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Exam Timetables?


ADT

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Just now, ADT said:

Well he managed to give your competitors the ability........  maybe you need to leave out more mince pies etc!!! :P

I meant the CSV export that someone was kindly going to provide me to do some testing with FrogCode with :P.

Regarding everyone else - I'm not sure they export it from SIMS, but rather take it directly from the SIMS db and host it somewhere. So it's not quite the same thing ;)

Adam

(p.s. i'd like to see our competitors do game based learning, a feature rich vle, e-portfolios, progress tracking, curriculum management, curriculum mapped resources, learning lockers (with examples of good work to assist marking) home learning, parental engagement, feedback, reporting (with funky pdf conversion abilities), the ability to extend the platform through custom widgets (FrogCode), Homework calendars, assignments, Android / IOS apps (my frog, frog snap, etc..), e-reader, document management, Frog Connect (the ability to connect frog servers between schools to share resources (MATS)) integrations with google docs/drive and waaay more that I can't be bothered to type out now - plus what's coming soon that you don't know about yet. :)

I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy to show that data from SIMS if that's ALL you do. But fear not, I am nudging people to keep this at the forefront of peoples minds here.

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22 minutes ago, adamw said:

I meant the CSV export that someone was kindly going to provide me to do some testing with FrogCode with :P.

Regarding everyone else - I'm not sure they export it from SIMS, but rather take it directly from the SIMS db and host it somewhere. So it's not quite the same thing ;)

Adam

(p.s. i'd like to see our competitors do game based learning, a feature rich vle, e-portfolios, progress tracking, curriculum management, curriculum mapped resources, learning lockers (with examples of good work to assist marking) home learning, parental engagement, feedback, reporting (with funky pdf conversion abilities), the ability to extend the platform through custom widgets (FrogCode), Homework calendars, assignments, Android / IOS apps (my frog, frog snap, etc..), e-reader, document management, Frog Connect (the ability to connect frog servers between schools to share resources (MATS)) integrations with google docs/drive and waaay more that I can't be bothered to type out now - plus what's coming soon that you don't know about yet. :)

I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy to show that data from SIMS if that's ALL you do. But fear not, I am nudging people to keep this at the forefront of peoples minds here.

Ah sorry i though @gbligh was going to provide you with something!!  Pass what competitors do....  all i know is we use something called Insight to provide parents with access to SIMs data attendance etc... but also exam timetables from SIMs.....  i want to move to FrogParent but the sticking point is Exam Timetables...   any honest school would tell you, we are in the exam business.......  and not being able to give Parents and i had hoped students access to an exam timetable is slightly disappointing.

I take your point that Froglean offers loads more.....  but in my case im comparing what FrogParent can do with what our current provider Insight can!!! ;)

 

 

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@ADT @gbligh I've sorted this one with a new widget.  Shows the currently logged in student their exam timetable if he/she has one and provides a pdf to download/print/keep. 

Capture.PNG.05973d1c927abf3145895f6945d63d7a.PNG

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exampref.PNG

 

I went for pasting the data for the entire year group into a widget preference. The widget selects the correct records for the currently logged in user from the preference.  There are no names in the data, so I feel fine about this approach from a data protection point of view. 

Getting the data out of SIMS is the hard bit!

As far as I can tell you can only get the data out of Exams Organiser (the add-on module Adam was talking about).  There are two very similar reports (one of them includes their seat number, so I went for that one) that both have a "to CSV" option.  However, the csv eventually exported is a real mess! I had to write an excel macro in the end to clean it up.  I'll post the macro and instruction for anyone who want's to replicate.

 

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On 16/12/2018 at 18:48, pconkie said:

@ADT  I've sorted this one with a new widget.  Shows the currently logged in student their exam timetable if he/she has one and provides a pdf to download/print/keep. 

....................................

I went for pasting the data for the entire year group into a widget preference. The widget selects the correct records for the currently logged in user from the preference.  There are no names in the data, so I feel fine about this approach from a data protection point of view. 

Getting the data out of SIMS is the hard bit!

