SIMS March Release

[matt40k]

Please note that the March release has the new homepage include, Capita has asked Centrally Hosted provides to check the performance impact of the new feature. So be warned, if you network laggy now! Still the actually network packets are only a few bytes.

*** SIMS 2009 March Main Release Revised Date

The revised release date for the SIMS 2009 March Main release will now be by COB Friday the 20th of March.



Due to the delay to the SIMS 2009 March release we will include the ‘Exam Links in Cover’ functionality in this release, which was originally planned for the April Update. As a consequence there will not be an April Update.



An updated March scope document will be published before COB on Friday the 20th February.



Please feel free to email me if you have any concerns about this on jonathan.wood [at] capita.co.uk




Regards,




Jonathan Wood

SIMS Product Manager (Technical and Releases)

[localzuk]

Thanks for that. But just as a quick thing, maybe removing the sender's details would be nice, as he might not want us all having his direct email address.

[matt40k]

Na it's public knowledge, done a bit of spam protection tho. Not that evil... yet.

[speckytecky]

Our March situation:

One of our Admin machines is coming up with

"SIMS Connection for Login **** failed, reason: 0" Tried a different user same problem.

Other machines no problem.

Any suggestions please.

[jamesb]

Try copying the connect.ini over from a working machine. It'll probably be the one in C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS.net that's incorrect.

[mrtechsystems]

Also you might want to check

C:\windows\sims.ini

[robins]

I understand Dual NovaT timetables are a new feature of the March release. Would love to hear from anyone who has tested the beta.

Any predictions on when this might be a go-er. Could I aim to use it next academic year or realistically is that too soon?

[vikpaw]

I understand Dual NovaT timetables are a new feature of the March release. Would love to hear from anyone who has tested the beta.

Any predictions on when this might be a go-er. Could I aim to use it next academic year or realistically is that too soon?

i intend to use it for next year, though the second one is for primary school so not that important if it's not in there from the start.

i would like to know the impact on other areas for example cover, assessment etc. they will all suffer a kind of dichotomy, so will need to handle that somehow.

[matt40k]

I assume we're not talking about the March release... as it's still Beta. Reason 0 is basically it can't connect. Check c:\program files\sims\sims .net\connect.ini, if it says redirect, check you can see the (mapped) drive etc. If not, confirm the server etc is correct.

Not tried the Nova-T6 dual timetables, did pick up on it, but haven't had a go.. . yet. The "DBPwdChg.exe" now works (I think it might of worked in Dec tho)

You can change your password when you login now too, assuming your not using trusted logins. FMS too.

Cover 7 can now deal with Exams closures. The old v.6 menu is now in the Focus menu, so if your LEA (or such) hasn't turned off Attendance 6 you'll have two.

There is a new menu - External File Deployment (Tools | Setups | Import Fileset)

Hi Matthew

External File Deployment is functionality we have put into place to make it possible to import replacement XSL files when they become available after release. XSL files are used to provide the validation, summary and detailed reports for the various Censuses/collections For example, the DCSF has not yet provided us with replacement XSL files in time for the March Release, but this functionality will make it possible to import such files without having to manually copy them to each workstation.

I will be going into this in more detail when we have some replacement XSL files to deploy.

In theory other external files can be deployed using this mechanism, but at this point only Statutory Returns have found that they have need of the functionality.

Jim Haywood
Product Manager

Which will sort out any late changes from the DCSF (No more Nov2b!)

The addition of 2 new permission groups.
- Personnel Assistant
- Personnel Events Officer

[speckytecky]

Try copying the connect.ini over from a working machine. It'll probably be the one in C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS.net that's incorrect.

We had a Capita team on this yesterday and the issue is still unresolved. It looks like SIMS wasn't happy working with the Microsoft Framework Net 3.5 update on board. When we get it sorted I'll post a further update.

[rasssp]

We had a Capita team on this yesterday and the issue is still unresolved. It looks like SIMS wasn't happy working with the Microsoft Framework Net 3.5 update on board. When we get it sorted I'll post a further update.

Was this the recent 3.5 update? We have had similar reason 0 issues, we thought it could be sql server sp3. We have capita do allsorts with it. We are currently having high CPU usage during registration periods.

Have they advised you to roll back the .net 3.5 update?

[speckytecky]

Was this the recent 3.5 update? We have had similar reason 0 issues, we thought it could be sql server sp3. We have capita do allsorts with it. We are currently having high CPU usage during registration periods.

Have they advised you to roll back the .net 3.5 update?

It looks like they remotley took it off yesterday but still SIMS on that particular machine isn't playing.

[matt40k]

I've only heard a few things about SQL 2005 SP3. The .net framework 3.5 etc is in the new infrastructure package!! So I can't image it's a framework issue. If it's only 1 machine then I can't see it being SQL 2005 sp3.

[speckytecky]

We had a Capita team on this yesterday and the issue is still unresolved. It looks like SIMS wasn't happy working with the Microsoft Framework Net 3.5 update on board. When we get it sorted I'll post a further update.

CAPITA fixed the problem today - turned out to be a ME thing - I'd switched the Firewall on on the SIMS server