"Print Timetables" Menu Item Missing

[spend_day]

Hey the front end of SIMs isn't something I've had a huge amount of use with.

 

Since the summer update the our SIMs managers reports>Print Timetables menu item has disappeared. It runs what I assume is a standard report that asked whether she want staff or students then asks for things like year groups. Any Idea where this report/function is?

[CyberDrac]

EIS Support have been provided with the following information by Capita ...

 

Reports | Print Timetables can only be run on a 32-Bit workstation. This routine uses timetables from Nova-T4 which is a 16 bit application. 16 bit applications do not work on 64 bit operating systems. From the Summer 2010 release onwards, the routine Reports | Timetables is available from SIMS .net - this is a SIMS .net routine which is not dependent on Nova setups.

 

If you are using the menu route Reports | Print Timetables, our advice would definitely be to use Reports | Timetables as this functionality is no longer supported.

[matt40k]

OMG... Seriously, have they FINALLY gotten rid of it?! I had this discussion with a high school 4 years ago!! Basically they moved to Win7 x64 and it stopped working and I was like, umm, why are you using the OLD Nova-T4 reports, why aren't you using the NEW reports which is one menu option down with more options? It's been in SIMS .net for ages.

 

Finally Capita have killed it, YAY!!! I feel we need some cake to celebrate the fill nail in the Nova-T4 coffine - help a guy out @creese, it is Friday after all

[spend_day]

Ah OK, so is there no way of getting it back. its a 32 bit machine and she'll only need it for today. It's kinda important and I don't have time to look up the manual and retrain our sims manager.

[matt40k]

I think you'll spend longer trying to get it to work vs using the new version. In fact I think you've spend longer posting the question vs actually clicking Reports | Timetables (then select submenu item if I remember)

[spend_day]

I think you'll spend longer trying to get it to work vs using the new version. In fact I think you've spend longer posting the question vs actually clicking Reports | Timetables (then select submenu item if I remember)

 

Yeah I've just delivered the bad news. Apparently the ones from reports>timetables>student timetables "don't look right"

[CyberDrac]

Is there a way of launching NovaT independently of SIMS and running the old style reports directly from there? Although it may just be the time to move on as SIMS distances itself from NovaT

[matt40k]

Yeah I've just delivered the bad news. Apparently the ones from reports>timetables>student timetables "don't look right"

 

You've just described why I like ad-hoc reporting over end-user reporting with "pixel perfect" reports - ie you spend all day making it look like the old report. I vaguely remember sivadam posting something detailing how to change the settings so it matches Nova-T4 report. No idea where that is however.

[CAM]

The reports don't look like under the current Timetables menu as SIMS doesn't render them on-screen properly. The text gets cut off and they look very nasty, but once you print they look fine. I had this issue when adjusting cell heights to fit two pages on to one and it did put me off at first, but they came out fine. You can also click Save if you have an admin account and it will save the appearance for all users across SIMS.

[spend_day]

Final question. anyone know how to save layout settings? I've got to report to how it "suppose" to look and want to export it to excel before printing, and want to save the layout so the manager can just select it and press print. Even after pressing save it's still exports like the default style

 

Also anyway of getting rid of the date?

Edited July 11, 2014 by spend_day

[CAM]

Only the method I described above AFAIK.

[spend_day]

yeah I've saved it and it's confirmed it been saved with the message at the bottom but doesn't seem to want to export to excel or html in the correct format.

[tombry]

Oh this is going to hurt!

 

We issue staff/student timetables from the old routine as it will actually put our two-week timetable on one sheet of paper as opposed to two - any layout tips to get it to fit through the new (not new) method?

[spend_day]

Oh this is going to hurt!

 

We issue staff/student timetables from the old routine as it will actually put our two-week timetable on one sheet of paper as opposed to two - any layout tips to get it to fit through the new (not new) method?

 

Here's what ours is looking like atm, just tweeking it and trying to work out how to either get rid of the date or export it to a excel file without it returning to the original layout as we don't want the date at the top.

 

 

EDIT: I've removed the students name and form for obvious reasons

Edited July 11, 2014 by spend_day

[CAM]

Oh this is going to hurt!