As far as I can tell you can only get the data out of Exams Organiser (the add-on module Adam was talking about).  There are two very similar reports (one of them includes their seat number, so I went for that one) that both have a "to CSV" option.  However, the csv eventually exported is a real mess! I had to write an excel macro in the end to clean it up.  I'll post the macro and instruction for anyone who want's to replicate.

 

Seriously...  do you ever sleep?

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2 hours ago, pconkie said:

Ah, I read now that you wanted something similar for parents?  Should be easy enough to adapt so a parent can see their child's timetable.

Well something for both.....  then hopefully either the kid....  or the kids parents will make sure the lazy bums are out of bed on time!!:D

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10 hours ago, gbligh said:

Nice one Paul - @Graham Quince can we get this on the FrogCode showcase? 

I'd assume it will need some testing by someone like @adamw to make sure its all "Frogjit".......  then we can have a play and see if it works for us.......  once again another Conkie special..... ;)

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@pconkie glad you managed to get something out of SIMS that was useful! I'll happily have a look at the widget when I get the opportunity. Also, I'd be interested in seeing the raw output of that CSV from Exams organiser. 

I assume other people who have SIMS also use this add on for exam timetables?n Or do you use something else?

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4 hours ago, adamw said:

@pconkie glad you managed to get something out of SIMS that was useful! I'll happily have a look at the widget when I get the opportunity. Also, I'd be interested in seeing the raw output of that CSV from Exams organiser. 

I assume other people who have SIMS also use this add on for exam timetables?n Or do you use something else?

Exams Organiser whilst an "extra module" comes as part of the standard SIMS package.  I would imagine that almost all Exams Officers in SIMS schools will be using it to administer exams,

Edited by pconkie
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@adamw I've posted above a snippet from the raw csv file.  Like I said - it's messy! I have over 10,000 rows for my 270 students.

The columns of data for the first student never line up with the rest (although all of the other students do line up).  The final two columns of data are always a row too high compared with the rest.  

I have removed the identifiable data. Another problem is that there is no id in this file that can be matched to frog.  The best id this file contains is the students exam number, but I do not think the exam number is in frog.  

My method was:

1., Use an excel macro to get a usable format

2. Use a lookup function with a lookup table to swap exam number for UPN

3. Pass this through a tool that converts csv to json with UPNs used as the keys.

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Wow!  As always Paul - that's amazing.

I'll have a chat with @adamw and find out the best way to get this.  My one note of caution is that this puts all the information for different users into a single widget on Frog.  It is possible if you know what you're doing to be able to view all the information stored in the widget.  Now it looks fairly anonymous to me, but I might put the widget behind a form that makes you agree to take responsibility for it knowing this, before you get a link.

Does that sound fair?

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4 hours ago, Graham Quince said:

Wow!  As always Paul - that's amazing.

I'll have a chat with @adamw and find out the best way to get this.  My one note of caution is that this puts all the information for different users into a single widget on Frog.  It is possible if you know what you're doing to be able to view all the information stored in the widget.  Now it looks fairly anonymous to me, but I might put the widget behind a form that makes you agree to take responsibility for it knowing this, before you get a link.

Does that sound fair?

Makes sense to me.....

I suppose the question is...  can you “Frog” come up with a different way....  that doesn’t take an age!!! :)

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8 minutes ago, pconkie said:

That's the same format that our's came out in.  I'll send the macro over (it's on my home computer, so can't send it now).  That will sort this mess out.

Dont forget to share the joy.... :D

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OK here is a quick guide to getting your SIMS data out and into the right format....

Step 1

Open SIMS and then go to Focus--> Examinations.  

The SIMS Exams Organiser module will load if you have sufficient permissions.

Don't mess around with this module if you are not sure what you are doing. Get your Exams Officer or SIMS admin to run the report for you.

In Exams Organiser you should go to Reports-->Seating Organiser-->Individual Candidate Timetables. Check the Season is correct and press the magnifying glass next to 'selections'.  Add a year group such as "curriculum year 11' or a PI group such as ''Summer 19 All'. Press the ok button and then use the "to file" button in the top right corner.  Save as csv when prompted.

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