[sims] Spring 2012 release

[matt40k]

SIMS 2012 Spring Release *** Now Available

 

I'm pleased to inform you that the SIMS 2012 Spring Release is now available for download by SOLUS.

 

Overview

The SIMS 2012 Spring Release contains enhancements to Assessement, Attendance, Discover, Exams, InTouch, Lesson Monitor, Nova-T6, Profiles, Registrations and Admissions, SIMS Learning Gateway and SOLUS3

 

This release contains updates to Statutory Returns to the Attendance Collection for Wales and School census for England.

 

FMS has been enhanced with a number of changes including improvements to the Asset registry, the financial reporting suite and Statutory changes. Fees Billing has had improvements to the emailing functionality.

 

This release requires Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 to be installed on all machines to support this release. If this is not present then the SIMS software will not function.

 

 

Full details of this release can be found in the SIMS 2012 Spring Release Note (Resource No. 19052) and the FMS release Note (Resource No. 19053)

An update to SOLUS3 was made on the 21^st February to improve reliability at sites who were having issues with software not upgrading. (Full details are in Resource No. 18940). We Strongly advise all customers on SOLUS3 to upgrade to this release before upgrading to the SIMS 2012 Spring release.

Content

• Assessment
  
• Attendance
  
• Attendance Collection (2012) Wales
  
• Discover
  
• Exams
  
• Fees Billing
  
• FMS
  
• InTouch
  
• Lesson Monitor
  
• Nova-T6
  
• Profiles
  
• Registrations and Admissions
  
• School Census Summer 2012 (England)
  
• SIMS Learning Gateway 2
  
• SOLUS3 – in SOLUS 3.4.107 released on 21/02/2012
  

SIMS Version Support

In line with the SIMS Version Support, the currently supported Platforms are:

• SIMS 2011 Autumn Release (v7.142)
  
• SIMS 2012 Spring Release (v7.144)
  

SOLUS Details

 

The SOLUS website for details of this Main Release, including all documentation, can be found by visiting: http://www.capitaes.co.uk/solus

Single Direct and Independent Schools that are supported directly from our Bedford office have been authorised to take this release via SOLUS 2 and SOLUS3. The software has also been made available for Support Units to deploy via SOLUS 2 and SOLUS3 to their schools. These schools will be notified when they are authorised to install it.

 

A CD Image of the SIMS 2012 Spring Release is available for download on

The password to access it is:

 

 

 

A CD image of the FMS 2012 Spring Release is available for download on

The password to access it is:

 

 

 

It is very important if you are a Support Unit, with a Mirror Server, that you have all the files present on your server. Please check that all the files are present, using the spreadsheet which can be found at:

Discover

An update to Discover has been made and is available on SOLUS3. Full details are in the Release Note uploaded to Supportnet as resource ID: 19071.

 

For those customers not yet on SOLUS3 a CD image is available for download on

The password to access it is:

 

SIMS Learning Gateway 2 (SLG2)

An update to SLG2 has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Spring Release.

Customers on SLG2 should wait to apply the SIMS 2012 Spring Release until the SLG2 Spring Release has been applied to their system. Details on how to obtain this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

 

 

Partnership Xchange (PX)

An update to PX has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Spring Release.

PX customers should wait to apply the SIMS 2012 Spring Release until the PX Release has been applied to their system. Details on how to obtain this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

 

InTouch

An update to the InTouch Web Server has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Spring Release. Details on how to obtain and apply this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

InTouch customers should apply the SIMS 2012 Spring Release before applying the InTouch 2012 Spring Release.

 

 

Regards,

Jonathan Wood

Product Manager Deployment and Technical

 

 

Edited February 28, 2012 by vikpaw
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[bossman]

@matt40k:

 

You on part-time for Capita hehe!

[matt40k]

Yer every positive thing I say I get 10p and for every bug I don't post publicly I get £1. If only that was true, I could retire

[bossman]

@matt40k:

 

Ouchhhh! that sounds a little like your having too much fun with your Sims and FMS hehe!

[teejay]

Oh joyous, I'll look at this once I've stopped banging my head against a brick wall with the Solus 3 'stability patch' which fails to install.

[glennda]

I will get this in about 2 months probably - still waiting for Solus 3...

[Simcfc73]

Messed up my system again, did the DB fine last night but the clients don't update... well some do but it just says successful and doesn't do the ones that come online in the morning. Prob my setup though as I have a windows network running on cat5.

[Rawns]

Why oh why have Capita not made this Discover package compatible with the SOLUS3 auto-deploy feature?! More work for us then is required!!! /stabs voodoo doll

[creese]

Any bets on the recall date???

 

I have to work out why a DBAttach detached school(s) has lost it's passwords before I can think about upgrades.

[creese]

When a man goes for virtual server memories of the planet Mars, an unexpected and harrowing series of events forces him to go to roll back to 7.142....

[matt40k]

@creese - shut up, just about to upgrade our training laptops!!

 

Did you tick the box that said drop SQL logins

@Rawns - moan, moan, moan

@simcfc73 - did you do the Spring SOLUS3 first?

[creese]

@matt40k

 

You are brave. We are waiting to at least after the Software seminar.

