Steven_Cleaver

Could also try these guys as an option have done ours last couple of years execellent service and price.Burconix - Professional ICT Solutions for Education and SME

Hi I have used PAR's in the last two schools and this is excellent and will do exactly what you require their is a whole set of pre-created reports for both Behaviour, Attendance etc PAR's has quite a few different features that you can use or just use the particular ones you require. As well as having prebuilt in reports that you can filter and run against class, form etc and just select the date range you can also easily create reports as it has a sort of create your own reports where you can just drop in fields you require to create your own report. PAR's are also excellent with support and adding new features so if their is a specific report or feature you need added they will add this for you but to be honest with the Custom Report Feature we don't really ask for any new reports just create our own. We are also using Insight from Tasc Software for Parental Portal again excellent and because we use both Behaviour information as well as Attendance, Exams, Assessment is displayed to Parents as well as staff and Students being able to access this. We are sort of doing what you are looking at doing various staff use reports from PAR's including Form Tutors, Heads of Year and SLT. Feel free to ask any more questions or PM me

Abtutor here as well, Email staff day before then if they haven't closed SIM's close SIM's on their machines and leave message on their screens but usually do it end of day.

Don't get it never have problem with SIM's

Cheers Vikpaw thanks for this it has made it much clearer for me excellent explanation as always, I have been trying various reports using this method but most of these are just pulling out year for group type but having a play I have realised that if we add Class Marksheets to our Assessment Templates sort of using your description I can get Marksheet Name, Group name (Class), Student Adno and Aspect linked but the Class linked to the Aspect name is the bit I was after trying to get cleanly. I have kept Template ID and Aspect ID in as these may be useful, just need to work on this a bit more but looks like I can get a reasonably clean set of data using this and the other 4 reports I have.

Don't we all.

Good school all my daughters went their and really enjoyed their time at the school. Staff were always very helpful.

@MattMitchell Hi Matt We have sort of linked the data but are having to really tweek the code to get this to link to the right Aspects for Students-->Subjects-->Classes particularly where subject codes are used in essence for different courses and the only way to identify the diffrence is Classes, and I think your way would be cleaner but can't quite get my head around the specific links for instance TemplateID and related groups (which groups) I can see these but can't quite follow how which to link and I know this is a pain but was wondering if you didn't mind specifically identifying these.

About time BBC News - Windows 8 update: Microsoft crisis or business as usual? they came to their senses.

Cheers Phil.

@PhilNeal we were impacted by the issue originally and raised this with the LEA who installed Patch 18148 and was still initially giving us issues but seemed to vastly improve after Server re-boot, but still having slight issues when running reports only in regards to speed these run at etc. Would you suggest deploying the Patch or waiting a little ?

I am thinking of relying on holding the past data and links in the system somehow rather than rely on trying to do this bit from SIM's not quite sure how yet and am more interested from an overall analysis point, but see where your coming from in regards to snapshot of the data and incorrectly linked. At the moment we three data collection points for Core and 2 for none Core at KS3 and 5 Assessment Points across KS4 but we are looking at extending the number of Assessment points now that we feel the data is being used better and more consistantly and is built into the schools Quality Assurance, with the new system it should be able to handle more assessment points and the Analysis of data that goes with this without putting strain on our MIS Officer as she is looking at setting up Class Tracking Marksheets SIM's for departments. We are trying to keep the extraction of the data and linking into the system as simple as possible even if we have to extract multiple reports as long as we can link these into the system and tie the data together. Use SIM's as more like a data repository to hold the data abit like a couple of other systems we use and then use our own software to add the analyse to the extracted data. I think SIM's is pretty good at holding the data and linking into the various modules within SIM's that use and manipulate this data fo various purposes. We want to try to make it as easy as possible to link the data extracted into the new system as seamless as possible so it would be easier to replicate, this is the only issue with trying to tie the extraction of the data into to many aspects of the system, we want it out in as raw a format as possible. As you say if we look to closely at one Link it can obscure the info in another or you can lose sight of where you want to get to, so is a bit three steps forward two steps back on occassion. As you say this is fun and have picked up a massive amount from this thread that is extremely useful.

