With over 3,600 Compass+ users and over three million learners in the system, we have made huge progress in the last few years supporting hundreds of practitioners to effectively benchmark, track, monitor and evaluate their careers provision at individual learner level.
Our development work for Compass+ is split into three main areas:
- New features
- Improving current functionality
- Housekeeping and Maintenance
We are accelerating our work in certain areas of Compass+ that will resolve the most important issues and improve the user experience. We have done a huge amount of work in the background to prioritise this work, ensuring that upon completion, there will be concrete and measurable benefit to each user.
This Help Centre article lists the main updates and developments we have made to Compass+.
RECENT UPDATES FOR USERS
- Given access to Compass to all the independent schools and independent specialist colleges
- Given access to Compass to Higher Education institutions that serve 16-18 year-olds
- Given access to Compass+ to independent special schools, including Section 41 schools (Independent special schools are already eligible for Compass and can decide to upgrade to Compass+)
- Schools switch between receiving Section 41 funding impacting their eligibility for Compass+ - we will now make this eligible to any school that has started to onboard when eligible.
TECHNICAL AND DATA IMPROVEMENTS
- Continuing to improve our data integration with institutions' Management Information Systems (MIS) to reduce the number of data related issues being raised and enable us to respond to these quickly and easily
- Improving issues around learner data when a school changes MIS
- Improving how we manage permissions throughout the product for admin/editor/viewer
- Improving access to data and how issues are reported for system administrators so that we can more easily triage and resolve user issues coming into Help Desk
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTS COMING SOON!
- Improved activities reporting in Compass+ so that users can view aggregate activities data, access detailed learner attendance and characteristics information and download this data into an Excel spreadsheet
- Improve the process of uploading activities to Compass+ from Partner Platforms
- Working with Partner Platform to better share activities data to Compass+
- Review the content of the Learner Report and how this could be customised
- Improve entering and downloading Careers Partners
- Enhance Compass+ demo environment to support training delivery
- Compass evaluation updates following the Gatsby Foundation 10-year review
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - Three new questions have been added to the Key Stage versions of FSQ.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
DATE LIVE : September 2024
New questions added to FSQ - September 2024
UPDATE: Activities - Attendance codes improvements aligned with DfE changes
Section of Compass+ : ACTIVITIES
DATE LIVE : September 2024
How to mark an activity as complete or cancelled and managing attendance data
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - A feature to help institutions identify if they have issues with their 'email health' to support them in using learner email addresses in product for FSQ questionnaire distribution.
Section of Compass+: DASHBOARD
DATE LIVE : August 2024
Email Health Status
UPDATE: Compass evaluation - Removing the Gatsby Benchmark national comparison on the Compass results page following feedback from Hubs. Also removing the additional questions for GBM6 and GBM8 that were added at the end of last academic year.
Section of Compass+ : EVALUATION
DATE LIVE : August 2024
UPDATE: Learner > Current - Enabling the sending of learner profile reports via email.
Section of Compass+ : LEARNER
DATE LIVE : August 2024
Sending a learner report by email
FYI : Dashboard data visualisation > Compare your school to other institutions
Due to the changes that have happened across the Network, you may have noticed some anomalies in the dropdown list when you compare your school to other institutions in your Dashboard data visualisation. We are aware that these need to be updated to reflect the current Network Hubs and Partners. We will add an update once this work has been completed.
UPDATE: Compass evaluation - Following feedback from Hubs, the ‘Percentage of schools nationally meeting this benchmark’ percentage on the Compass evaluation results page has been removed.
Section of Compass+ : EVALUATION
Date live : July 2024
Compass evaluations on Compass+
UPDATE: Compass evaluation - Additional questions added to Compass evaluations relating to GBM6 and GBM8
Section of Compass+ : EVALUATION
Date live : June & July 2024
Additional questions on Compass+
UPDATE: Careers Impact internal leadership review - A digital version (within Compass and Compass+) of the Careers Impact System Maturity Model allows schools, special schools and colleges to record an internal leadership review.
Section of Compass+ : EVALUATION
Date live : June 2024
Careers Impact System
UPDATE: FSQ Reporting - You can filter FSQ learner responses for specific questions and download into an Excel spreadsheet.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : June 2024
FSQ Reporting in Compass+
UPDATE: Attendance data - Improvements to attendance data to include more information about absence codes.
Section of Compass: ACTIVITIES
Date live: March 2024
Managing Attendance
UPDATE: Careers Partners- Added ‘T Levels’ and ‘Independent Training Providers’ organisation types when a user creates a new partner. Added ‘Organisation Type’ and ‘Sector’ to the download.
Section of Compass+ : CAREERS PARTNERS
Date live : February 2024
How to use the Careers Partners database
UPDATE: Compass evaluation - Additional PAL questions added to all Compass evaluations (schools, special schools and Post-16) under Gatsby Benchmark 7 section
Section of Compass+ : EVALUATION
Date live : February 2024
PAL guidance
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - There are instances when schools try to generate FSQ links when learner year group data is not up-to-date for the current academic year. We have made an update to Compass+ so that if you generate an invalid link for a learner, the system can automatically detect this, and will:
- Mark any FSQ links as ‘invalid’ on the FSQ generate links tab
- Notify administrators via email in ‘real-time’, listing the learners that are affected asking you to regenerate the link for the learner on Compass+.
Follow the guidance for more information > Regenerating links for the Future Skills Questionnaire (FSQ)
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : January 2024
Future Skills Questionnaire
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - We have been working hard to make the Future Skills Questionnaire more robust and less prone to bugs, while improving some of the functionality to make it easier to use.
