Creating a New Cycle from Scratch

To create your Semester cycle from scratch, go to the Reports page under the Teaching and Learning menu (pencil icon).  Click the 'Add New Cycle'.

     

In the panel you will see the Year and Semester pre-set, you can adjust these fields if needed.

Add in your Title for this cycle (this can be edited later if needed).
Ensure the 'Cycle Type' is set as 'Writer' and click 'Create Cycle'.
     

Your new cycle will be created and you will see it listed on the Reports page.  Click the Title of the new cycle in the list to open it.

You will now need to configure the cycle's settings.

Configure the Cycle

To configure your cycle's settings and layout, you will need to work through a series of tabs in the 'Cycle Settings' button within the cycle.

For a Duplicated Cycle:
If you duplicated to create your new cycle, all the settings will already be in place based on the cycle you chose to duplicate from.  If you want to review/adjust any of the settings, you will need to click into the new cycle and then click 'Cycle Settings'.
     

Please Note: If the duplicated cycle used a Reporting Element that is no longer set as 'Included' in the list of possible elements within a cycle, your newly created cycle will show a warning for that element.

     

The Report Element can still be used for your newly created cycle but we recommend confirming with your Report Coordinator if the Element should be used ongoing before proceeding.

For further details, please refer to the 'Report Management - Report Elements Tab' section of the Semester Reports Admin Guide article from our Knowledge Base.

     

Settings Tab
This tab is where you can edit the Title, add the Enrolment Bounds, publish the reports and adjust the layout.

Report Content Tab
This is where you set the design features of the Report.

Report Elements Tab
This contains all the possible elements that can be reported against.  Here is where you choose which elements will be used for your Report.

Please Note: There are additional tabs (Progress Reports, Insights and Extra Curricular Events) that are added to the Cycle Settings screen once the Enrolment Bounds information is added and saved.  For a duplicated cycle, these tabs will already show as the Enrolment Bounds are added when the cycle is first established.  For a newly created cycle, the additional tabs will not initially show in Cycle Settings until the Enrolment Bounds are saved.  Once they are saved, close and re-open the 'Cycle Settings' to access the additional tabs.

For details on all the settings and features of each of these tabs, please refer to the 'Cycle Settings' article from our Knowledge Base.

Enrolling Students in the Cycle

In the cycle, click to the Enrolments tab to enrol students who should be reported on in this semester reporting cycle.
     

Click 'Add Enrolments'.  Use the options in the pop-up to enrol the applicable students.
     

If you want to add all the students in the school click the middle 'Add' button, as by default it is set to include all years, forms and houses.

If instead you only want to include certain students, say only two year levels, you can select one year level and then click the associated "Add".

The enrolments page behind the popup will refresh with the new students you chose added, and the popup will remain open so you can continue to add other students as well.

There are further options available by clicking the 'Advanced' button at the top right of this popup window, including adding students by class, subject, or even flag. 

If you added any students that you want to remove you can do so by clicking the red X to the far right of the student's row in the Enrolments table.  To bulk removed, select the students and then click 'Selected Enrolments' and choose 'Delete Enrolments'.
     

Keep in mind that any students that joins the school after you've enrolled the students in the reporting cycle will need to be added to the cycle if they are to have a report.

Students can only be enrolled in the cycle once, so even if you’ve previously added a majority of the students, it would not cause any issues to simply re-add all the students in the school using the middle 'Add' button if you are enrolling all of the students in a single cycle.

If you need to adjust some of the information for a student for reporting purposes only, you can do so by clicking the edit pencil icon for the student on the Enrolment tab.  This will open a pop-up with the information that can be adjusted.  Please note information for a student adjusted within the cycle is contained to that one cycle, it will not adjust the student's information in other areas of Compass.

Including/Excluding Subjects in the Cycle

By default, when you create a Reporting cycle from scratch, all the possible subjects (and their associated classes) will be included in the cycle.

Please Note: Most secondary schools or schools that use a third-party timetabling program will already have the necessary subjects setup in Compass, but many primary schools may need to assess the subjects that are setup on their portal, and in some cases will need to add subjects in order to create the reports they want. 

If you require additional subjects for your reports (i.e. English, Maths etc), please refer to the 'Creating Additional Subjects in Schedule Builder' article from our Knowledge Base.

