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Originally created as a Local Education Authority solution to automatically and securely collect data from schools and deliver it the Authorities central systems, Xporter allows the LA to define what data is collected and how frequently this happens.

Xporter runs in each school to extract the required information from multiple MIS systems and transfer it securely and in a uniform format to the LA.

Xporter can extract virtually any information from your MIS including:

* Attendance (sessional and lesson)

* Timetable

* Assessment

* Behaviour

* Medical

* Staff, classes and groups

Extract all information or changes only (including deletions)

Send extracts securely to virtually anywhere using virtually any transfer mechanism e.g. WebDAV, FTP, web services and email

Schedules can be set to extract and send information any time of the day or night

Introducing Xporter Version 4 (X4)

Groupcall have made some significant steps forward with Xporter over the last few months and with the announcement by Capita of their summer release of SIMS.NET being built on .net 4, Groupcall have been quick to react with X4. For those of you planning to upgrade to this version of SIMS, you can be confident this this version of Xporter will fully support this new version of SIMS.

Above and beyond SIMS.NET 4 support, X4 is fast - really fast, more stable, less memory hungry with the massively improved built-in support functions to make running, managing and resolving issues a breeze. Enhanced support for integration with education-specific infrastructure e.g. SIF and products e.g. Groupcall Consumer is seamless and with native support for all the latest Windows operating systems including Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7, X4 is ready for the next phase in education technology.

Over the next few months Groupcall will be in contact to arrange the upgrade to X4.

Groupcall XVault

Groupcall XVault is a data aggregation tool: it collects data from multiple disparate sources using the SIF data model (it works in both SIF and Non-SIF environments). It provides easy access to collated data for analytical, monitoring and reporting purposes.

XVault delivers value in 3 key areas:

Free School Meals (FSM)
Virtual School
XVault LA Reporting (coming soon)

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Groupcall’s FSM Solution

With Pupil Premium funding directly linked to school’s budgets, having up-to-date FSM entitlement data is now seen as a key area for School’s, Local Authorities and Government. With a combination of Groupcall XVault and SIF, we can now offer a key solution around driving efficiency, reducing cost and ensuring that the right data is in the right place to support vulnerable children and those most at risk.

Although the Government is planning to increase FSM funding over the next 4 years, there still remains the challenge of ensuring that all eligible pupils are being processed quickly and efficiently.

The recent success of the Connect Digitally online ‘Eligibility Checking Service’ has led to a drastic reduction in the time taken for parents to register their children for FSM’s. In some cases, this process has been reduced from 6 weeks to 90 minutes. Groupcall has been working with Connect Digitally and a number of Council’s to develop the next steps once a child has been approved for FSM.

Groupcall is now able to implement a solution that picks up the eligibility pupil data from the ECS and then via XVault, we can write back a pupil’s status to the schools MIS system.

This automated solution completes the circle from the time the parent registers their children for FSM (via a drop in centre, telephone call or web site application), right through to the school being informed of an approved eligibility FSM claim.

We believe our FSM solution further highlights how important it is for Local Authorities to have access to real time data in one place, especially when it’s intrinsically linked to school funding.

By using a combination of Groupcall Xporter and XVault, we can provide Authorities with an automated service that will cut down on manual eligibility processes and will enable schools to provide an accurate service for those children most at need.

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Groupcall’s FSM solution ensures that both the school and Local Authority have up-to-date information on FSM eligibility, which ensures that those pupils most in need of the additional funding are supported quicker and more efficiently.

Latest News

RM G2 Feed - Work is in progress with the aim to test and deploy from March 2011.

RM E1 Feed - We are currently developing an interface for Xporter to talk to E1. Integration work is expected to be completed in the summer of 2011.

Dashboard - The new support desk tool which gives you the ability to provide a proactive support function for your schools (avaiable within X3). Daily or weekly logs will instantly report on those schools where the extract has been received successfully, has failed once or persistently and you will also have the ability to change extract schedules within the schools. From the Dashboard you can restart a job remotely and force full data extracts from within the MIS rather than just the changes. Once the Dashboard job is installed, Xporter users can benefit from the proactive reporting. If you would like to see a demo of Dashboard, please contact us: 020 8502 7344.

Virtual School - the new Virtual School Solution for 'looked after children'. Using Xporter you are now able to extract LAC education data from the Schools' MIS. Groupcall Consumer will then automatically collate data into a single SQL Database. The Virtual School dashboard interfaces seamlessly with the Consumer to display a virtual school for all the looked after children on roll across the authority. Click here to find out more.