[isams] iSAMS

[Wibok]

Hi All,

 

We use iSAMS as our school management system and have been for the past year.

 

We have been having weird issues where random pieces of information would just disappear, you save the record and go back to it say a weeks later and it has vanished.

This can vary from anything from amending a students contact details, to whole bunch of reports becoming blank.

You can then look into the audit logs and iSAMS states that nothing was ever created or amended. I have tried contact iSAMS support but it is proving to be very difficult as we have no proof that data is being saved. At first we thought it was the user not saving the data correctly. However I have witnessed a member of staff type over 100+ reports and now it is completely blank, I go back into the audit it and no information is available to say that the file was amended on date X, it is completely blank as if no information was inputted.

 

I was wondering if anybody else is using iSAMS and suffering with this or if it is just us?

[john]

*moved to MIS Forum*

[vikpaw]

Can you look at the daily backups and create a timeline of data going in, being there and then disappearing. Or do you think it's disappearing overnight.

Hopefully you can restore to a test setup and prove that the data was there at some point.

[Wibok]

thanks for your reply, that sounds a good idea but as it is random what is going missing I don't know how this would work effectively. We could go weeks without data going missing then it would just vanish. I don't know if this happens overnight, but I suspect it is. I know iSAMS do alot of updates which are silent overnight but if this causes the mess up I am not sure. As it is varying in what is missing it is hard to track what is going on. Edited June 17, 2013 by Wibok

[Pico]

The only times I've seen problems of this kind with reports data has been related to pop up windows. Because these windows are not modal windows, they can get tucked behind other windows and out of sight. Two such situations I am aware of:

 

1. If a member of staff is entering a report and a window pops up concerning spell checking, then iSAMS needs to have this window closed (confirmed). If the window gets tucked away, the staff member might not realise it's there to be clicked on.
   
2. If a lot of pop up windows (not necessarily related to spell check) have been generated, then IE can struggle. This can effectively cause iSAMS to freeze up.
   

 

If either or both of these are happening, this might explain the randomness.

 

HTH

[Wibok]

I know of this one to, pretty common with alot of staff here they seem to think double clicking in IE is the correct thing to do, which then hides the spell check window behind and they wonder why they can't move on. The user who has "lost" all of the report data was inputted over numerous days, it was half complete when I checked before the weekend, I had a look this morning vanished. iSAMS have been very good at supporting us, but it is very hard to find something which is so random.

[GNewnham]

Hi Wibok

 

We have been running iSAMS for several years now and havent come across this problem at all. You say that you saw all the report data was there and now it is not - when you look in "remove unwanted reports" can you see the reports for that particular user / cycle at all? I am just wondering if the template has been changed and that is why you are not seeing the reports in the report wizard but they actually do still exist on the database?

 

Sorry if you have already been through all this thinking but there are a few changes that will make reports "disappear" if they are done in the middle of a report cycle eg template changes, set naming changes etc.

 

I am happy to chat through a few options with you on the phone if you wish - feel free to DM me if you wish to discuss.