New in Position - Data Manager

[mmuk08]

Hi Everybody,

I previously worked as a Contract Manager - Project Manager for IBM for a few years. Sorry to bother everyone with all this, but I was recently appointed as the new Data Manager of a secondary school that shall remain anonymous, and the person that was here before me was the person that knew EVERYTHING about Sims and all the Nova Ts (T4, T6).

I've been recently doing LOADS of research do get my head around everything, but it seems that we are struggling a bit because all the timetabling is done on Nova T6, the marksheets, reports and all that is done on Sims, but the cover management is done on Nova T4. That's how is always been done.


Thanks a lot everyone.

[Toby.Belfield]

Hi,

You are more than welcome to visit our school - where we can talk about use of MIS etc etc etc.

I'll email you separately to arrange a date (likely to be second half of term, as I am away from the UK recruiting students in Asia and Russia over the next couple of months.)

[Mcshammer_dj]

Hi,

You are more than welcome to visit our school - where we can talk about use of MIS etc etc etc.

I'll email you separately to arrange a date (likely to be second half of term, as I am away from the UK recruiting students in Asia and Russia over the next couple of months.)

Thanks Toby that make our daily grind of keeping systems live seem mightily boring

[mmuk08]

Thanks Toby that make our daily grind of keeping systems live seem mightily boring

Tell me about it....After I figure out how things work here in the school (with all your help everybody, please!) I will try to travel abroad as well!!

[Top_Cat]

I've been doing the job of SIMS Database Manager for a year now - brought in for much the same reason: to save the sanity of the staff who had just taken on the system! Yesterday, I would have said we'd succeeded in getting an efficient database working well. Today, we're trying to perform the August upgrade and it's failing badly, so I don't feel so confident!

Seriously, mmuk08, when we've got over this glitch, you'd be welcome to come down and have a look (we're in Taunton). The trouble is, both Toby and I share the same history - we both escaped from Capita! But don't let that put you off coming to see us both!

(PS:- Why don't I get any overseas jollies??)

[mmuk08]

I've been doing the job of SIMS Database Manager for a year now - brought in for much the same reason: to save the sanity of the staff who had just taken on the system! Yesterday, I would have said we'd succeeded in getting an efficient database working well. Today, we're trying to perform the August upgrade and it's failing badly, so I don't feel so confident!

Seriously, mmuk08, when we've got over this glitch, you'd be welcome to come down and have a look (we're in Taunton). The trouble is, both Toby and I share the same history - we both escaped from Capita! But don't let that put you off coming to see us both!

(PS:- Why don't I get any overseas jollies??)

When you say you escaped from Capita, do you mean you previously worked for capita, is that right? I just wanted to understand it better. I've been trying to send you a private message, but I was unable to. Can you try to message me? maybe that way we can keep talking about it. That would help me immensly!

[fraggle850]

I'm in a similar position to yourself (also based in B'ham as it happens).

My understanding is that Nova is part of SIMS, T6 is intended to replace T4 but people are continuing to use T4 because T6 doesn't contain all of the reporting functionality that T4 has.

I gather that there is a cover module for SIMS. We don't use it, we use T4 so I don't know anything about it.

My understanding is that timetabling should be conducted in T6 and transfered from there to the SQL database. T4 will get its data from there. I gather that transfering from T4 to SQL might cause problems if T6 is also used.

This is my understanding of matters but being in a similar situation to yourself I may well be wrong and would be happy to be corrected.

There do seem to be a lot of myths in school surrounding SIMS/Nova that have grown over time as users find out what works without necessarily understanding the concepts behind the system.

[Top_Cat]

You're correct, Fraggle850, in saying there's a new Cover in SIMS.net. You will need a 'release key' from your support team or Capita to use it and training would be advisable. It is far superior to the Nova-T4 version - so user-friendly. I can thoroughly recommend it. As for the the rest of the Nova-T4 functions, about the only other thing it does which T6 doesn't is print timetables, but there's an excellent route in SIMS.net (Reports | Print Timetables) which does this every bit as well, as long as you are working on a Windows 32-bit workstation - it doesn't work on 64-bit yet!

[PhilNeal]

I thought I'd posted a reply to this thread but I can't see it now!

If you would like to drop me an email I can ask one of our partnership schools to host a visit for you. We have around 100 so there will be one near you.

Phil.Neal@Capita.CO.UK

[fraggle850]

Yes, the Reports in SIMS also provide a lot of the functions available in T4 reports however people like what they know and resist change (unfortunately)!