SIMS Support - Groups and Permissions

[AnnDroyd]

Does anyone else use the facility within SIMS to create you own groups and permissions?

 

We have simplified things considerably by creating 5 custom groups, basically providing:

 

1) Read only access to Student Data

2) Full access to Student Data

3) Read only access to basic staff data

4) Full access to basic staff data

5) Full access to everything

 

Everyone then fits into one of, or a combination of these groups rather than using the very complex system providing by default.

 

However, I am told that Capita won't support this. Does anyone know if this is true? It would seem odd to provide this facility if it is unsupported.

Edited May 2, 2008 by AnnDroyd

[enjay]

We use custom groups here and have never had Capita refuse to support us.

 

If your problem definitely isn't to do with permissions, then set the affected users to a standard permissions set and re-log the call...

[enjay]

I've just found KB16472 which tells you how to set up custom permission groups! It does say that it's not supported, but only the permissions elements aren't supported, not the whole thing.

 

Curiously, that article has been on Capita's site since 2003 and got edited this morning. Coincidence?

[GrumbleDook]

In that case ask them what groups should you have used to get the following access controlled for specified staff?

[Tonyoung]

KB16472 - How to edit access rights in System Manager

Created 16/09/2003

Last Updated 27/11/2007

 

Affected Products System Manager

Notes

How to edit access rights in System Manager

Additional Notes

Capita cannot support User Defined Groups due to the different anomalies that could lie within them.

We can only support SIMS pre-defined Groups.

 

i.e. Customer has carefully added permissions to do x and y but not z.

 

We remove y and z and replace it with a new permission Q that is similar to y and z with bits added and bits taken away. One cannot decide algorithmically whether permission Q should be granted to any existing permission group.

 

 

 

 

Advice

Access rights can be modified per user group as follows:

 

1. Focus | Group

 

2. select Group Permissions tab

 

3. select area of control on navigation tree

 

4. click on add permissions to group (key and '+' symbol)

 

5. group permissions can now be modified at various levels of access

 

Levels of access are:

all access

selected permission

no access

[enjay]

What he said ^^ :-)

 

URL is http://support.capitaes.co.uk/websupport/RenderXSL.aspx?KB=KB16472.xmlTrue

[skunk]

I have had problems with staff being members of too many groups. eg. Exams Organiser and Exams User, this stopped some of the functionality of Exams Organiser.

 

I suspect the reason that they do not want to support custom groups is that every release changes the permissions and they update their groups to include these changes. However, a custom group that had maximum permissions in the September release may be missing some vital permissions once you have upgraded to the November release.

 

However, it is part of their software so I don't know why they won't support it.

 

Skunk

[apeo]

I dont really see how they can refuse you support when its a feature they have provided and if you've been to one of their Courses for System Manager, its actually one of the things they mention. Furthermore if theres something wrong witht he data then how could they blame it on permissions as all you are doing is giving certain ppl access to very specific things and this shouldnt corrupt the data surely. Exactly what error are you getting?

[TechMonkey]

We were told this at our last County meeting and it seems stupid. It would be like MS saying you can only use GPOs and user containers that they create or they won't help with any support.

 

Not every school follows the same structure so some need to change permissions! It just seems crazy to me and yes it seems like a get out clause where by they can suck on their teeth and announce "Ohhh sorry, you have non standard permissions, theres your problem Guv, gonna cost ya!"

 

Grrr

[apeo]

:? Not good... I suppose thats one way to reduce the number of support cases they handle.

[sahmeepee]

From their point of view I can understand why they can't maintain your custom groups as skunk said above. We use a few custom groups and they mostly work well (our normal staff group is a more restrictive version of the standard capita one).

 

The 3 areas where Capita fall down on this are:

 

# System manager is painfully rubbish in every way.

# It's often nigh on impossible to deduce which permission enables a particular function in the SIMS interface. (the permissions spreadsheet is a mapping of perms to standard groups - not perms to functions in the software)

# They don't tell you which new permissions they've created in each release note so if your groups need tweaking you don't find out until something doesn't work.

[apeo]

If error is permissions related then yeah i can understand Capita not supporting it but generally you can spot the permissions errors and fix it yourself. However they cant just blanket say they not supporting someone.

[Hecate]

I am trying to set up permissions for support users to reset SIMS passwords without giving them full system manager rights. I have created a user group with what look like the right permissions but the users can't see the user set up page. I had expected them to get a stripped down system manager group but they don't see any extra areas. Can anyone suggest what I am missing

[enjay]

SIMS users can't change their own passwords - good, huh?! You could consider putting the August 2007 release on and using Windows Authentication.

[Hecate]

I am past the August release but I don't want to go down the windows authentication route because we have SIMS on teacher's PCs in classrooms and I can't rely on teachers to log off or lock the computer when they leave the room. I just want the junior support staff to be able to reset passwords without having to hunt me down every time.

[PhilNeal]

Sometimes I feel like adding a strap line to my posts "There is no conspiracy!"

 

Firstly, of course we support something that we put into our software. What we can't support in this case is what your permission groups actually do because they are unique to you; we can tell you what permission is required to do something. Your local support unit may choose not to support user defined permissions but that is a different matter.

 

Secondly, System Manager is one of our oldest applications we aren't proud of it; it is being re-written and one result will be that the permission matrix will be simpler. This is part of the 2008 plan.

 

Thirdly, if as a result of seeing something on this forum, we alter something we would say so, on this forum. Not change something sneakily as is being suggested here!

[apeo]

Sometimes I feel like adding a strap line to my posts "There is no conspiracy!"

 

Firstly, of course we support something that we put into our software. What we can't support in this case is what your permission groups actually do because they are unique to you; we can tell you what permission is required to do something. Your local support unit may choose not to support user defined permissions but that is a different matter.

 

Secondly, System Manager is one of our oldest applications we aren't proud of it; it is being re-written and one result will be that the permission matrix will be simpler. This is part of the 2008 plan.

 

Thirdly, if as a result of seeing something on this forum, we alter something we would say so, on this forum. Not change something sneakily as is being suggested here!

 

 

DBPwdChg.exe is still in SIMS .NET folder but i dont think it works anymore but did prior to SQL2005.