If you created the Reporting cycle by duplicating a previous cycle, the subjects will be set as included or excluded based on the original cycle's settings as will the classes within each subject.

Subjects will have one of four possible status' in the cycle which is indicated via both colour indication and the information in the 'Status' column.
     

The screen view defaults to showing 'Included' subjects.
     
You can click the drop-down list to select to view 'Excluded Subjects' if needed.
     

To exclude any subjects listed that are not to be included in the Reporting cycle, select the subject (or subjects to edit the setting for multiple at once) and then click 'Bulk Actions' and click on 'Mark selected Subjects as'.  This will open a range of options and here you click 'Excluded'.
     

This will update the settings for the selected subjects to be 'Excluded' and remove them from the display when 'Showing' is set as 'Included Subjects'.

If you have set a subject as 'Excluded' and it actually needs to be included in the cycle, change the 'Showing' field to 'Excluded Subjects'.  Select the subject (or subjects if multiple) that should be included and click 'Bulk Actions'.  Click 'Mark selected Subjects as' and then click 'Draft'.
     

Including/Excluding Classes

Setting the grading criteria for the report is done on a per-subject basis, not per-class.  You may have some instances where some classes in a subject should have a report, but one or more classes within the subject do not require a report. In this instance you can exclude individual classes.

To view which classes are associated with a subject within the reporting cycle, click the subject title to open the content.
     

Scroll down to the 'Classes in this subject' section.  You will see all the classes within the subject.  They have three possible settings within the cycle, Excluded, Open and Read Only.
     
     
Open - Classes set as 'Open' will be available to the applicable teachers for results entry when the Subject configuration is completed.

Excluded - Classes set as 'Excluded' will not be available for results entry when the Subject configuration is complete.

Read-Only - Setting classes as 'Read Only' is recommended once all the results are entered and you are ready to publish your reporting cycle as it will prevent staff from editing any entered results.

Initially all classes will be set as 'Open' by default.  If you have any classes that are not required to be reported against for an Included Subject within the cycle, click into the subject and set the specific class as 'Excluded' and then ensure you click 'Save' to update your selection.

     

Continue this process for any Included Subjects for the cycle that have classes you need to exclude.

Configuring the Subjects

Before anyone can enter results you will need to set the grading criteria for each subject, or have the Faculty Manager's set the grading criteria for the subjects they manage. For more information on having your Faculty Manager's assist with this aspect of report setup, please see the 'Semester Reports and Faculty Managers' article from our Knowledge Base.

Click the name of the subject to open the configuration screen for that subject (you can work through the subjects in whatever order suits).

     

     

Example: School Attendance Element 

Example: Subject Description Element 

Example: Work Habit Element 

Example: Victorian Curriculum Strand Element 

Some elements are a tick the box selection, some are free type text fields and others have the option to add components.

If you do not want to include an element in the reports, you can simply leave it blank or choose to not tick any boxes. This will exclude the element from that subject, and the teachers will not see it when they go to write their reports. 

There is the option to import subject configuration from a previous cycle and this is the quickest way to set up your reports, but if this is your first semester writing reports on Compass you will need to configure at least one subject before you can import or export the configuration across to other subjects.

For details on how to import subject configuration, please see the below section further down in this article called 'Importing/Exporting Subject Configuration'.

For the elements you need to configure for this subject, expand them and complete the required information.

Example: Configuring a School Attendance Element

Tick the applicable option for your subject. 

Example: Configuring a Subject Description Element
Add in the text that you want to appear on student reports as the Description for this subject.
     

Example: Configuring a Victorian Curriculum Element
Use the 'Add New Victorian Curriculum Strand' button to add the required strands that teachers will report against for this subject.
     

Example: Configuring a Work Habit Element
Use the 'Add New Work Habit' button to add as many Work Habits as required for teachers to report against for the subject.  You can free type your own or use an existing option from the drop-down list.  Once added, click the edit pencil icon to edit or the red 'X' to delete.
     

Example: Configuring a Comment Element
Use the 'Add New Comment Section' to add the required comment fields for teachers to report against for the subject.  You can free type your own or use an existing option from the drop-down list.
Some schools do just one large comment box, usually titled 'Teacher Comment', and other schools typically do two comments - one being 'What the student has achieved' and the other being 'Areas for Improvement'. You can add as many comment sections as you like.
If you would like to use variables (like studentPreferredName) you can insert a variable by using the '< >' button further to the right
     

As you continue with setting up the format for this subject's report you should start to have information entered for each reporting element that this subject will be reporting on.

