Exams Report Embargo (2024)

Exam result releases are usually restricted to certain members of staff within a school. JCQ have confirmed that the grades issued for 2024 will be released to students from 8.00am on the corresponding results days. The PDF attached at the bottom of this article has the full details from JCQ.

To help schools with this, during the summer results period Analytics places selected cohorts’ reports under ‘Embargo’. This temporarily locks the Exams report upon publishing from 12.01am on the official embargo dates until 8.00am on the following day. Only staff with ‘View Embargo Reports’ enabled in their user group in Analytics will have access during this time period.

Who has permission to view ‘Embargo’ Reports?

You can double check which of your Authority Groups have ‘View Embargo Reports’ selected by clicking USERS > Groups > Group name (by default, this would be ‘Admins’ and not ‘Users’).

If you would like to create a specific embargo access group, please see below

When will the ‘Embargo’ be applied?

From 8:00am on both Results Days, the ‘Embargo’ status will be automatically lifted, and your reports will revert to the status selected during publishing (Checked, Unchecked or Locked). If you’re happy with your reports on the 14th/21st you could set your Reports to Checked or Unchecked. This means your users will then have immediate access to the Exams report.

If you need to change your report status, do NOT re-publish your reports. Instead, change this on the REPORTS home page. For KS3/4, you can click the blue pencil icon next to Exams (Within 'Admin Actions'). For KS5, click ‘Edit Details’, when your Exams report is selected in the DATA SET dropdown.

Creating an ‘Embargo’ User Group

To ensure only users that should have the possibility to view the Embargo reports have access to this report on the day, you can create a new user group and update their authority. To do this, click USERS > Groups > ‘Create Group’.

Enter a clear name, e.g. Embargo, then in the Reports section below ensure you have selected the green tick next to ‘View Embargo Reports'. If you are planning to lock the report for a longer period of time, you may also want to enable the ‘View Locked Reports’

Then, work through the remaining permissions, and once finished, click ‘Create Group’ at the bottom of the page.

To update an existing users’ authority, click Users, place a tick next to the names of the users you wish to update this for and then click ‘Change Authority'.

You can filter by an authority group then use the checkbox on the right to select multiple members of staff at once!

In the pop-up window, select your newly created group from the drop-down.

You will be presented with a summary of the new access levels of the user/s selected, and if you’re happy with these changes, place a tick next to ‘Confirm Authority Group Change’ and click ‘Change’.

You will be able to select your new group when creating or uploading new users going forward.

Thanks for reading!