 

The school who wiped out their attendance marks for this year was DBAttached to another machine. No passwords worked that I know but I managed to get in with a teacher's and nearly got in with a defunct login.... very strange. It needs a bit of looking at.

[enjay]

I'll install the Spring update a week before they release the summer one - should be about stable by then :-)

 

In all seriousness, I would love to know the point at which Capita have stopped working on Spring and moved on to Summer, as that is the point at which I want to install Spring. I don't have the resources (or inclination) to run an update, handle client update issues, roll-back the update and then fix the clients which got broken attempting to update. I want to run a single update to a stable release, and if that means a delay in getting the latest features so be it. Anyone know how I could find out that date?

[Rawns]

I'd assume the only people who could tell you this are Capita themselves. Maybe log a call with them requesting the info?

[matt40k]

Didn't it use to be 6 releases a year, 3 with only bugfix and 3 with new stuff (and generally bugs).

[enjay]

Didn't it use to be 6 releases a year

There was close to that many just from Autumn 2011, wasn't there??

[vikpaw]

There was close to that many just from Autumn 2011, wasn't there??

LOL

 

Didn't it use to be 6 releases a year, 3 with only bugfix and 3 with new stuff (and generally bugs).

I think it's only 3 releases a year now, and all bug fixes get pushed to the next release, or that's the way it seems, and you patch anything in between if it's urgent.

 

I'll install the Spring update a week before they release the summer one - should be about stable by then :-)

 

In all seriousness, I would love to know the point at which Capita have stopped working on Spring and moved on to Summer, as that is the point at which I want to install Spring. I don't have the resources (or inclination) to run an update, handle client update issues, roll-back the update and then fix the clients which got broken attempting to update. I want to run a single update to a stable release, and if that means a delay in getting the latest features so be it. Anyone know how I could find out that date?

 

I'm still on 7.138 - unsure of whether to test the latest Autumn out, as it should mostly be stable and most patches will have been added into Spring, so worth case, i can request them standalone.

 

They will already be working on summer, because the things they are wanting to deliver will be different and no doubt already being tweaked and tested.

 

I would warn one thing, the big independent conference going on at the moment, so a lot of the top boys will be there, so maybe worth waiting a day or two til Friday

[enjay]

I'm still on 7.138

7.138 is Spring 2011, isn't it? How long before that stops being supported??

[Rawns]

I'm still on 7.138

 

Why are you on a year old version of SIMS?

[enjay]

Why are you on a year old version of SIMS?

 

Probably because it works, and he doesn't want any of the features in newer versions enough to risk an upgrade...

[enjay]

They will already be working on summer, because the things they are wanting to deliver will be different and no doubt already being tweaked and tested.

 

True enough, however they will still fix issues with Spring. There must come a point, however, when the developers close the door altogether on Spring and only work on Summer. That is the point at which I would like to upgrade to Spring.

[matt40k]

Capita support two releases. Spring, Summer, Autumn. So he isn't supported. First thing they'll do if it logs a call and they need the database is say, upgrade your SIMS. They should be telling him now whenever he logs a call and selecting his version. Unless he has a nice bag of money to throw at Capita.

[matt40k]

Why are you on a year old version of SIMS?

 

He's independent - no census - no forced reasons.

[vikpaw]

Probably because it works, and he doesn't want any of the features in newer versions enough to risk an upgrade...

Correct. The issues with Summer and Autumn put some fear into me, and we could cope without SIMS but without FMS we would not get paid! I like to sit back and watch what happens. Though to be fair, i didn't wait too long for last Spring and installed soon after release, it was one of the more stable versions. It's also when they release the installable version, so perhaps they do more testing to make it more stable..?

True enough, however they will still fix issues with Spring. There must come a point, however, when the developers close the door altogether on Spring and only work on Summer. That is the point at which I would like to upgrade to Spring.

I think, unless it's a major structural issue with it as in Autumn, they wont rewrite it. If it can be patched, that's got to be the easiest way to go and then the patch goes into the next release.

Capita support two releases. Spring, Summer, Autumn. So he isn't supported. First thing they'll do if it logs a call and they need the database is say, upgrade your SIMS. They should be telling him now whenever he logs a call and selecting his version. Unless he has a nice bag of money to throw at Capita.

They would, but i don't need to log any calls because the release i'm on works, and i'm sticking with it

I would love to have access to some of the new features, like filtering in assessment, changing resultsets in bulk without using my script, multiple tiers, but i don't need them so badly that i'd risk any downtime.

I'm happily testing on my test setup. I wasn't really happy with the FMS issues in Autumn else i'd have gone for that around about now, and still might, on the premise that Spring is out so Autumn is done with.

 

Maybe i'll add all those reasons to my signature along with the other info

@enjay - do you have to keep up to date, or can you delay like me? What version are you on?

[enjay]

@enjay - do you have to keep up to date, or can you delay like me? What version are you on?

 

We're on 7.142 / Autumn 2011 at present; once I was happy it was stable, I upgraded. There were some features in it which we wanted, plus we had bought a day's onsite training/consultancy, and they insist on the latest version being installed.

 

That said, we are independent, so don't have to update along with everyone else.