Please note: If you want to modify the order that Report Elements appear in, this can be done via Cycle Settings, please refer to 'Reports Element Tab' section of the Cycle Settings article in the Knowledge Base.

See below for how this should start to look as you set up the subject.  In this example, the subject does not require the 'Attitudes and Behaviour' element so it has not had content added and will therefore not show for teachers when they go to enter results for this subject.

     

If required, you can review the included classes who will be reporting against the subject. 

If the option to manually set the teacher names on the subject is enabled for this cycle, you will have the option to edit which teacher/teachers names are listed for this subject for each applicable class (it will default initially as the Lead Teacher).  For the listed classes, click the 'Configure Teachers' option.

    

You can also review which Learning Tasks are included in the report cycle for the subject. You can drag and drop the listed Learning Tasks to re-order them within the cycle. For details on including Learning Tasks in Reports, please refer to the 'Learning Tasks in Reports' article from our Knowledge Base.

     

You can set per subject whether the teacher's name will display for the subject on the report by ticking or unticking this option.

     

Example Report

With Teacher's Name enabled:
     

Without Teacher's Name enabled:
     

After entering information on the subject page be sure to click 'Save' at the bottom as you go to retain your settings. 

Once you have finished configuring the subject, you can click 'Save and Close' to return to the main Reporting Cycle Administration screen.

Please Note: We recommend leaving the 'Overall Subject Template Status' set as 'Draft' at this point in the process as this will prevent any results from being entered until the report cycle is completely set up and ready for teaching staff. 

You can then proceed into the next subject to configure it.  Continue to do so until all the subjects are configured.

Importing/Exporting Subject Configuration

If you have set the grading criteria for one subject, either in the current cycle or a previous cycle, and want to copy the same grading criteria across to a different subject, you can use either the 'Import Report Items' or 'Export Report Elements' buttons, found at the top of the Subject Template Setup page, in order to speed up the process of setting up each individual subject.

     

If you are on the subject setup page of a subject that has not yet been configured then you use should use the 'Import Report Items' button, but the quickest method is to set up one subject and then use the 'Export Report Elements' button to copy this setup across to the other subjects that will report on the same things. Alternatively if you used the same (or a similar) report setup in a previous cycle you can go to the Subject Template Setup page from the previous cycle, and then click the 'Export Report Elements' button to then push some or all of this setup across to subjects in the current cycle. 

Tip: Be sure to always click 'Save' at the bottom of the Subject Template Setup page prior to doing an export or import. This ensures any changes you've made will be saved to the system prior to you exporting these settings to another subject.

Export Report Elements

Clicking the 'Export Report Elements' button will open a popup window.

      

Along the right-hand side under the heading 'Destination' select which reporting cycle you want to copy the information across to. Once you've selected the reporting cycle the list below will fill with the subjects that have been included in that reporting cycle. By default they will all be marked red. From this list you should select the subjects that you want to copy this setup across to by clicking them to turn them green with a tick mark at the far right.

     

On the left-hand side of the popup, under the heading 'Report Elements' you should select which of the report elements from this subject you want to copy across to the subjects you select on the right. 

So you may have added a subject-specific Subject Description reporting element, which is not relevant to any of the other subjects in the cycle. In this case ensure the Subject Description element remains marked red, and it will not be copied across to any other subjects. Although in many cases some of the other grading elements will be reported on by many other subjects, such as the same Comment headings and the same Work Habits elements (e.g. Comments such as 'Teachers Comment' or 'What the student has achieved', and Work Habits like 'Effort' and 'Behaviour). In this case you would ensure the Comments and Work Habits elements are clicked to be green, thus indicating that these are the elements you want copied across to the subjects selected on the right.

     

Below the 'Report Elements' is a section titled 'Overwrite Mode', this allows you to control how the items you've selected above in green will be pushed across to the subjects selected on the right. If you select the top option, which reads 'Remove existing elements and replace' this will remove any settings already set up for the elements that are green for the subjects on the right that are also marked green, and replace any previous settings with exactly what has been setup on the subjects template you're exporting. This will have no effect on the report elements that have been marked red. Choosing the bottom option, which reads 'Append to existing elements', will result in the settings for the subject template you're exporting being added on to any existing report elements that are already setup on the subjects that are marked as green in the Destination column. 

