1. Home
  2. Reporting
  3. How to Create a Report to Parents
  1. Home
  2. For Teachers
  3. How to Create a Report to Parents

How to Create a Report to Parents

Important: The below guide refers to an older version of our Reports module, which not all schools will have access to. The pathways discussed in this guide therefore may not be relevant if you only have access to Quick Reports. This will typically apply to schools that are relatively new to Bromcom as well as Northern Ireland schools and they therefore should refer to Quick Reports guidance instead.

Note: All pages below are subject to having relevant Roles and Permissions.

MIS Managers or Office Managers can use this guide to produce an Individual Student Report to be sent to Parents. These Individual Reports can then be either printed off, published to MyChildAtSchool, published to the Student Portal or emailed to Parents.

This guide uses Ad-hoc Reports ,for any new schools being onboarded after Monday 30th January 2023 the Create New Report Menu will only show Quick Report.

See also Assessment Webmerge FAQ

For an Online Course on the Assessment Web Merge process to create a Report to Parents via Ad-hoc Reports see here. If you are accessing Online Courses for the first time see this guide on registration.

Creating a Report to Parents is a 4 step progress;

  • Create a Word Document
  • Import the Assessment IDs Report and the Example Assessment Report
  • Run/Edit the Assessment IDs Report
  • Run/Edit the Example Assessment Report

Create a Word Document

The Word Document is created outside of Bromcom and must be in Word format and saved locally on your computer.

This Word Document is the template for your report and will be Year Group specific.

Below is an example of a Word Document for a Year 11 Report to Parents for the Autumn 1 Term.

Note the Date of the letter has been added by clicking in the word document and clicking Insert to Insert Date & Time. In the Date & Time format box the appropriate Date has been selected and Update Automatically has been ticked. This will mean the letter will update automatically to show todays date.

Note the fields with <<>> around the text, these fields will be merged from information within the Student Record on Bromcom.

Merge Fields

The table of contents with headings Subject, Current Grade, Attitude to Learning and Target Grade will need to be populated with the relevant Concatenated Association ID.

This process is defined in Step 3 of this guide: How to Run the Assessment ID’s Report.

Assessment Data

Note on Subjects : If for example this report is for Year 11 students and you deliver 30 subjects at your school in Year 11 you will need to add each subject as a line. Then on the final step when you merge all the information in the Example Assessment Report, there is an option to Remove Empty Rows meaning that if a student does not have assessment data for the Subject defined in the Word Document Table, this row will be removed from their report and only show Rows for the Subjects where they do have assessment data.

Adding a Class Teacher column to the report: In the example below we have added a ‘Class Teacher’ column with the field <<subjectclassteacher>>, we have also added a subject reference followed by a colon after the first brackets << to assist with the web merge in Step 4 of this guide

Save the Word Document locally.

Import the Assessment IDs Report and the Example Assessment Report

The Assessment IDs Report and the Example Assessment Reports are located in the Bromcom Online Report Repository.

These reports can be imported and placed in a Reporting Folder of your choice.

See How to use the Online Report Repository.

From the Home Screen choose Reports>Adhoc>View Reports

View Reports

From the Actions drop down choose Import Report Definition.

Import Report Definition

In the Report Import page type Assessment in the top right Search box

Note in this example the 2 Reports have already been imported so the include previously imported reports has been ticked.

Select the 2 reports and click Import.

In this example the 2 Reports have been placed in the Module Reports>Assessment Report Folder on the right of the screen.

Assessment Reports

Run/Edit the Assessment IDs Report

The Assessment IDs Report is needed to produce the Concatenated Association IDs for each Assessment Result present in the Word Document.

These Concatenated Association IDs are then pasted into the Word Document from the Report Preview Page.

Note if any Assessment Results are from a Grade Set or Mark Set that is colour coded, this will show on the final output when you merge the data.

Run the Assessment IDs Report either from the Adhoc Reports List select the Assessment IDs Report and click Run.

Run

Or if the Report has been saved in a Module Report Folder go to Reports>and choose the relevant Module and choose the Report from the Custom Reports List. Any reports that have been saved in a Module Report Folder will be under the Custom Reports List.

In this example the Report has been saved in the Modules>Assessment folder so Reports>Assessment>Assessment IDs Report is the pathway.

Note: There is no option to click Run for this pathway.

Module Reports

Now you will need to refer back to your pre built Word Document so you have the Assessment information you need.

This example Word Document is a Year 11 Report for Autumn 1 and below is the table for the Assessment Results.

SubjectCurrent GradeAttitude to LearningTarget Grade
English   
Mathematics   
Science   
Geography   
History   
French   
Drama   
Example

There are 4 fields to pick and in this example they are;

  • Assessment Type = Current Grade, ATL and Target. Note the column names in the Word Document can be different to the actual Assessment Type Name. In this example the Assessment Type Name ATL is Attitude to Learning in the Word Document.
  • Terms = Autumn 1
  • Year Group Name = Year 11
  • Subject Name = English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, French and Drama

Either Click on the Find icon to open the full list for each of the 4 items or type the name into the boxes.

Selection List Example

Click Preview.

