GREED

Really not good in 2014 not to have a decent API for a cloud MIS...

Resource Hub | The Eduware Network It's there now.

Right on schedule (!) the DfE have published a 'known issues' pack for Census errors. If this would be useful to you guys let me know and I'll upload it to the same location. FYI there has also been a V1.7 validation spreadsheet released, but the changes are quite minor.

I'm comfortable with my illiteracy! Changed.

G2 does not allow any 3rd party application to write data in any format to the database... as far as I know... so the answer is no. Until RM make a change to their API that is (prays).

My OCD effort (reference previous post)

Resource Hub | The Eduware Network I have put it on my website for you to download, as I cannot put an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment on here (Hope this is OK Mod Police !)

1500 - missing UPN 1992: The sum of and must be greater than 0 where Pupils have at least one node where (100258) is blank or offer 31 July 2014 I have the full validation rule check list here if you want it?

First and usual checks, are the required data fields filled in, particularly where you have loads (Ethnicity for example)? Let me dig out the census error code list...

Due to spending the better part of the last 3 years travelling, becoming quite adept at having a complete travel set of PC equipment and accessories, small, light, retractable, foldable, multi-purpose... a pic of my extended self coming up...

Hold on... what degree must it be bent before it gets looked at? Are we talking 10 degrees? 45 degrees? 90 degrees!!!??

Awesome, bring it on!

My point was I could see how many other complaints we have had about this issue, which may be a quicker way to see if it is your setup or a wider issue

Vik, is the data being updated (clearly the most important thing!)? If it is just the 'last updated' value I will run this through the team and see what is going on (I have a feeling they know about this already). Graham

Some do still. No many but some

Very chicken and egg isn't it. We push everything into the one system but if it goes we are more stuck than if not, however is makes much more sense and more powerful to have it all in one place. I would dangerously argue that if one is not doing the sort of in depth analysis and alerting currently available in some of the bigger MIS' whether in the MIS or by hand or both, then your students are not getting the very best education available. We should be using systems to help inform teachers. And of course when that goes, there is a big hole to fill. Interesting...

Fair enough. I take and accept your points there. I guess where my career centres around such systems I have a holistic, yet sometimes tainted view!

I'm not suggesting they would not at all. But I'm sorry I disagree that data and systems are there to satisfy government and ofsted it is a valuable resource to help guide staff on how to give an individual education to each child, and particularly important THESE DAYS when it comes to monitoring vulnerable children in any area. Would we say the same if the NHS database (no laughing!) Went pop? Suddenly your entire medical history gone. Or your financial records. Bank accounts. It is the way the world has grown that we are dependent to a degree on technology. Anyway this is just how I see it and have witnessed in many a school. Perhaps in an ideal world I'd challenge a school to ditch their MIS for a term (or more) suddenly and without warning, see how things pan out. BTW: the positives I'm getting across is to have robust DR procedures in place so that it is (near) impossible for such a situation to occur. My gripe is some of the blasé comments about the importance of the data.

When I say survive I mean give the kids a decent education. Not necessarily close. Surely that has to be the sole and core concern, how the kids at the school at that time will be affected... An education is not the same as a good education!

U mmmm.... times have changed? Could a school REALLY survive for any real length of time on paper again these days? Could some of us survive (professionally) with a mobile phone or Internet... or kids without Facebook. It is what the world have evolved to and how it can cope without a core element now it is so accustom to it.

Let's ask parents... would they find it acceptable for a school to have no idea of a child's ability or past?

The medium and long term impact on individual students might be a lot harder, if a school is using their MIS to guide learning and inform on things like SEN provision, behavioural records assessment trends... Which will ultimately impact on school performance and then school reputation, an Academies could find that harder to recover quickly from. I'm not saying that in an instant kids futures are all over, lets not be silly, but I don't think it wise to underestimate the impact on the kids and the school.

My oh my oh my... how has it taken me so long to discover this post. Of course, this also covers when a cloud product provider also goes pop or into administration, a topic I'm weighing in on heavily right now, and so the same procedures to tackle such an event, or prevent one, are nearly the same... So some amusing soundbites so far: MIS is equivalent to email if you lose it - REALLY??? The permenant loss of all other servers in the server room would not amount to the loss of this (bar maybe the document servers). We can just 'recreate' the data - woah! I'm hoping we mean rediscover data as in collect again, not just create it! Above all, I'm shocked at the complete lack of importance MIS data is shown in some posts here. It has become the single source of truth and point of reference in nearly every school and an intricate part of daily life, from taking registers (ergo ensuring you are aware where kids are, ergo you know if you need to alert authorities to a dangerous situation), to having emergency contact details, to having the history of a child's attainment so you know how to plot and program their next phase of education... need I continue? And then there is funding. Ever 6 which takes into account FSM history and other factors. Exams enrolments. OK you MIGHT be able to garner some of this from the LA (Academies?) or the exams boards, but at the wrong time of year (Autumn Census) you are in a whole pile of doo doo. I'm not sure most secondary schools would be able to remain open for very long anyway without access to key information, even before ofsted get involved. I recommend and have implemented complex DR procedures in schools to ensure that such an event can (nearly) never happen, even if you have to have a backup on a single laptop. Sorry, once again, how is the loss of historical assessment information for example, not catastrophic for an individual child let alone the entire school? Having to stop now as I will actually rant until the character limit... /RANT

KitKats all round

I'm looking for an easy way, likely software, to monitor database throughput/bandwidth on Azure SQL. With Microsoft changing all the levels of service and metrics, the current web/business versions are not comparable with the new tiers (sneaky Microsoft have not released the comparable metrics). So, whats the best way or software to do this? Currently looking at Idera SQL check.