Remote access - as someone has mentioned this has been received really well by students, staff and SLT and improved a number of issues including students\staff losing work, data protection, software compatability issues etc Better Progress analysis systems - again this has been received really well here by SLT and this means data is used more comprehensively and effectively. Parental Gateway - if you don't already have one better parental involvement in students learning.Can also save some money less printed reports. Digital Signage.

@MattMitchell almost their with your take on how to create the reports created most of these but just trying to get the last one or two to match all the data I need so thanks for this, will see if this works better. Also looking at Vikpaws idea of adding to the description for Aspects as this might sort me for the odd couple of subjects short term I have an issue with. @penfold_99 interesting point I had this sort of back of my mind and once linked out of SIM's and out into the new system I am going to see if their is someway of holding this information somehow for instance who taught a specific class the previous year but various other aspects as I can see how historic data like this will be useful in analysis.

@vikpaw we did look at first linking it to the SIM's SQL database to extract the info but when we ran the SQL profiler on the SIM's database to see where it was pulling the data from when a Marksheet was opened it looked extremely complex and difficult to link out, the other information looked reasonably possible to get out this way, which is why in the end we looked at reports. The idea is overnight scripts run to export the data from SIM's automatically import into the new database again a script (all in one app) and then web front end does the analysis, graphing etc of the data this hopefully means the whole thing is automated staff enter data then overnight all analysed ready for staff next day also sorts students moving classes again as this would be automatically handled overnight so would almost be fully fledged addon application etc.

@MattMitchell cheers can sort of see the logic with this just need to work this through. At the moment have four reports that export the data, Students pretty much as you have suggested, except I have admission number and person_id as we have this linked into AD, Staff Report just pulling basic staff info and Class Report which pulls (Adno,Class, Staff Code, Subject, Subject Code and Teacher and finally one that pulls the Assesment info and have it pretty much linked except where subject code is used for multiple subjects for instance Sc is used for Core Science, Additional Science, Biology, Chemistry and Physics and BTEC Science. Looks like a great idea of using the ResultID,StudentID etc hadn't really thought of trying it like that so will give it ago but sounds feasible, just need to get my head round this and thanks for the explanation.

Vikpaw that is a brilliant cheat and will easily get me round the odd subjects also gives me a flexible way of altering this if class codes changed linked to subjects where subject code is used for multiple subject courses and relies on class and won't cause any cross product. Thanks again thats Brilliant .

Again thanks for the excellent explanation. "One way to do what you want is to load in the aspect / result data against the student, then load in the list of current classes, which are presumably the most common thing to filter on even for old data. Then do some form of match, which i guess is what you're doing." This is the way we are doing it and it gets me nearly their just difficult to match a couple of things but most are fine. Cheers for the info about renaming the aspects and may give a couple a go and change these on Marksheets and Individual reports to keep it tidy as you say.Will also give creating a second report for the aspects that haold the results and see if I can deal with the cross product and duplication, just to see which works the best. When we have it working here we are thinking of setting it up for one of our Primary feeders as well. Thanks again for your help vikpaw.

Hi The update regarding the fix looks about right. Put the patch on Thursday evening and monitored the SIM's Server yesterday and although this has improved the situation to some extent still extremely high CPU usage compared to before the Spring relaese, I have also spoke to a couple of users that were having issues before and they have said that it does seem to be performing slightly better but am not 100% confident that this has resolved the issue looking at the high CPU usage.

