Metchley

Thanks very much for the reply, Brucy. I'll pass that on to the school and await their response. We had the manual out but in the rather tense atmosphere, which often accompanies a request for a CTF to be made, could not find out how to do it. Thanks again.

Just a quickie - very elementary... Myself and a couple of office staff were trying to make a whole school CTF from SIMS.Net yesterday and we got stuck on the "Destination" (final) column on the grid which appears. We wanted to set the same destination for all pupils (the CTF is for a third party program, not for sending anywhere external to the school). Quite apart from the annoying fact that there seems to be no "other location" option, as there is in CMIS, we could only discover how to set each pupil's destination individually, which of course would take ages, having to do it for 400 kids separately. Can anyone tell me how to choose a destination for the first child and then set that same destination for all the following entries, preferably with one or two deft clicks of the mouse? I'd be really chuffed.

I'm looking at this moment at a CTF (V11) produced by Facility CMIS. Here's an exerpt... 2007-01-18 2007-01-18 2007-05-17 2007-05-17 2007-10-04 2007-10-04 2008-01-17 2008-01-17 2011-01-20 2011-01-20 2011-05-19 2011-05-19 2011-10-06 2011-10-06 2012-01-05 Goes back to 2007.

Yeah, I think we've worked out what you will get. But only by guessing the underlying queries. The mantra "you're always dragging pupils" is only small solace. In this case you're "dragging pupils" from a chart which has no mention of pupils on its axes on to another chart which also has no mention of pupils on its axes.

That's fair enough. Can't expect everything. But, how can one work out what the drag-and-drop actually IS producing? What reasoning process should be used in DavePriorHLS's example to work out the meaning of the new (red) bars when he drops an item from the "Behaviour incidents by action taken" chart to the "Behaviour incidents by registration group" chart?

I'm not clear about what you are saying is wrong with it. The term "Filtered by C3 45min" or whatever it was is vague, I agree. But the term is sufficiently vague for it not be wrong, if you see what I mean. It's so vague it is impossible for it to be wrong. Actually, unless one knows precisely what the two queries involved are then we don't know what to expect when the second is applied to the dataset derived from the first. Maybe they are dumbing down so much that the thing becomes worthless or even misleading. Really, I don't think the drag and drop idea thing can be made powerful and still kept simple. It sounds great to just drop one graph on top of another and you get further more detailed analysis - but you are porbably never sure precisely of the content description of what you get, given all the things you don't know about the internal workings.

I guess one has to work out the query which is generated when you drag and drop. It looks like the LH chart is derived from something like "Select [incidents], [Tutor Group] Where [All Incidents} > 0" When you drag the "C3 45min" item and drop it the query will be ""Select [incidents], [Tutor Group] Where [All Incidents} > 0" AND [C3 45min Incidents] > 0" So if a kid has one C3 45min incident it looks as though you'll get all the incidents for that child....which is what you said, I think. You will need a more sophisticated query to get what you are after..something like "select Count[C3 45min], [Tutor Group] WHERE [C3 45min] >0. I doubt if Discover does more than AND the second query on to the end of the first one when you drag and drop.

If the report-writing software could produce pdfs of each report or maybe export the whole lot in one Excel worksheet it could be picked up by SIMS?

I may be misunderstanding, but tell me if I have I got this straight... You want to create the report templates in SIMS, write the reports in some other perhaps more user friendly program with comment banks, then import the reports back into SIMS and finally print from SIMS? If this is correct, I'm not clear why you want to import the reports back into SIMS when they have been written. Why not print them from the third party software you used for writing the reports? If you are not a fan of SIMS, you could limit SIMS usage to the first stage only - that is producing the data (in Excel or XML) which the third party software would need, such as Assessment data, UPNs, etc.

I'd write something in VB to do the job. Treat the Excel file as a database, extract what you want with SQL, sort, print. Would take about a week to write it! But it might save time in the long run.

