ECDL Enlight Exams

[Ernie]

We have a ticket open as well and still waiting!

 

Thanks for your reply

Ern

[bossman]

We have no issue with the plugin atm but just one question (32) which allows the users in the first part to access the z: drive to open the word document for mail merge but when trying to merge the given accounts from a spreadsheet won't allow them to access the z: drive again, absolute nonsensical...............!!!

 

We actually took a video of it and sent it to them and as yet we have had nothing back except their pointing to the guidance document stating (Not to hide any drives from the users!!) What!!

 

Absolutely bonkers, then there is the enable all Macros for the users regardless that they are not digitally signed and that this constitutes a veritable hole in the security of that users account...............as if we don't have enough on our plates with all this malware, spyware, virus and ransomware and now radicalisation.

 

What next I ask

 

Sorry for the rant but it boils my p*ss

[SHimmer45]

rolled out the plugin early last week and the feedback has been positive.

seeing as they required more intervention to run the java version and some kids just wouldnt read what was on screen

[PaulBM]

Absolutely bonkers, then there is the enable all Macros for the users regardless that they are not digitally signed and that this constitutes a veritable hole in the security of that users account...............as if we don't have enough on our plates with all this malware, spyware, virus and ransomware and now radicalisation.

 

I agree totally bossman.

 

They are using a plugin for Chrome and IE now.

 

We are trying the tests on 3, only 3, computers and the student's sessions are timing out while data is downloading. Their servers appear to be totally overloaded.

 

I phoned the helpline, but they are not answering because of a 'high volume of calls' and all Advisors are busy on the 'Live' chat. A total deadend.

 

Update: We finally have 3 students doing the tests. Perhaps other schools have given up and freed up some bandwidth for us. Glad we didn't try a full class.

Edited December 15, 2015 by PaulBM

[FN-GM]

Its causing us no end of problems as well this morning. My hair line has recced an extra inch!

[bossman]

Update:

 

Have solved our problem with the mapping of the z: drive disappearing, apparently when the session is first opened it maps the drive but creates a session marker which was being filtered by our SW which timed out and therefore wouldn't remap the z: drive for the second part of the question.

 

All working well in both the Word and Powerpoint and no complaints, seems that they have sorted out a veritable heap of problems and of course we not using Java yeah!!!

 

Most we have had using the portal is 90 at one time! Happy Days!

 

@FN-GM you didn't have that much hair to start with hehe!

Edited December 15, 2015 by bossman

[jonnykewell1]

Have any of you experiencd a "session timed out" error at all? I keep getting fobbed off by their technical team to check our ports on the firewall but it's only port 80 and 443 which are open. We have the EKSLW plugin installed and are using Internet explorer 11. Some users seem to be able to get on and others can't. I was told that if users choose to load with JAVA it works which is typical as we were trying to get away from using JAVA!

[7UD9]

Have any of you experiencd a "session timed out" error at all? I keep getting fobbed off by their technical team to check our ports on the firewall but it's only port 80 and 443 which are open. We have the EKSLW plugin installed and are using Internet explorer 11. Some users seem to be able to get on and others can't. I was told that if users choose to load with JAVA it works which is typical as we were trying to get away from using JAVA!

 

We have had ongoing connection issues since we moved over to the plugin. I haven't seen "session timed out" but we got candidates at random receive an endless "connecting..." message between questions. I've given up with BCS support, after battling with their useless first line support I eventually got things escalated to the Operations Manager, she was helpful but the issue never got resolved as they denied all responsibility.

 

The issue is ongoing and I'm troubleshooting it where I can, everything points to it being external to our network and WAN.

[jonnykewell1]

Yeah I am having similar trouble at the minute. I have twice had my ticket escalated to 3rd line support and then never heard anything back.

[linkazoid]

We're also in the same boat of not having a reply for weeks. We are sitting multiple tests and have been fobbed off with the same information to check our network and configuration.

 

I've had to help with at least 10 tests that have failed this morning. Each one has been when ending the test. I have to kill the EKSLWNMBROKER32.exe task and close Chrome and re-login back in to ET2 to submit the score. This pretty much works most of the time but is a faff to do.

 

Has anyone had a response from BCS that has actually helped?

 

Thanks

 

Michael

[jonnykewell1]

I got this today: "The fact that this is occurring when learners test, instead of when he's testing leads me to believe he's logged onto his own network account, which has some form of elevated privileges on their firewall. The most common cause of this appearing is when session data, which is stored in cookies, is not retained. Firewalls are often configured on school networks to automatically delete this data. Could you please attempt to run a test on your demo account while logged onto an account with equivalent privileges to a candidate user"

[linkazoid]

I look forward to the response next week then when they try to fob us off again.

 

Do any other companies offer the online ECDL test?

