NotSoFast

Ok, that makes more sense! (Gets down off soap box). 😀

This sounds like madness. You have been given possibly the most important job in a school, one which affects every child and teacher for a year, and you've received zero training or support. Creating a good timetable is really difficult, and requires a clear understanding of the curriculum model for the school and all the little restrictions of staffing and rooming. You also need to be able to judge which compromises are going to be acceptable when, inevitably, it doesn't work. Being able to use the software is the least of your worries. Maybe I've misunderstood, but if this really is your situation I would say it's unfair on you and is unlikely to result in a good timetable. You need proper support, from the curriculum person on SLT and possibly an external consultant if there is no-one else in school who can help. Sorry for the rant, but it makes me angry that some schools seem to assume creating the timetable is a job that is easy if you are any good with data/computers!

I used Facility Scheduler for the first time this year, with the help of a very experienced consultant. This was my 7th timetable. It couldn't schedule automatically what I had done manually, so we put each year group on manually, then finally let it finish the last few bits of year 7. I honestly think humans are still better at this, with a bit of computer help to make sure you don't cock up.

Reminds me of the old joke... "What's brown and comes out of the bottom of Cowes?" :-)

Signed up and it works, but I haven't looked at the reports. Thanks for the reminder!

We just use Mailchimp, even though we could use G Suite or our MIS. Mailchimp just seems easier and better (and still free).

I've found the same thing. Sometimes it works, though I suppose you shouldn't count on it.

I have to say, over the last few years a decent monitor has been the best upgrade I've had. Most things I do don't need much power, but more screen real estate makes a real difference.

Silly question. I assume you're using IE... Chrome won't work.

Have you tried different users on the same machine, Roger?

Just echoing @bigdannyb79, Keith Johnson's book is the only one you need.

A couple of days maybe? In fact, I'm not sure i remember a survey...

I know it can be done and in many ways the more flexible/cheap/geeky solution appeals to me. But there's a lot to be said for simplicity too. Anyhow, to be more positive, could you recommend a sub £200 solution that is really reliable and easy for teachers?

Not sure I agree. There's a good pedagogical argument for a device that lets you easily model work. A tablet would need a mount, and also some way to cast to the projector. Cheap webcams on a stick are ok, but resolution is only ok and our NM doesn't like the drivers much... I wish we had the money for some proper VGA visualisers, personally.

No, only just tried it. I assumed it wasn't designed for shared pcs by the way the installer asked me to sign in, but I could be wrong. 😀

Well, just at home if i log in with a different account on the same PC the original account's drive is presented to the 2nd user in explorer.

I've been accepted, but not tried it at work. It's great at home. I was also excited that it would be a neat way to wean users off their Windows My Docs. Sadly, I think its just a neater implementation of Drive sync, so I would imagine the same problems remain on a network. We'll see later this week, but I'm not optimistic.

I wonder if your method of making the start date is creating a string rather than a date. I'm on my phone so can't test it all properly, but if you want to pm me the report I'd be happy to see if i can figure it out, not that I'm an expert!

I've never tried to do it from the first of the month, but our behaviour reports are emailed every night using a filter in the dataset that uses a relative date (last day). That's not quite it though, is it?

Well, for balance, our migration was pretty painless (from Facility). I think our data was in reasonable shape, and we also weren't worried about bringing historical behaviour and assessment stuff, so I suppose that simplified matters. Having said that, is any migration easy if you want to bring all that across, regardless of MIS?

We're in Norfolk but you'd be welcome!

The other thing that I've found is that a lot of the time you don't need a 'report' for simple data. You just need to show people how to sort and filter the people list, then print or export.

On a slight tangent, I'd like a similar system but one which can natively play back 360 degree video. (Basic idea is a cheap in house version of Iris Connect!). All ideas welcome.

I love 4Matrix. I resisted it for years as I wanted to do it all within the MIS, but i have never regretted it. It saves me hours, the support is great and I'm excited for the new web version with seating plan maker included. And no, I don't work for them.

Hi Steve, does it provision Classroom from Progresso?