieving, whereas lots who are 'on target' are.

In my experience schools over estimate how much MIS training is needed for teaching staff and underestimate it for SLT and admin staff. Entering registration, behaviour events and assessments should be so simple teachers need virtually no training on a new system. I wouldn't factor 'teachers familiar with system x' in my decision to switch. Your MIS can have a huge impact on how well your school runs but in order for it to do so you need to know what it can do and senior and admin staff need to be capable of using it well. If I were you I would spend time thinking how, in a perfect world, the MIS could make sch run more efficiently (better notifications, automated tasks etc) then write those up as requirements for a tender. At a low cost to you, MIS companies will tell you how they can make your life easier while supplying a plan for training at the same time.

@Geoff Great confidence! Just to be clear are you talking about using SQL Database Studio to query the SIMS tables directly? Have you ever done that/set it up? Do you/anyone know if it bypasses SIMS user permissions? Ed

Hi Jmp, If you add a blue subreport without any fields it will give you a count. So if you have a focus of student and (I'm working from memory here so this might be a bit off) if you've got a periods/lessons subreport that you filter to where attendance mark is 'L' and subject code is 'sc' that should give you lates in science. Good Luck Ed

Yeah, my issue with SIMS re Analysis has always been their working assumption that everyone's an enthusiastic SIMS user, so you can expect HoDs to look at a marksheet here, a group analysis over here, a photo report from somewhere else. In my experience it's far more common for a muggins to have to work out everything that needs working out and deliver it to HoDs which is so labour intensive.

I'm advising a client about the suitability of using SSRS for reporting in general, they don't have a very specific idea of what they want, but they do have someone who used SSRS with CMIS and wants it back. My worry is what happens when that guy leaves and how easy will it be to train others to maintain the reports he creates?

Interesting thoughts, thanks guys, I thought it seemed like a challenge on a school admin level, although perhaps mitigated with different software - anyone use Cristal Reports/similar? How about for a MAT team? Is anyone part of a trust that can query their MIS directly with SSRS?

Hi everyone, I've been asked about SSRS reporting and whether it's worth using to query the tables of an MIS (SIMS or Bromcom) to overcome the limits of their reporting engines. Has anyone done this and was it worth the trouble? Also, for Progresso users how do you rate SSRS in general? Would you say it's easy to train a data manager use it to get all the reports they need? I've had a look and it seems complicated to me but I'd really appreciate any input from the hivemind. Cheers Ed

I know right? Although @Michael makes good points about breaking it up and running the parts out of hours: so often more productive for the user to change than the machine.

That's true, although it seemed like it was right on the edge of what the server could handle which surprised me and I wanted to get a sense of how normal that was/whether anyone else had issues running their biggest reports.

Ooh, i want to say user Admin password admin. Maybe user sadmin. T4! Back from the dead.

I was cleaning a Sims system of old aspects and result sets. The school wanted to be able to refer to the old results without having to restore everything to Sims. I've also come across solar reports (maybe not quite as large) for schools that export tracking data to excel for analysis.