[coop1984]

Update:

 

Have solved our problem with the mapping of the z: drive disappearing, apparently when the session is first opened it maps the drive but creates a session marker which was being filtered by our SW which timed out and therefore wouldn't remap the z: drive for the second part of the question.

 

All working well in both the Word and Powerpoint and no complaints, seems that they have sorted out a veritable heap of problems and of course we not using Java yeah!!!

 

Most we have had using the portal is 90 at one time! Happy Days!

 

@FN-GM you didn't have that much hair to start with hehe!

 

Could I ask what rule you put in Smoothwall to stop this happening please? This is happening to us!

 

Thanks

[linkazoid]

This was today's response....

 

Could you please ensure the candidates do not have any COM add-ins installed into their office application?

 

The second error I believe could have actually been caused by the way the candidate attempted to answer that question. Could you please provide me with a step by step list of exactly what the candidate did while asking that question?

 

As if I can get the student to remember what they did... They haven't even told me what question it failed on... I think this is going to continue going round in circles..

[yasir152]

I've also had alot of issues with these ECDL tests. As usual they gave me the lazy answer of 'Its something with your network'. I had the issue of the 'Processing' page when students would attempt to go to the next question. The only fix for this was to reboot the PC and resume the test. I have tried both with Java and the EnlightKS Plug-in and I still have issues. I hardly get a response from technical support. The head of ICT has phoned them up as well but they don't seem to have a clue and are not helpful at all. Ive sent them screenshots, error logs yet they fail to respond back. And to put the icing on the cake, today the students were in the middle of an exam and all of a sudden the tests all froze with a network error message. They must have been an overload on their servers. When I tried to ring their technical support I got the automated message 'we are extremly busy please email us or use the chat function'. Absolutely useless. And the worst thing is that we have 120 candidates taking these exams which count towards a GCSE. Edited February 4, 2016 by yasir152

[MattGibson]

Spent the whole morning trying to get this plugin to enable and my working solution is this:

 

1. Deploy the software via GPO Software
   
2. Enable the plugin via the Users GPO (Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Security Features/Add-on Management)
   
3. Select Add-on List
   
4. Add the following under value name: {E76DBBCB-37F1-5A81-BB2A-D9F5DE04645C}
   
5. Enter 1 for value
   

 

If your plugin wont enable once the user is logged in, you will need to delete the following registry key:

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Settings\{E76DBBCB-37F1-5A81-BB2A-D9F5DE04645C}]

 

Again I did this under the Users GPO, Hope this helps someone else.

[ozydave]

Ditto "fobbed off with the same information to check our network and configuration"

 

Raised a case with them on 22/4 no response. We finished this round of testing now, which is a result.

 

They were no help during the actual tests either when the problem happens. Just check you network, suspend and restart the test.

 

aarrgghh

[DanTheLacky]

Last time we ran them they had intermittent t issues for 3 days (Friday-Tuesday)

[linkazoid]

Touch wood, we've had less issues of late.

 

We deployed a GPO to disable office plugins. Not sure of what settings it was but will post it tomorow to see if it helps any of you.

[ozydave]

The is just priceless.

Not heard anything from BCS support with the problems with the ECDL test.

Wait two weeks and they close the case. Wish I could run my help desk like they do. Put your head in the sand, hide for two weeks then close the case.

 

Your support ticket (xxx) has been marked as solved.

Please do not reply to this email unless you want to keep this ticket open

You can re-open it any time in the next 2 weeks by replying to this email. If you reply after this period, a new ticket will be created.

[Barcrest]

This doesn't bode well for us running the tests then in july, the whole registration process has been enough work and it's still on going.

[howartp]

We've been running them all week. Only error we had was "ID10T: Failed to open Excel spreadsheet in Word"

[Sylv3r]

The government are looking closely at these ECDL exams and are classing them as schools possibly 'cheating the system', the good news for us in the next 12 - 18 months or so they may remove the gradings they carry towards school figures at which time I imagine the majority of schools will decide to stop doing it !

[KibosJ]

The government are looking closely at these ECDL exams and are classing them as schools possibly 'cheating the system', the good news for us in the next 12 - 18 months or so they may remove the gradings they carry towards school figures at which time I imagine the majority of schools will decide to stop doing it !

 

I imagine we will stop doing them when this happens too!

 

I have now got these ECDL exams working without any issues. Added the site into the Authentication Exceptions in Smoothwall and the connectivity issues have gone away.

[ozydave]

The government are looking closely at these ECDL exams and are classing them as schools possibly 'cheating the system',

 

That's exactly why our school started to run them. We consistently have poor A*. - C numbers. This was seen as a way to boost these numbers.

There was no exam prep for the students. They were just put into it blind so to speak