Once you click 'Export' the selected subjects will be updated.  You can then click 'Save and Close' at the bottom of the current subject to return to the main page of the reporting cycle.  From here you can click into your other subjects to review any configuration aspects as a result of the imported content now in the subjects.

Note: Keep in mind that if you have already created two Work Habits on the Destination subject and append two more to the list, the export process will simply add them on, even if this would result in a duplication such as two Efforts and two Behaviour Work Habit elements. 

Example: Victorian Primary School Application
Many primary schools have nearly the same setup for every Generalist subject (or if your school does your reports more granularly then each Inquiry, Maths, and English subject is typically set up in the same way). As such you can quickly set up your Generalist subjects by setting one up first with just the settings that the other Generalist subjects will use, and then exporting these settings across to the other Generalist subjects.

For example selecting which Attendance type you'll include, skipping the Subject Description for now, adding in your two Work Habits (Effort and Behaviour), adding in your two Comments (What the student has achieved and Areas for Improvement), adding in the 3 English Victorian Curriculum items, adding in the 3 Mathematics Victorian Curriculum items, and adding in Victorian Curriculum EAL elements if you have EAL students.  

Once you've set up one subject using the above format (or whatever format your school has decided upon, the above example is simply indicative of a majority of Victorian primary schools), you can use the Export Report Elements function described above to push these settings across to the other Generalist subjects, thus completing about 80% of your setup in one go. 

After exporting these settings to the other Generalist subjects you can then continue to finalise the subject template setup that you're on (for example adding a Subject Description, or if it's a Year 6 Generalist you should add in the additional Victorian Curriculum grading elements you've decided on.)

Similarly if your Specialist subjects are using some of the same grading elements (e.g. the same 2 Work Habits as your Generalist teachers) you can do another export, this time selecting just the Work Habits element, and then push this across to the Specialist subjects.

Thinking through the setup of your other subjects in comparison to one you've already setup, and using the Export Report Elements button, will allow you to quickly setup your reports by minimising the amount of steps you need to repeat on a per-subject basis.

Import Report Items

The Import Report Items function should be used when you're on a subject template setup page that has not been completed, and want to copy into this subject from another already set up subject template.

Click the Import Report Items button to open up a popup window.  At the top of the popup window, which you can see in the image below, you should select the Cycle and Subject that you want to copy the report element setup from. You should ensure that you select a subject that is already setup, so there is information to pull across.  We will refer to the subject chosen on the Import Report Items window as the 'Source Subject', to differentiate it from the subject whose subject template setup page you were on prior to clicking the 'Import Report Items' button, which we will call the 'Target Subject'.

     

Under the section titled 'Report Elements' you should select the report elements from the Source Subject that you want to copy across to the Target Subject. If the report element is Green, with a checkmark on the right, it will import into the Target Subject.  You can click the element and it will turn red, with a grey X on the right, which indicates that it will be excluded when you import the elements. Elements that are marked as red will not be touched during the import process.

Once you've selected the report elements you want to import you need to select an Overwrite Mode from the two options at the bottom. The first option, which reads “Remove existing items and replace with imported items” will write over any setup you had previously done for the Target Subject for the reporting elements which have been marked as green, and will write over it with the information from the Source Subject. The other option is to "Append to existing items" which would add the setup from the Source Subject to any setup you had already done for the green elements on the Target Subject previously.

Once you have made your selections click the green 'Import' button at the bottom of the screen to complete the import process. This will close the popup window and take you back to your Target Subject. Review the settings on the screen and made any necessary changes, and then click 'Save and Close' at the bottom to return to the Reporting Cycle Administration page. 

Preview a sample report

To generate a sample of how the subject will appear in a report, select the subject/subjects and click 'Bulk Actions'.  Select 'Print sample subject pdf' and a sample will download to your device.

     

Please note, subjects must have a status of Draft or Complete to be able to generate a sample.

     

Import Previous Results

Importing previous results will import results for each student enrolled in this cycle and display them in the Previous Results column for Victorian Curriculum or AUSvels strands in the Results Entry screen.  This is done by taking the most recent result for each strand from previous reporting cycles (Compass will look for the most recent result up to the last 24 months).

