SIMS shortcuts

[CAM]

Next year I will be using SIMS a lot more then I am now, doing marksheet work and generally helping the SLT member running SIMS with keeping it running and sharing the workload. There are a few things I am looking for info for though...

1) How do you stop SIMS from running very slowly and crashing without doubling clicking on the SIMS drive in Explorer first?

2) How do you change the Aspect of a column without deleting it in Assessment Manager's Template screen?

3) How do you clone columns when making a marksheet?

I try looking online but just get help for The Sims.

[kmount]

1) Is this over wireless? If so, tell staff to not wander around aimlessly with their laptops open allowing windows (not sims) to drop or disconnect network drives.

2) no clue sorry.

3) no clue sorry.

Finally, supportnet is your friend. SupportNet

[vikpaw]

1) I agree with kmount on this one. but lots of RAM is handy always, not just for SIMS. when you play with big marksheets it's essential.

2) I don't think you can change the aspect of a column. you have to delete and add a new one. what you can do is change the resultset.

3) You cannot have the same column appear twice in a marksheet unless it has a different resultset. so you wouldn't really want to clone a column.

i think a recent update allowed adding the same column multiple times with different result sets.

i would make a big marksheet with all the columns you want and then clone that deleting the unnecessary stuff. it's much easier to delete than to add, so it's worth spending the time upfront to create a big master template if you're going to need lots of duplicate / similar looking templates.

resultsets can be changed by just double clicking the column and then choosing a new one. it's laborious and tedious, but i made some scripts in the past that would do it for you with the caveat that the number of columns was fixed and the change was always the same i.e. always switching from Y1 Term2 to Y2 Term2 etc. they are very basic vbscript just sending keys to the pc, still requiring human interaction, but much better than the constant click click move enter cycle of doing the same thing 100 times per marksheet!

[CAM]

Hmmm, the multiple columns at once thing sounds handy. I'll take a look through the help files for that.

Been doing SIMS Admin work for a week now and it throws up some confusing stuff at times. Still got to sort my SupportNet account out too.

[vikpaw]

You're welcome.

I found that it takes a lot of playing around and many hours to become proficient with Assessment Manager, if you have no-one to guide you through it at the beginning.

There are lots of little hints and tricks you pick up for yourself along the way.

But that's why we come here, to share those little tricks, so if you need any advice just holler.

Apparently the new manuals are stored on the server now. It would be good if you could download them from the website (you probably can, i haven't looked) in advance and see whats new before running updates.

I'm used to using it from the older version in the good old days when nearly everything could be done with keyboard shortcuts.