SIMS + POWER BI Blog
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Removing groups of pupils from key stage analysis
Why many schools have 'official' and 'unofficial' results... I find that schools often have two sets of statistics: the official set of statistics that includes the results of all the pupils who will be included in the year's key stage results, and an unofficial set...
Design tips for visualizing school data with Power BI
You can't just throw a few Power BI visuals into a report and expect users to be able to analyse their data more effectively. In this post I try to highlight what I think makes an effective Power BI report. Firstly, I recommend anyone starting to work with data...
New SIMS assessment system for primary schools
Capita SIMS have just released a complete new primary school assessment system that comprises a set of integrated marksheets, analysis reports and data dashboards using Microsoft Power BI. And best of all? It’s free!
Adding ‘last update’ time and date to Power BI dashboards
Keeping data 'fresh' I've been thinking about what makes a good Power BI report by trying to understand how best to present the information to the audience. When I'm looking at a dashboard that shows the latest pupil data, or attendance data, or assessment data, one...
Useful DAX measures for schools
Update: Check out the comments for some more tips on using DAX measures. DAX is the language behind Power BI. If you want to get the most out of Power BI sooner or later you'll need to write some DAX code. The best DAX reference is Microsoft's DAX reference website....
Ordering year groups with Power BI
If you have been using Power BI to create data visualisations for primary schools, you've probably run in to this problem: you want the x axis of your graph to run from nursery through reception to year 1 and then to year 6, but Power BI insists on alphabetical order...
Primary key stage analysis resources 2019
Primary schools will find these special marksheets and reports incredibly useful when analysing EYFS, KS1 and KS2 results this summer. Updated January 2019 These resources were updated by Capita in January 2019 to include the changes to the PAG groups and national...
Welcome back to SIMS assessment
Over the past few months I've spoken to an increasing number of schools who are starting to use SIMS assessment again, after using third-party assessment products for several years. Talking to these returning schools, it seems there are several drivers behind their...
SIMS and Power BI in ten (yes ten!) minutes
If you have access to Capita MyAccount you can now watch a 10 minute demo by John Christian during which he takes you through all the key tasks in setting up the automatic report link from SIMS into Power BI. The resource is part of Capita's 'Customer Success' strand...
SIMS for beginners course
It always amazes me how many school jobs require SIMS experience. But if you want a job in a school you need SIMS experience, but to get SIMS experience you need a job in a school! It's a Catch-22 situation, made all the harder because as a priviate individual, SIMS...
Course: SIMS and Power BI for Beginners
If you read my article about the SIMS Consolidated Report utility or if you just want to find out about SIMS and Power BI - I've developed a free course for you. It's aimed at school staff with no previous experience of Power BI although you'll need to have some SIMS...
New Microsoft Power BI Resources for SIMS
New analyses with Microsoft Power BI Microsoft Power BI is an analysis tool that allows you to create powerful data visualisations easily and quickly - it's like Excel on steroids. The BI stands for Business Intelligence and it's used by many large business...
If you need a little extra help with your SIMS system I'm here to help. Contact me at david@davidpott.com for consultancy and training. Or you can subscribe to my termly assessment newsletter using the button below.