- Changes to reporting: Summary Report: When you select an academic year from the drop-down in the summary report, the same academic year will automatically be reflected in the detailed report too to save you from having to select this multiple times. The average and total number of responses had previously displayed incorrect data and this is now correct
- In the Detailed and SEND reports; the drill down table has been improved with ‘order by’, and search field
- The question numbers are now consistent across different areas of the product; on the questionnaire, on visualisations and on the Learner Profile making it easier to cross reference responses
- When you download your questionnaire links to Excel, the links are already ‘active’ and can be clicked on immediately by learners if you are distributing links manually, you don't have to format each link before sharing with a learner.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : January 2024
Future Skills Questionnaire
UPDATE: Learner > Current - A filter has been added next to the Year Group/Form Group columns so that you can easily identify learners whose year group and form info is missing on your MIS.
Section of Compass+ : LEARNER
Date live : January 2024
Learner Data
UPDATE: Careers Partners - Organisation Type and Sector have been added to the columns when you download your Careers Partners information making it much easier to filter this data.
T-Levels and Independent Training Provider have been added to the Organisation type dropdown list in Careers Partners.
Section of Compass+ : CAREERS PARTNERS
Date live : December 2023
How to use Careers Partners
UPDATE: Groups - When clicking the eye icon to view learners in groups, a pop-up window appears on screen displaying learners names split out into two columns; surname and first name.
Section of Compass+ : ACTIVITIES
Date live : December 2023
Managing Groups
UPDATE: Learner Profile - Interests and Destinations tab - New options have been added to the Qualification type dropdown list:
- Foundation degree
- Higher national certificate (HNC),
- Higher national diploma (HND).
Section of Compass+ : LEARNER
Date live : December 2023
Learner Reporting - Learner profile Interests and Destinations tab
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - When you generate FSQ links in Compass+, the learners UPN has been added to the online view, they are also shown in the excel file when you download the links.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : December 2023
Future Skills Questionnaire
UPDATE: Learner Reporting - Compass+ users now have access to all key learner data in an easy-to-use table (this key data is in the learner profile and learner destinations pages). Compass+ users can see this information easily within the product and also export this into reports that can then be shared with relevant stakeholders.
Section of Compass+ : LEARNER
Date live : September 2023
Learner Data
UPDATE: Language changes in Compass+ - After rigorous consultation with our Education Development Team, we have made some important language changes within Compass+. We have done this so that users see consistent and inclusive terminology within the product, and that features in the product feel relevant to the variety of Compass+ users we have in a range of educational settings.
Please see the Help Centre article below for more information.
Date live : August 2023
Language changes in Compass+
UPDATE: MIS Integration - Banners will be displayed on screen for users who are still on the Assembly connection. Please pay attention to any messages you see within Compass+ regarding your MIS connection and migrating from Assembly to XoD.
Section of Compass+ : COMPASS+ LANDING PAGE
Date live : July 2023
MIS Migration – Assembly connection
UPDATE: Future Skills Questionnaire - Removal of traineeships option.
From August 2023, the government will no longer fund a standalone national traineeships programme. Therefore, we have removed the traineeship option from the question that measures understanding of different pathways after Year 11. This applies to the Starting Secondary, Transition from KS3 and GCSE Years version of the Future Skills Questionnaire.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : July 2023
Changes to the questions in FSQ
UPDATE : MIS Integration page - Migration page added to Compass+ dashboard that allows users to check their IT manager details and trigger a migration email.
Please pay attention to any messages you see within Compass+ regarding your MIS connection and migrating from Assembly to XoD.
Section of Compass+ : DASHBOARD
Date live : April 2023
MIS Integration page
UPDATE : Uploading activities - Users are now able to upload more than 100 activities via the upload spreadsheet, this is now possible in Compass+ for all our partners.
Section of Compass+ : ACTIVITIES
Date live : December 2022
How to upload activities using our Activities Upload template
UPDATE : PAL Requirements - New questions have been added to the Compass evaluation to reflect updated PAL requirements. Users can also flag an activity as PAL compliant.
Section of Compass + : COMPASS EVALUATION
Date live : November 2022
Provider Access Legislation (PAL) guidance
UPDATE : Future Skills Questionnaire - Send questionnaires via email - Careers Leaders can now choose to send questionnaire links to learners via email. This feature will be welcomed by Careers Leaders who have frequently requested this functionality.
Please note: this functionality is only available to schools that have migrated to Groupcall Xporter on Demand and approved the new Compass+ connector learner email data scopes.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : September 2022
How to send questionnaire links to learners
UPDATE : Future Skills Questionnaire - Compare questionnaire results with previous years - Careers Leaders can now choose to view learners’ Future Skills Questionnaire results from previous years (if this data exists)
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : September 2022
Viewing questionnaire results from previous years
UPDATE : Future Skills Questionnaire - Confidence-related questions - In response to feedback from Careers Leaders, we have added some questions to the different versions of the Future Skills Questionnaire that address learners' confidence, and their curiosity about future options.
Section of Compass+ : QUESTIONNAIRE
Date live : September 2022
New questions for 2022-23 academic year
UPDATE : Managing learner attendance data - Compass+ pulls learner attendance data directly from your MIS. This means that when you complete an activity, you can go in and manually edit learner attendance for this activity from your Activities tab.
Section of Compass+ : ACTIVITIES
Date live : September 2022
How to mark an activity as complete or cancelled and managing attendance data