Cheers Vikpaw thanks for the clear explanation around the subject /class code linked to assessment results / aspect and this is pretty much what I thought and have found. The manually requesting specific subject at runtime I don't think will work as I want really all subject data and I am using Commandreporter to automate the extraction of the report , again I think same issue with Pivot tables as I am trying in essence to automate the whole thing so data is exported and I don't touch the data but the data is automatically imported to my SQL database.I have tried the Subject Code/ class but again issue is I don't want one specific subject code / class against list of students but subject Code /class against all students (Grade Value,Result,Aspect name of Aspect [basic Details]) which I can't get. The subject needs to be shown because to be honest it is obvious with most Aspect Names but not all (Historic) which is where the issue lies or we can write code to match most of these to extract after we have exported it as we import it into SQL. What we are exactly after is a bit of a long explanation but will give this a go, we have set up a few SIM's reports which we are automatically extracting using CommandReporter and then extracting various information from these and importing it into and SQL (few tables) database then have and are working on a web front end (Visual Studio) that displays the information for staff with various calculations so staff click a button and view what information they want, so can be viewed from various perspectives and we can build in what analysis we like and the data is virtually live so if someone moves class etc no manual updating\extracting this is all done seamlessly. Because of the information we can extract ou autmatically we are looking at building intervention into this because we can get Credit\Debit virtually any result and build this into the system automatically email staff about intervention groups etc so Class Teacher, Subject leader and department line manager but other stuff as well again all automated, staff could also enter what intervention had taken place and we could analyse which intervention was most succesful etc. The issue we have run into is in KS3 and most of KS4 subjects are fine to match as it is easy to link to subject code and extract Classes and Subject codes in diffrent report so we can match these to student ID (Person_ID) it is where we have for example at KS4 Science Subject code is Sc but the code is the same for Single Sciences so Chemistry, Physics, Biology are all Sc1, Sc2-Sc6 are Core and Additional Science and BTEC Science SC7, SC8 and it isn't in these cases as easy to match(Grade Value,Result,Aspect name of Aspect [basic Details]) we would have to code it I think to match the Class which is possible but a bit messy and I was just wondering if there was a better way of extracting the data out in a report that I was missing. To be honest other than this issue in a few subjects it works really well and although we haven't built in the higher analysis the Deputy Head here is well happy as he can see the potential. So it looks like we have two options I think and just let us know what you think design my import into the new SQL database to deal with this I think by building in functionality to deal with this and as it is an issue really with only three subjects at KS4 Science, PE and ICT it isn't to bad but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something with reports out of SIM's. The other thing I thought of was changing the Aspect Names but would this muck up individual reports in SIM's where these Aspects are linked in ? Sorry about long winded response.

Think this is the one just double check patch 18148.

Looking at applying this tomorrow as the LEA have just released this.

I have designed the report below to extract result Aspect Name and Grade but would like to attach relevant Subject Code or Class Code to Aspect name, I have tried this multiple ways but either get Class repeated Multiple time or data jumbled so it doesn't relate to the other data I have tried various Filters etc but still no joy, just wondered if anyone had any ideas. Adno Year Group Assessment Results Result Set Grade Value Result Aspect name of Aspect [basic Details] I can't really use a marksheet as I need this in a report to autmatically extract the information, any help would be appreciatted.

As Cam and Vikpaw have said Assessment Manager Marksheets you can link the data from these into Reports.Reports in SIM's are pretty flexible and reasonably easy to create, think Mail Merge where you set your letter up then Import then link the data in, with SIM's data comes from Marksheets. Have been to a few schools and we all seem to use or configure Reports differently some use Profiles others aren't etc What we do here is produce three Student Reports a Year two one Page reports where Staff just enter Data (Grades etc. and Comments from Phrase bank) which links into Sim's marksheets and set Reports for for this data to feed into so Staff enter data and just adjust a couple of things on these reports templatesnedneed to be altered like dates etc and print straight from SIM's once set up we don't really change them much year on year. Third and Full report again Staff enter Data as with the other two but have a free comment text box and this report is around 3 to 4 pages these are exported into a shared area then Form Tutors check these for accuarcy and enter overall statements about the students. If you are looking at SIM's would personally not look at SLG for Parental Gateway due to cost and feel their is a better product out their called Insight (Parental Portal) Tasc Software TASC Software Solutions Ltd. They also have PAR's which is an alternative to Lesson Monitor in SIM's these both deal with attendance Lesson Monitor was very poor a few years back although has vastly improved now so is probably fine but just so you have an alternative. As Greed said if you are deffinately looking at moving MIS and have time and haven't already look at alternative MIS systems just for your own peace of mind that you have made the right choice. I'll be honest and have looked at a few alternatives MIS systems but with all SIM's faults I haven't seen another one that covers everything as well or has as wide a base including here and SIM's SupportNet of users to rely on for support where issues occur.

+1 for Stone although not sure they offer onsite support for devices other than Desktops as we had a couple of Classmate II's that had faults and had to send these back for repair.