Wjec Surpass Onscreen Testing - install suggestions, opinions, free for all

[dapaulio]

Hi all

I have just been handed the task of installing WJEC onscreen testing platform before our trial exams next week. Before posting this I have not had much time to actually problem solve yet and some issues may be very straight forward but given my extremely short turn around I am open to opinions and suggestions.

 

The software comes with an MSI package which makes easy deployment however have come across small issues when coming to use the software. I am open to other peoples experiences that may help with this poorly written software

 

Regards

[OverWorked]

I keep getting "connection failed". I've added firewall (Smoothwall) rules to allow all and do not inspect SSL. I've set up a dedicated account for it to authenticate and also tried my own and the domain admin's credentials.

 

The frustrating thing is that it did connect once this morning (out of about 50 attempts).

[OverWorked]

Solved it. I allowed traffic to the WJEC domain to bypass authentication.

[free780]

Yes and make sure c:\users\public\whatever has modify access for users. You have to define the proxy in a text file. Its not the worst exams software. Its supported on x64 and doesn't require admin rights.

[dapaulio]

sorry for the late Update:

 

Turns out that I didn't have anything really to worry about and in fact WJEC software is better than other onscreen testers we have. The mock exam went perfectly however my only gripe is that the on load updater fails not only on students all the time which i imagine is just a permission issue either on the computer or through smoothwall somewhere but even as an admin it fails a number of times before it eventually successfully updates. The students can only access the software if it is fully patched. WJEC say its a network issue but the onscreen tester will complete one whilst fails on another randomly.

 

Given the frequency of the updates from wjec (once a year - quoted by wjec phone operator) and the students not being able to update is not much of a worry as we do a pre exam service on all the test machines the night before anyway and we just run the software initialising the onload updater anyway to ensure it work but for admins to intermittently receive update errors would suggest something is not right. I have whitelisted the site in no authentication and logs do not suggest any blocks are impeding the updater to run.

 

Like I said this is just an annoying glitch and appears miles better than the pearson on screen tester we have. roll on the live exams hopefully it will be as seemless as the mocks

[OverWorked]

sorry for the late Update:

 

Turns out that I didn't have anything really to worry about and in fact WJEC software is better than other onscreen testers we have. The mock exam went perfectly however my only gripe is that the on load updater fails not only on students all the time which i imagine is just a permission issue either on the computer or through smoothwall somewhere but even as an admin it fails a number of times before it eventually successfully updates. The students can only access the software if it is fully patched. WJEC say its a network issue but the onscreen tester will complete one whilst fails on another randomly.

 

Given the frequency of the updates from wjec (once a year - quoted by wjec phone operator) and the students not being able to update is not much of a worry as we do a pre exam service on all the test machines the night before anyway and we just run the software initialising the onload updater anyway to ensure it work but for admins to intermittently receive update errors would suggest something is not right. I have whitelisted the site in no authentication and logs do not suggest any blocks are impeding the updater to run.

 

Like I said this is just an annoying glitch and appears miles better than the pearson on screen tester we have. roll on the live exams hopefully it will be as seemless as the mocks

 

In my experience, the automatic updater says it fails first time every time. On the second attempt it succeeds and asks for a restart. One the third the test application runs.

[simpsonj]

A bit of a necro thread raise, but perhaps relevant for people who, like me, have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the new client working. WJEC have changed the server that the client looks for, so I would suggest adding the following urls to the whitelist:

 

cmspublic.surpass.com

demo.surpass.com

wjec.surpass.com

 

If anyone has a method of getting the installer to install anywhere other than C:\Users\Public I'm all ears...

[free780]

If its secureassess I'd stick with the default. It needs to be able to self update as any user.

[dapaulio]

Also add wjec.co.uk to your whitelist. Also best if you have https inspection turned on to create a rule only to validate the certificate of these addresses

[mavhc]

Yes and make sure c:\users\public\whatever has modify access for users. You have to define the proxy in a text file. Its not the worst exams software. Its supported on x64 and doesn't require admin rights.

 

Sounds super secure, let's allow anyone to write to a shared area, that isn't a problem for exams!

[free780]

Most of the exam boards think you have a dedicated exam IT Suite where you use a dedicated user. In reality the PCs edu orgs use are very shared devices.

[jthompson]

I don't know if it's still the case with the current version, but the details in the proxy config file used to have to also match whatever the system proxy settings were. If they weren't the same, it wouldn't connect.

[free780]

Yep it won't use the proxy configured for IE. You can force out the file VIA GPP.

[jthompson]

But it did specifically have to match the system proxy, I seem to remember. If you had one proxy set for the system, but a different valid one in the config file, it wouldn't work.