I'm interested in this because I am responsible for a pupil tracking program and have met and solved this bug. Here's an excerpt from an email I received from a (very useful) user. No, the user was doing nothing wrong - users like that are absolutely invaluable. It was my mistake....my Tracker was keeping only the last SEN value. Once the problem was known it took only a couple of hours to correct it (storing all the values and their dates and sorting by date - taking the latest). BTW, you can't rely on the last date being the latest. Since then I've also put in a copy and paste function. The user can export a report from CMIS with two fields, UPN and SEN Status (or anything else you want), copy both columns and then paste into the Tracker grid. How can the developers of the program you use say it is not their fault? It's easy to open the CTF and find a child with two or more SEN entries and decide whether or not the program is picking up the most recent one. If it hasn't then it is at fault.

Totally true, LosOjos. I wasn't meaning to diss your comment. Only to try to reassure the OP somewhat! A workaround for the moment would be for the school SENCO to check the SEN entries and manually change them after a CTF import. He/she should know the correct current status of each of their pupils. Another possibility is to import forget the CTF and instead import a report from CMIS. I don't know whether this Tracker has this facility, but you can pull in more info from a report than from a CTF - the pupil teaching group, for example.

"Have you informed the developers? Sounds like their system isn't date checking, and if it's doing that with SEN, it could be doing it elsewhere too..." True, but I've found only two "Histories" in a CMIS CTF - SENHistory and SchoolHistory. As said, this program is picking up only the first entry on the History list. Bad error.

SDS drills are incredible. Watch out when you come out the other side though as they can take half the wall with them.

With the Inform programs the teacher files are encrypted. On their return they are stored in the (.mdb) database unencrypted (for speed of access). The database is password protected, but as you say, that is not secure. However, there is only one database and it is on the server so you can set strict permissions for it.

Laserblazer, 18 classes, 3 year groups and 540 kids might sound a lot, but think of 30 classes in 7 year groups with 1000 kids, for 4 report sessions per year. And imagine it run by a non-technical admin secretary. For the secondary version you import two files from SIMS, the pupils and their classes and the teachers and their groups. Then it's just a click of a button and a file is made for each teacher, put on the server, and off they go. They can write on a workstation or download it to write at home. Each teacher gets just the kids he needs (although he can add if any are missing for some reason), and the process is pretty well instantaneous. All the files are collected at the end with a single click, and then you've got all the reports for checking/printing in the database. Again, more or less instantaneous. For the primary version you've got a bit more work - you've got to select the classes to give to each teacher, unless you've got all that on your SIMS, in which case it's like the secondary system. All the files are put on the server and collected by the program from the server when they are finished.

That's very interesting. I have had no success with getting my VPN working and I too use a wireless router (NetGear). I must try a direct connection and see if that solves my problem!

Good. I'm not decrying the program. If your school uses a Word template then Ray's Learning allows you to use statement banks. All I'm saying is that it's only a partial solution. From am individual teacher's point of view it might be a Godsend but is doesn't address collation checking and printing problems. A 'Proper' report system is about more than statements. <-- SPAM REMOVED -->

Thanks for comments, contink - noted and agreed with. BTW, the manuals (.doc files) are downloaded with the programs - accessible from the 'Help' menu item. The priority was to keep it simple for the teachers and put any complexity that couldn't be avoided in the admin program. It needs an administrator who knows what he is doing to run the show- but school secretaries manage OK with a bit of support - though not many users are getting the best out of it, I don't think. Thanks again for the feedback.

I'm always surprised when 'Rays Learning' is recommended when people ask about report-writing software. It's probably good for what it does, but it doesn't seem to do a great deal. I'll come clean and do a bit of spamming since other people seem to be getting away with it. <-- REMOVED SPAM --> <-- If you think others are getting away with it, please report them --> An comments welcomed of course, polite or otherwise.

"and nobody has really improved on it" Well. I don't agree with that. But the rest is spot on. Salesmanship beats quality every time.

Since Report Assist is so bad, why are so many primary schools using it? It's probably because most schools have never heard of anything else and the "follow the herd" factor comes into play - but how did they manage to get so well known in the first place? I've looked at the demonstration version, looks fairly rubbish, but I didn't know that deploying and merging was as complicated as it appears to be from reading these posts. And the ultimate insult is that they charge for upgrades, most of which are probably correcting faults!