The next process is to copy each of the Concatenated Association IDs into the relevant box within the table in the Word Document.

Assessment IDs Report

You can either highlight each Concatenated Association ID>right click>Copy directly from Bromcom or Export the Report and and copy the IDs in from your Excel or CSV document – this is just personal preference.

Drama ID’s pasted into Word Document

The last step in this process is to insert your own reference followed by a colon (:)after the first two brackets <<.

For example DRC: has been inserted in the Drama Current Grade column after the <<.

When running the Example Assessment Report in Step 4 DRC will be visible as a personal reference if you need to check the merge has worked correctly and imported the correct result into the Word Document.

Insert Reference
Example Completed Table

Once you have pasted in all the Concatenated Association IDs Save the Word Document.

Run/Edit the Example Assessment Report

The Example Assessment Report is a Web Merge Report and is used to merge the information from Bromcom into your pre-prepared Word Document.

This report will have been imported from our Online Report Repository in Step 2 in this Article.

You need to amend this report to ensure it has the same fields in that are present on your pre-prepared Word Document.

If you have added a column for Class Teacher to your Word Document then you will need to add SubjectClassTeacher to your report.

Important Note: do not remove any of the 5 x Assessment Fields as these will merge with the Concatenated Association ID‘s in your Word Document AND Do Not Remove the Student ID field.

Do Not Remove Assessment Fields

Ensure you have completed the previous steps in this Article before you Run/Edit the Example Assessment Report.

The first step is to ensure that all the fields that you have in your pre-prepared Word Document are present in the Example Assessment Report.

From the Home Screen choose Reports>Adhoc>View Reports

View Reports Pathway

Locate the Example Assessment Report by clicking on the Filter Cup on the Name column, typing Example and then click Filter.

Find the Example Assessment Report

Then once you have located the Example Assessment Report, tick to select the report and from the Actions drop down select Edit.

Edit the Report

You know need to ensure all the <<fields>> you have in your Word Document that you are bringing in from Bromcom are in the Example Assessment Report.

Below is a screenshot of a Word Document. In this example the following 6 fields need to be in the Example Assessment Report. These are the fields with <<>> around them.

  1. Parent Salutation
  2. Parent Name
  3. Parent Address
  4. Student Name
  5. Tutor Group
  6. Present Percentage
Word Document

When you open the Example Assessment Report use the left hand list Reporting Data Items list to select the fields you have in your Word Document or remove any fields that aren’t in your Word Document.

Example Assessment Report

Click on Students in the left hand Results list to open up the Student field and search for any fields you need to add.

Click on Students

To Remove a field from the Example Assessment Report click on the item in the Detail box and click X just to the right to Delete.

Remove a Field

Once you have added/removed all the required fields click Save or Save As if you wish to re-name the Example Assessment Report.

Save

Select Run

Run
Report Parameters

In the Report Parameters Page you need the select which Students you would like to run the report for and which Assessment Type, Terms, Year Group and Subjects you have in your Word Document.

If you have added any Attendance Fields into the Example Assessment Report you can define the dates for the Attendance.

Note Current will show Attendance figures for the day you run the Report. To see Attendance over a period of time click Show for Selected Dates and choose the Dates.

Select Report Parameters and Attendance Dates

Click on the Find button to select the Students, Assessment Types, Terms, Year Group and Subjects you have in your Word Document.

Click Web Merge.

Web Merge

Click Browse to locate your Word Document saved to your PC.

Browse for Word Document

Click Next.

In the Web Merge Step 2 panel ensure all the fields match by using the drop down to match the fields in your Example Assessment Report with the Bold fields; note the fields in Bold are the fields in your Word Document.

If you have added a Class Teacher column in your word document then you will need to;

  • Click on the filter cup next to each Subject Class Teacher field
  • Add a filter for the Subject Name and choose the Subject Name from the drop down choices ,you will need to do this for each SubjectClassTeacher field.
  • Click Add and then OK
Subject Class Teacher Merge
Choose Subject Name
Click Add and then OK

Once all the fields are correct for the Assessment Results they will all be coloured Blue

Use the Other Properties Panel to sort and Page Break by Student ID.

Save As: choose either Word or Adobe PDF.

Remove Empty rows is ticked to ensure any empty rows where data is not present will be removed from the Individual Student Reports.

Select Multiple Document to create the Individual Reports to Parents. Note once Multiple Documents is selected you will have the option to Publish to Parent (via MCAS) or Publish to Students(via Student Portal)

Click Save to Save the Parameters and Run to create the Individual Reports.

Save and Process

After you press process, you should see a Merge in Progress box appear followed by a success message with Ok or Cancel

Once the message appears and you press Ok, the final Report should download and appear at the bottom of your browser.

Note: If the Report does not download or appear in your browser, usually this is caused by having a Pop Up Blocker on your browser which will appear as a Red warning. If you see this when running the Report, click the Red warning and allow popups for this page. You should then receive a download next time you repeat the Web Merge process.

Updated on June 10, 2024

Was this article helpful?

Related Articles

Noticed a missing guide?
Fill the form below and we will get this created.
Suggest Help Article