If you want to import previous results, please refer to the 'Importing Previous Results' section of the 'Semester Reports Admin Guide' article from our Knowledge Base.

Open the Cycle for Results Entry

Now that you have configured the subjects, you are ready to open the cycle to staff for results to be entered.

For results to be entered, the included subjects must be set as 'Complete' which is indicated by the green icon.

     

You can set subjects as 'Complete' either in bulk or individually.

Set Subjects as Complete in Bulk
To bulk update all the subjects as 'Complete' and therefore make them accessible for results entry, select the subjects and click 'Bulk Actions'. Click on 'Mark selected Subjects as' and then choose 'Completed'.

     

The selected subjects will update to the 'Completed' status.

     

Set Subjects as Complete Individually
Click into the subject and scroll to the bottom.  Select 'Completed and Open' and click 'Save and Close'.

     

Repeat this process for each subject you want to set as 'Completed'.

Once all the applicable subjects are set as 'Completed' you can advise staff that the reporting cycle is now open for results to be entered (please note staff do not receive an automatic notification on their Compass dashboard).

Reviewing Entered Results

To check for any missing results that will require follow up with the applicable teacher/teachers, you can run a Missing Results export (you can do this at any stage in the results entry period to monitor progress).

To do so, in your cycle, click 'Exports' and then choose your preferred 'Missing Results' export.  The file will download to your device.

     


When the allocated time allowed for staff to enter results has concluded, you can initiate your school's results entry review process.  Please refer to the 'Reviewing Results' section in the 'Semester Reports Admin Guide' article from our Knowledge Base for details.

If your school is including Learning Tasks in the reports, you can use the Learning Task exports on the Learning Tasks Administration page (under the cog icon, Administration Tools) to obtain information on missing learning tasks results for the cycle.  To access the Learning Tasks Administration page you will require the LearningTasksAdmin permission.

     

Importing Attendance Data

If you are including imported Attendance data in your reports, you will need to import it just prior to publishing your reports to ensure the most up to date Attendance data is reflected in the reporting cycle.

To do so, in the reporting cycle, click 'Cycle Settings' and go to the 'Report Content' tab.  Scroll down to the Attendance section (please note the attendance information displayed on the tab may vary depending on the type of Attendance element selected on the 'Report Elements' tab).

     

Set the Start and Finish dates for which you want the Attendance data to reference in the reports.  Click 'Import Attendance Data'.  The information for each student will import into the cycle and display in the subject location you have configured.

Please Note: Imported Attendance data within a reporting cycle is static; it will not automatically update if additional attendance data is added for students elsewhere in Compass.  Should you wish to update the existing imported attendance data for a reporting cycle, you will need to re-import the Attendance data.

Publishing Reports

Once all results are entered and the review process is complete we recommend downloading a sample report to confirm that the layout and content is as required.

To do so, click into the report cycle and on to the 'Enrolments' tab.
Click the download icon for a student and their report will download to your device for review.

     

When the layout and content is as required, you can set the classes within the cycle to 'Read-only'.  This ensures that no further edits can be made by teachers to entered results.

To do so, in the cycle on the 'Subjects' tab, select all the subjects, click 'Bulk Actions' and choose 'Update status of ALL classes in completed subjects'.

     

This will open a pop-up where you choose the current status of the classes and then the status you want to update those classes too ie 'Open' classes to 'Read-Only' classes.

     

You will also see an option to turn off auto-generation of your report files which allows you to optimize your report download time.

If selected (recommended), Compass will now forcefully queue your reports to generate in the background to ensure these are the most up-to-date version. 

Please note, it is recommended to perform this process at least 24 hours ahead of publishing your reports to your school community.

When you have made your selections, click 'update' to save your changes and close the pop-up.

When you are ready to publish your reports to the students and/or parents at your school, in the cycle, click 'Cycle Settings' and on the 'Settings' tab click the box for the relevant group you want to publish the reports to. For publishing to parents or students you can further filter who you want to publish the reports for by unticking the boxes next to specific year levels if you do not want to publish their reports yet.



Please keep in mind that you cannot set the reports to publish at a specific time or date, they have to be manually released by a reporting administrator by following the above steps and clicking 'Save' on the Cycle Settings.

Click 'Save' to publish the reports to your selected users.

Downloading and Printing Reports