 

We issue staff/student timetables from the old routine as it will actually put our two-week timetable on one sheet of paper as opposed to two - any layout tips to get it to fit through the new (not new) method?

 

I use Times New Roman 14, 2 rows, cell height 1.10 and vertical margins 0.15. Supports 7 periods over two weeks on one page.

[tombry]

Thanks gents - I'll add this to my always increasing list.

[minimoo]

Capita added a knowledge base article (KB118196) a month ago about removing the date:

 

"It is not possible to Print student timetables without the page number, date and time being printed at the bottom of the page. If the timetable is exported, the page number, date and time will not be printed. "

 

... and now that you guys have pointed out to me the old 32bit only functionality has gone, I need to remember why we always ended up using it in september over the new functionality before that becomes an issue.

[gazskeltz]

Hi all,

 

I've just been ranting about this on Supportnet.

 

If you're going to remove a functionality, for whatever reason, to be replaced by new, improved methods then users should be able to replicate the original behaviour.

 

Teacher Key is too big and not changeable

Selection Screen works badly

Title always show as at date, not editable.

Saving Default template is too easy and could undo another's hard work - Multiple Template Saves would be better....

 

Gaz

[matt40k]

Not that I'm saying you've left feedback for a "new" feature too late, but... it's been live in your system for 4 years!! FOUR YEARS!!

 

Clearly Capita need to force people.

[Bananas]

Not that I'm saying you've left feedback for a "new" feature too late, but... it's been live in your system for 4 years!! FOUR YEARS!!

 

Clearly Capita need to force people.

 

ROFLMAO

[gazskeltz]

Hi Matt,

 

I can see where you are coming from and totally agree that feedback should be due as soon as a new method comes out.

 

And I'm the first person to welcome change, believe me...

 

However, the original functionality was left in the system (for four years!) and I have continued to use this as I find it fits our needs perfectly.

 

I have nearly made a useable timetable report now from the new method and it'll do. Chris Sherwood has promised that they will look at my gripes as a future project.

 

Those being:

 

Save and Load multiple templates - there will be occasions where a different format is required. It's too easy for a member of staff to save the template, destroying someone else's hard formatting work...

 

When Selecting student by, for example Year(s), the results should populate and replace the Available column rather than the Selected column. This would help if we wanted to pick and choose a few students from Year 7.

 

The Available Student column should show more detail, particularly Year Group

 

Student Status should default to On Roll rather than

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to think that with the old method we were able to select students with blank periods? Maybe not though...

 

Finally, wouldn't this have been better introduced in the Spring Upgrade? At least then people wouldn't have been in the midst of timetable creation for next year.

 

I'm quite handy with configuring this type of thing but I'll bet there are some staff who will struggle to make their timetables look right (and that's not being derogatory in any way).

 

I really don't mean to be a whinger, I love most of what Capita does to improve our lives...

 

Regards

 

Gary

[Bananas]

I'd like to see more flexibility with some of the print routines. Like printing timetables it'd be nice to be able to quickly and easily remove blank periods (like reg groups) and although they have to be timetabled they don't need to be printed, stupid stuff like that.

[matt40k]

Personally, I want people to suffer. Sorry, but I do. So when the really picky people who struggle with these changes and moan as if the world is ending see a UAT session come up, they're going to jump at the chance and their feedback is going to be fed directly to the developers and be developed into the first release. Now poor Chris Sherwood is going to have to go into a meeting about developer resource with his beating stick and battle to try and get it done - I'll be suprised if he gets it done within 6 months, rather then a week when he was swimming in dev resource (and no user feedback).

 

God this is a sucky post. Sorry can't post a miracle workaround.

[LianneKemp]

Hiya, does anyone know how to change the cell font. All of my timetable is in Arial apart from the class details in the cells which are Times New Roman, and the menu to change the font is greyed out (but only under Cell Settings, I can change the font under Layout Settings). Thanks!!!

[tech-man]

It isn't easy to get a 2 week, 4 period day timetable with 3 rows of data per period to print on an A4 2 panel label. It would be good if you could add more spacing between the two timetables to move the second one down to print in the correct position. Another fine improvement, really disappointing change!