About Forvus
 Forvus’ Commercial Manager, Steve Flack, and his development team
are experts at building and enhancing information systems in their market.
For the past 22 years Forvus has provided software and services to central
and local governments in the U.K. In particular, Forvus has focused their
experience and expertise in designing, developing and managing systems
for collecting, processing, matching and publishing education data.
According to Flack, “Forvus’ vision is to ‘empower informed
decisions’ and, with our team of seven education data analysts and
large development team including over twenty five database and web developers,
we currently manage the delivery of a number of education data projects.
We utilize the capability of Logi Info and Logi Ad Hoc to help our clients
maximize the value of their data with visual reporting and the means to
explore the data for analysis.”
Forvus undertakes the processing of the data for the National Pupil Database & Achievement
and Attainment Tables on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools
and Families (DCSF), which entails the collection, processing and matching
attainment and context data for over 2.5 million pupils each year to produce
the annual Performance Tables for the DCSF. Each year requires the collection
and preparation of approximately 4.6 million pupil records and 46 million
examination results from over 100 different sources. Forvus consistently
delivers an overall accuracy of 99.9%.
RAISEonline is a database with attainment and context data for 5 million
pupils in England linked to a web-based reporting and analysis system which
is being used by 22,000 schools to support inspection and schools improvement
with over 1.5 million web based reports being viewed between January and
November 2007.
The National Pupil Database of Wales is a database containing attainment
and contextual data for all pupils in Wales with a web-based reporting
system for schools, local authorities and data analysts. Another is the
Employment Based Routes Database (Training and Development Agency for Schools),
which contains details of trainee teachers who are undertaking their studies
at the same time that they are gaining experience by working in educational
institutions.
How LogiXML Helped
The London Challenge, which is a pioneering project to transform education
in London’s schools and aims to breakdown the links between deprivation
and underachievement through providing better support to students, teachers
and head teachers. The Families of Schools analyses are a key tool to help
schools better understand their strengths and areas for improvement and
allows them to share good practice with schools in similar circumstances
and develop peer-led solutions.
According to Flack, “The DCSF’s Data Services Group has recently
added Logi Ad Hoc and Forvus has just started developing this system. The
common theme for all our engagements in the education sector is the fact
that these are substantial databases that need excellent query and reporting
tools for the education professionals to get the most value from them.
At the same time these are government agencies with limited budgets. We
have worked with a variety of products over the years and the LogiXML products
offer the fabulous combination of outstanding technical capability and
attractive licensing options that allow Forvus to bid effectively for this
business.”
Outside the education sector Forvus’ clients include the The National
Assembly for Wales, for whom Forvus developed and now host and maintain
their statistical website (www.statswales.wales.gov ); The Housing Corporation,
for whom Forvus undertakes an annual statistical survey of 1,800 social
housing providers, and developing, hosting and maintaining Her Majesty’s
Revenue and Customs UK Trade Statistics Website (ww.uktradeinfo.co.uk).
“Santosh Jadhav, System Developer at Forvus adds, “From the
technical perspective, Logi Ad Hoc in particular offers us the ability
to take client input about what queries they need, package those primary
queries as part of the Forvus service and then provide the tool to the
client to develop the additional queries they might need in the future.
I particularly like the capability of the LogiXML technology, the Web-based
nature of the offering and the fact that LogiXML keeps improving the product.”
The Results
“The response of our clients to the enhancement and additional capabilities
we have made to their systems using the Logi tools has been universally
positive. We are growing our consultancy aggressively and the addition
of the LogiXML technology is a major plus in crafting winning bids," concludes
Flack.
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