Other questions about reporting have been answered in the FAQs below:
Q. I want to exclude a subject from a report to parents how would I do this?
A. Simply edit the campaign adding or removing subjects as you wish. This can be done at any time during the campaigns life cycle up to the point of archiving.
Q. When producing a report what will happen to non-academic subjects which are not reported on e.g. Duke of Edinburgh Award and SENCO?
A: By hiding shared fields from departments it is assumed that they are not academic subjects and as such will not appear in any comparisons or reports that use shared fields. Subjects with hidden shared fields will also not see the Active Campaigns menu on their homepage and thus will not be prompted to complete a campaign. To Show/Hide shared fields: From the Administration Menu click Database Manager > Show/Hide shared fields.
Q. How are reports for parents compiled?
A. You select the tutor group to compiled, Pupil Tracking (PT) looks up all the pupils in that tutor group then compiles a list of subjects that each pupil takes (i.e. has a set code for). PT then compiles the report based upon the subjects taken by each pupil. For clarification, if John Smith 8C takes French for his language option then only French will appear on his report. If James Yates 8C takes German for his language option then only German will appear on his report.
Q. I want a subjects that does not record shared data to complete text only in a data and text campaign. How will blank entries appear on reports to parents?
A. When producing a report for parents from a campaign containing data and text any field containing NULL or an empty string "" will not appear on the report. For clarification, neither the field name nor the result will be displayed. For example, if the PSHE subject left the data blank in a campaign requesting the data fields S3_Attainment and S3_Effort and the text elements 'Attainment' and 'Effort', only the text elements would be displayed on reports to parents.
Q. I want a subject to only complete 2 out of the 3 text elements I have included in a campaign. How will the incomplete (blank) text elements appear on a report to parents?
A. Incomplete (blank) text elements do not appear on report to parents. For clarification neither the text element name nor the element description will appear on reports to parents where the text element has been left blank.
Q. Is there a limit to the number of General and Shared data fields that can be included on a report?
A. When setting up a campaign you can include up to 20 shared fields for data entry. However, a maximum of 12 is recommended for reports. General fields are included at report compile time and an unlimited number of general fields can be chosen. The main difference is that on a data only report the shared fields are columns that go across the page (hence the recommended limit of 12) and the general fields are rows which go down the page (hence unlimited).
Q. My school logo appears stretched. Why is this?
A. The sizes given (720x150 pixels portrait & 1040x150 pixels landscape) are the size of the canvas. You may place any images/logos you like on the canvas so long as they fit within the canvas sizes. Any school logo uploaded that is not on the specified canvas size will be stretched to the portrait or landscape canvas size respectively.
Q. When I try to create a report for parents I get a blank web page. Why is this?
A. Pupil Tracking does not support indexed or alpha transparency for GIF images. Any reports for parents produced with a header image of this kind will result in a blank web page being displayed. Always upload GIF images with a white background.
Q. When users are completing a report they can only issue multiple text to either males or females. Why is this?
A. The table below shows that His and Him both translate to Her in the female person. This is why the statements are written in the male person.
M F
Him - Her
His - Her
He - She
Himself - Herself
We know that Him can be replaced with Her and that His can be replaced with Her. However, we cannot determine what Her should be replaced with in the male person.. Him or His?
Consider the following...
FEMALE
Her effort this term has been excellent. I have given her a lot of praise (correct).
MALE
His effort this term has been excellent. I have given his a lot of praise (incorrect).
By allowing female statements to be issued to males we cannot be certain that the him/his translation will be correct.
By handling issue to females and issue to males separately, we can guarantee that whatever free text is entered, upon saving, the grammar will be correct.
Q. When using Pupil Tracking's External Gateway how do I know which parents have agreed to download their report online and which pupils still require a paper copy sending home?
A. When producing a report for parents it is possible to use the report filter. Pupil Tracking will automatically work out which pupils still require a paper copy sending home and will compile a report for those pupils only. See the help section Report Manager >Producing a report > Licence holder type for more details.
Q. I have blank pages appearing for some pupils in the final PDF report?
Since version 4 Pupil Tracking has largely eradicated issues when pasting from MS Word. However, this FAQ has been left here for anyone experiencing issues.
The issue is caused when pasting text from Microsoft Word. Control characters are carried across from Word and cannot be rendered in the PDF format. It is worth reading the Microsoft article on this.
There is a useful online tool here which can help clean up your MS Word text.