[sims] Marks disappearing after being saved? Next steps?

[WithoutMotive]

Morning people,

 

Once again, I return to EduGeek only when I have a problem (although I talk to a lot of you on Twitter, anyway) but where else would I go??

 

Anyway, we've had a few reports from staff that they're entering marks into their marksheets in SIMS and saving them (as you would) but then when they go back to them, the marks have disappeared. I've sent a message out to them asking if they've encountered this problem and, so far, had only 7 back.

You could assume that maybe they weren't saving properly but some are fairly competant and I would imagine they would be doing it right.

At the moment, I don't have any firm proof that this is happening. No one has come with a printout from SIMS showing marks saved and then marks not there. I can't exactly ask people to print out everything they do until there's a problem and I can't recreate it as it's a very random thing.

 

So, what now? Just wait and see? Is it an issue other people have had? What can be my next steps?

 

Ta!

[ICTLady]

Will follow this with interest. I have had a cuople of teachers tell me that they are absolutely sure that they have saved their marks, but there is nothing in SIMS and no record that marks ever existed. I had put it down to user error or possibly network problems.

[starthms]

We had the same and with profiles as well, but no way of finding out if there really was any data there in the first place just have to take their word on it. But as there no record of the data it cant be getting from the pc to the sever so must be a network or pc issue well i guess with SIMS could be anything lol.

[WithoutMotive]

Will follow this with interest. I have had a cuople of teachers tell me that they are absolutely sure that they have saved their marks, but there is nothing in SIMS and no record that marks ever existed. I had put it down to user error or possibly network problems.

Initially, when we first encountered the problem, I also put it down to user error but now a few people have reported it, I'm getting concerned.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I suppose a bonus is that I'm glad other people have had this issue and not just us!

[WithoutMotive]

We had the same and with profiles as well, but no way of finding out if there really was any data there in the first place just have to take their word on it. But as there no record of the data it cant be getting from the pc to the sever so must be a network or pc issue well i guess with SIMS could be anything lol.

I would agree with that assumption, however when a user saves the marksheet (or whatever), SIMS is showing it as being saved and hanging slightly as it saves (as it usually does). The assumption there is that the marks are being saved to the database on the server and being confirmed at the user end. If it was a network problem, surely the save would fail or SIMS would crash?

[Quackers]

We have had this on and off for a while, seems very random and never got the the bottom of it, just always thought user error as its only normally 1 or 2 teachers and its not every time and it never does it when we are watching.

[number34]

Have to admit that when I am told that the marks had been entered I very rarely believe the teachers (it always seems to be the same ones). When it does happen it is normally because they have lost network connectivity on their laptops. When I am working on mark sheets and SIMS hangs I have never found that data I had saved earlier is missing.

[mark80]

We have experienced the same issue

[LosOjos]

I've had reports of this but as with others I have largely put it down to being an excuse from certain staff...

 

Lately however I have had a couple of staff report this who are usually very punctual. Have also had this issue using SLG and, whilst not proof that the user had entered and saved the grades, I could see from the site usage reports that they had been logged on at the times they said they were.

 

Can @PhilNeal or @David_Grashoff or anyone else from the SIMS team let us know if this is a known issue please? When data is saved in a marksheet, does the client await confirmation from the server that it has received and stored the data or does it just send it and assume everything is fine?

[PhilNeal]

I'm pretty sure there aren't many cases of this happening or there would be a solution in preparation. I will check.

[PhilNeal]

On SLG there isn't an auto save although that's coming. This could account for lost marks if people don't save and the connection goes down.

[eean]

Have you checked the date settings on the PC? If they are set to MMDDYY it causes all sorts of problems in SIMS, as SIMS can't, or at least, couldn't figure that out.

For example, 13th of January becomes 01/13/2014, which SIMs as sees as being invalid. It causes the result date box to go red and the save fails. Because there is no error dialogue, the user thinks everything is OK and dismisses the next prompt to save. Of course, on 12th January it's fine!

It's also possible to accidentally delete the date or put something invalid in there. Invalid entry of a result will also cause the save to fail and the only warning is a small red x in the bottom corner.

[vikpaw]

This used to get reported frequently a while back.

The mark sheet used to open with focus on result date and as above corrupting this field by typing anything will fail save and we all know the users don't read the error messages. Those that noticed would ask for help but give up and close down before it arrived.

 

At one point we did think it was caused by multiple teachers with access to the same mark sheet having it open at the same time.

 

I would tell them to check their PC date format, watch for the Red error on save particularly the date box and as a precaution export the data to a mark sheet as backup. This way if they do see the error and back up you might be able to load in their data from mark sheet.

[DrCheese]

Did anyone ever resolve why this was occurring? We're getting the same here

[jonrose]

Same here, had a few members of staff report that their data had disappeared, but I suspected that it may have just been an excuse for missing deadlines.

[vikpaw]

Hopefully not the issue with the focus starting on result date any more but it could be a reason...

Any chance there are more than one person with access to the same marksheet? That was always my worry, two people have it open at once, even if it's a head of department not making changes, but some options like narrowing the column width prompts for a change and who knows the effect.

[ICTLady]

Resurrecting this old thread as I have had this reported again, by some teachers who I trust to use SIMS properly and carefully:

 

"This has happened with reports and tracking where data has been saved then drops off or gets deleted somewhere between then and reports being exported. Because of this I always close down Sims after saving and then 're open to check it is there. It will still be saved at that point so I don't think it's a saving issue. I have checked biology data that has been completed and it will be there, then it disappears and its not there for the reports etc. I would suggest it is being deleted after the deadlines for the teachers as I always check on the final day."

 

So it would appear from what they describe that the data is definitely being saved, and is visible later to both the teacher who entered the data and to the HoD when he checks the marks. However, when I or one of my data colleagues checks the same marksheet a day or two later, there is no data there. There's no sign of any marks at all in View/Edit Result History.

 

Strangely, this only appears to be affecting our Science department. All of our departments have marksheets with more than one owner but Science do all of their tracking on SIMS so as well as the marksheets having multiple owners, they also have multiple marksheets using the same aspect/result combinations.

 

I'm going to report this up to our LA SIMS support team but just wondered whether anyone here had got any further in identifying this issue? Or whether @PhilNeal can comment on whether there are any known issues that might cause this?

[bobsmith]

General good practice is that an aspect/result set combination should only be writable in one template.

 

You can have another marksheet that shows it read only, but I would never personally have it available to change in two templates at once.

[Di27]

We have had the same issue - never frequently enough to take it any further though. Recently two sets of science marks were affected. I am also concerned that a template can be opened by more than one person at the same time. We only update the aspect in one place but if more than one person can access the template, not sure how this affects updates ( I haven't the time to check !). I have raised this issue but don't think its gone anywhere.

 

Hopefully someone will have an answer about the disappearing data soon!

[HC_Netman]

Sorry to resurrect this thread once again but we have had the same issue on a number of occasions and like most people in this thread assumed it was user error.

 

Today we have had a member of staff that is much more reliable who has had the same problem.

 

I'm in the process of restoring a Sims backup to a temp machine to see if the data was there on the night that he says he entered the data but I was just wondering if anyone ever figured out what was going on?

 

Did @PhilNeal find any issues?

 

I'm still not ruling out user error but there are certain staff that I definitely take more seriously with things like this.

 

Cheers

[Di27]

Still interested if anyone finds anything more - don't get them often but had another one just the other day who was sure she had entered the data last week....

[HC_Netman]

Just to update - after restoring from a backup taken on the night immediately after the data was entered I can confirm it was also not present in the backup.

I can only assume in this case that it was user error and the data hadn't been saved.