Sims Documentation

[Pear]

I usually end up being left to install and do allsorts of things on SIMS even though I'm not paid for it, but someone else is (always the case). So I really want to know what I am doing but as I won't be going on any courses I could do with the documentation. I know that sometimes I get sent instructions on how to do things but is there not a site which has all the instruction manuals on ?

The integrated manuals in help crash the system when I try to open them.

I found http://help.simslearning.co.uk/ but I was expecting something where all the manuals could be downloaded as pdf.

[SteveT]

Tried http://www.simshelp.co.uk/simshelp/index.htm

?????

[woody]

You need to get yourself a login for http://support.capitaes.co.uk

Do this by ringing up Capita Sims helpline and ask to be put on.

Also, if you look in c:\programs\sims\sims .net\ you will find lots of .pdf files for all the modules. But these don't help with daily maintenance.

[Pear]

Thank you, that makes my life easier, I can even push it off onto someone else now

[Ully]

Alongside documentation, has anyone ever been on a SIMS training course, and was it useful? I'm a tech support person, so if anyone has been on any administration courses that would be particularly useful.

[Pear]

I haven't, but I heard that they don't really tell you much. The person who was in charge of our the sims at our school (until Friday) has been on one of these courses. However now she's has left there is no one else with the experience of the courses, which shows that the documentation should be sufficient.

After following the advice above I found 100mb / 250 pdf files.

[woody]

I have been on all of the major sims courses. I found them to be very informative. But it all depends on your local sims support team who probably will run your local courses. We have a good one up here in carlisle.

If you are looking at running sims from an administrator side, then I would definately sugguest going on the System Manager course. However, I would not go just yet, they are about to update system manager from v6 to v7 this year some time.

[apeo]

Ive been on a number of courses both at capita and our local provider, i found the courses on the modules of sims to be useful. However the System Manager course wasn't great i felt, all it did really was show me how to create users and put them in to groups.

[woody]

There is a lot more to system manager than that. For instance creating your own groups with access rights. Also for backups, installing database upgrades etc etc. I found that at the carlisle course, they went beyond system manager and looked more into how sims works, and how you can keep it going.

[apeo]

Perhaps I went on the course at the wrong time then as I the course I attended spent alot of time covering moving from old sims to sims.net (I went on both capita and local provider for system manager). I didnt feel that they covered what you have stated. Yes they did go over user creation, group creation and so on but seriously if anyone is familiar with the concept to creating users and group in active directory, its not going to take long to figure it out in sim. In fact I'm pretty certain i had already figured it out before I went on the course. As for permission well i got an excel spreadsheet with it on but no one told me what is the terminology capita uses actually relates to. What i mean is for instance you get things like View, Edit, Manage, Administer etc, which doesnt sound too complicated but becomes annoying when you want to do something specific. I did ask the guy on the course and he didnt really know. Ok I think Im ranting now (sorry for that) but I guess its dependant to where you do your course and maybe the courses are better now.

[woody]

Yeah, I know where you are coming from. The whole user/group thing looks like it's going to change soon in v7 anyway. It is a bit patchy in v6. Incidentally has anyone come across the anomaly where you change a user's rights by adding them to a group, and it doesn't take effect until the next day? I've had this a few times now, and the sims helpdesk told me it is something to do with windows although they wheren't totally clear in their explanation.

Just a passing thought.

[apeo]

Here is what capita says:

Affected Products SIMS .net Setup & Permissions

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Notes
SYMPTOMS
Permission changes not taking effect
Access Rights take 24 hours to update
Permissions are not being updates immediately

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Additional Notes
CAUSES
When a user correctly exits their last SIMS application, their signature will be cleared from the database and their permission cache cleared along side it. Therefore when they login again, their new rights will be reflected.

If a user exits an application by:

Terminating it in task manager (effectively crashing the application) or

After an application crash

Then the signature will not be cleared and they would need to wait 24 hours before their cache of permissions is deemed to be expired.

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Advice Some users will have to wait 24 hour after an upgrade to be able to use new functionality or for a change in their access rights to be correctly updated.
For future releases, every upgrade will clear all existing signatures.

The process is single user and hence any signature will be invalid.

This will ensure that users see new functionality immediately after upgrade.

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[russdev]

Yeah, I know where you are coming from. The whole user/group thing looks like it's going to change soon in v7 anyway. It is a bit patchy in v6. Incidentally has anyone come across the anomaly where you change a user's rights by adding them to a group, and it doesn't take effect until the next day? I've had this a few times now, and the sims helpdesk told me it is something to do with windows although they wheren't totally clear in their explanation.

Just a passing thought.

yes an feature of sims what you do is when you chanage the user there is date effective field make sure that is in past and it will take straight away..

russ

[woody]

CAUSES

If a user exits an application by:

Terminating it in task manager (effectively crashing the application) or

After an application crash

Then the signature will not be cleared and they would need to wait 24 hours before their cache of permissions is deemed to be expired.

Well, I have had this happen after logging in as a user myself. I don't recall force quitting the application. Then added the user to another group. Took a day to reflect changes.

[russdev]

well if that is the case then it is what i have descibed if font set date in past it takes 24 hours ......

not a windows issue it is abd design from software

russ