CPD Forum
CPD Forum
Management Information
Hi
In Moray we are no longer using Cognisoft and are seeking to learn from anyone who is using a basic system that meets the necessary information requirements without too much pain or admin overload. I'd be grateful to anyone who can share their knowledge.
Thanks.
Karen Delaney
Hi Karen
We having been looking for a MIS solution for some years in Scottish Borders and we had been hoping to go down the Cognisoft route. However it's clear now that we will not be able to access funding to purchase or maintain Cognisoft. We are now investigating building an in house system, based on our current adult literacies database. This will use expertise that sits within our children and young people's services planning section. I'm very excited about this as I think this will provide a fairly simple and sustainable solution. Our main hurdle now is to find the time to build the spec, otherwise we are good to go.
Not much to report on the technical aspects of this yet, but I'm happy to discuss what we have done so far.
Oonagh McGarry
We have used Cognisoft in Aberdeenshire for a number of years. We made most progress with it a few years ago when one of our CLD team was seconded to do some work on it. Our colleague had computing skills and was able to do the work to get the programme to write reports - basically getting the system to give us the information we wanted from it. Unfortunately, he is no longer working for us but is now doing the same job - on a larger scale - in another authority and we have lost that capacity to tailor the system to report on what we want from it. I have attached the current reports that we can run.
There is a Cognisoft Users Group which meets every now and then and I know he used to attend that.
I am happy to discuss our experiences with Cognisoft if anyone wants to contact me directly.
Kevin
Hi Karen, we're also looking at MIS solutions atm - Cognisoft being one of them though I've yet to have a demo. Could you tell me a bit more about the issues you've had with Cognisoft?
Oonagh - I'm interested in knowing a bit more about your plans for building an in house solution e.g. would it be the IT dept. building it or CLD staff?
Regards
- Angie
Hi Angie
It will be built by staff in our children and young people’s services planning/management info section. They’re very good at managing data and have someone who can build and maintain access databases. Some of it may use excel.
Nothing happening yet, but we have done some initial scoping. Happy to discuss further if that would be helpful.
Best wishes
Hi Karen
Can you share any reasons you're not using cognisoft any more? As my colleague Angie said, we're looking at different options and Cognisoft is one. Would be helpful to hear about your experiences.
Thanks
Kirsty
Morning.
In PKC we have been using Cognisoft for a number of years but I am not convinced that we have actually used it to its optimum (no fault of the system).
CLD staff are now within various services and Youth Workers are now inputting information into CCM (previously known as SWIFT) which is a PKC system particularly used by Social Work but now also being used by other departments. We are exploring how to better use the CCM system and incorporate the requirements of CLD.
Capacity Building and the Adult & Family Learning Teams are still using Cognisoft.
Fiona