SIMS xml Reports failing now on phones

[GeneralDreedle]

We email out Individual Reports via Schoolcomms. Have done this for years. Last week I had 20+ parents who couldn't open the report. Never had one complain before. Most were trying to open it on their phones, and most of those were iPhones, but several were android, and several were failing on grown-up devices too. Testing it, they fail on my android phone, and I have xml reports from last year and they fail for me too now, so I'm thinking this isn't one of the billion SIMS upgrades changing the file format...

 

So that leaves me wondering: Has something changed on phone OS's so that they won't go to Microsoft links to resolve the tags in the XML?

Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe they never worked, I just imagined it, and no one complained? I feel like I've entered The Twilight Zone.

 

Also, why on earth have SIMS not moved to storing PDFs? Or, if they don't, why on earth does Schoolcomms not convert to PDF on the fly when it sends out the files?

 

We have the next year group to send this week and if that fails as much we'll have to ditch Schoolcomms. Is the SIMS parentapp worth investing in?

[Marci]

SIMS has supported producing Individual Reports as PDF for several years...

[GeneralDreedle]

... and how do we do that?

[bobsmith]

When you export them there's this lovely drop down that gives you the choice of word (xml) or PDF.

 

If you use SLG or SIMS Parent then you've got the choice when uploading to choose word or PDF again.

[Marci]

Click the Export dropdown on Individual Report Details page and it allows you to choose Word export or PDF export... if memory serves there should be similar options somewhere in proceedings after clicking the Upload button when it comes to pushing to DocServer. Can't help you beyond that as it's no longer my role so I don't have access to relevant bits of SIMS... but it's definitely doable with it all as PDF from the SIMS end of things.

[GeneralDreedle]

Cancel my profuse thanks there. My joy has turned to tears. I'm not exporting nothing! I upload to the doc server by pushing the Upload button. No PDF option on that. Is there somewhere else you can set it to store as PDF? Edited July 4, 2018 by GeneralDreedle

[bobsmith]

So the problem is at the point where SchoolComms grabs the reports from SIMS.....

 

The export to pdf doesn't upload to the document management server, just a folder of your choosing.

The SLG and Parent App conversion to pdf is FROM the doc storage to the cloud.

 

So SchoolComms can only grab them while they are still in the default .xml format.....

 

Hmmm, one of the two systems is gonna have to be re-written methinks.

[GeneralDreedle]

Well, if I was Schoolcomms I'd convert to pdf on the fly as I grab them out of the server. But they don't, and probably this is regarded as an old fashioned way to do things so they never will. But we've used it for years and years and Schoolcomms makes it so simple: when in their emailing interface you just say "all parents of Year 10" and select the Summer report from a list of Individual Reports and off it trots... Nothing in life is that easy it seems. Doesn't explain why its gone belly up now, of course, after working for so long. I'll just have to take the butt slapping using it with the Year 8 parents next week and find a replacement (PROBABLY FOR SIMS AS WELL AS SCHOOLCOMMS!! )

[Schoolcomms]

if I was Schoolcomms I'd convert to pdf on the fly as I grab them out of the server. But they don't, and probably this is regarded as an old fashioned way to do things so they never will. But we've used it for years and years and Schoolcomms makes it so simple: when in their emailing interface you just say "all parents of Year 10" and select the Summer report from a list of Individual Reports and off it trots... Nothing in life is that easy it seems. Doesn't explain why its gone belly up now, of course, after working for so long. I'll just have to take the butt slapping using it with the Year 8 parents next week and find a replacement (PROBABLY FOR SIMS AS WELL AS SCHOOLCOMMS!! )

 

Hi,

 

I've spoken with out support team to see if we can help. They've run some tests to try to recreate the issue.

 

When you send reports out via Schoolcomms, the XML reports are picked up from the SIMS Document Server and Schoolcomms does in fact convert them to PDFs on the fly. During our testing with various mobile and PC platforms, all devices received a PDF report as expected.

 

You are welcome to get in touch with our support team over the phone. I think they'll be able to help you get to the bottom of this one as conversion to PDF should normally go ahead without issue.

[GeneralDreedle]

Thanks for your help Schoolcomms. Having looked into this I'm happy that Schoolcomms normally sends the files as PDF. Just on that day something happened on the sending machine and the conversion failed so they went as xml. I'm going to use Schoolcomms again for Year 9 today.

[GeneralDreedle]

While researching this issue I did come up with a workaround, which anyone wanting to bulk email out reports themselves might use. I share it here for any cheapskates lacking the might of Schoolcomms (which we find useful for Attendance etc so I'll continue using). It's pretty simple, if you're used to monkeying around with SIMS reports and Excel.

 

1) Install Doug Robbins free Merge Add In for Word which enables you to merge attachments.

See here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_win10-mso_2016/adding-attachments-in-mail-merge-in-word-2016/612d1278-aecd-457f-b608-fef497450d7b

 

2) Knock up a Pupil report in SIMS to create an excel list with the email of all Parental contacts for the pupils in a particular year (you probably have something similar already with whatever columns you would need for a mailmerge to parents). Make sure you include a column with the pupil's admission number - we need this to link to the filenames later. In Excel, manually sort on the emails and remove any parents with no email - you might also want to choose "home" over "work" if you included both as columns. You should now have one email for every parent in the file.

 

3) In SIMS Individual Reports Upload your reports to the document server for your year group, and also Export them to a folder, choosing "PDF" from the dropdown on the Export button.

 

4) In Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio run this query to get a list out of the SIMS database of all those reports you created (Just change "Year 8 Summer 2018" in both places to whatever you called it):

 

use sims;

SELECT

substring( sims.dm_document_710.attachment_name, charindex('Year 8 Summer 2018',sims.dm_document_710.attachment_name)-7, 6 ) as AdmissionNo,

replace(right(sims.dm_document_710.attachment_name,len(sims.dm_document_710.attachment_name) - 9),'.xml','.pdf') as PDFFile

FROM sims.dm_document_710,sims.dm_document_doctype, sims.dm_document_status

WHERE sims.dm_document_doctype.lookup_value_id = sims.dm_document_710.document_type_id

AND sims.dm_document_status.lookup_value_id = sims.dm_document_710.document_status_id

AND sims.dm_document_doctype.description = 'AM Individual Report'

AND sims.dm_document_status.description = 'Public'

AND sims.dm_document_710.attachment_name LIKE '%Year 8 Summer 2018%'

 

5) Paste the result from this query into a second page in the spreadsheet that you output from the SIMS report in step (2). Use Excel to prefix all the filenames with whatever the path is to the folder where you exported them (or modify the SQL to do this).

 

6) On the main page of the spreadsheet Do a vlookup on the AdmissionNo column of the SQL page. You now have a spreadsheet page with whatever columns you want in your merge message plus two crucial columns: an email address and a filename for the report. From this you you can mailmerge your attachments.

 

7) Create your mail message in Word, and add mailmerge fields as normal, then use the Merge with Attachments button. Doug's Add In is grumbly in only one way - initially it put up a message saying it only works with a "Letter type mail merge document". Actually that just means you need to stick at least one mailmerge field in the Word document before you click on Doug's Merge with Attachments button. (I put Forename in, as in "I enclose $Forename's Summer report". I'm sure you have many other fields you may want to use which you include in that SIMS Pupil report as normal).

 

 

That is all.

[bobsmith]

That's genius

 

If only Capita wouldn't insist putting us up against a wall and shooting us for messing around in SQL!

[GeneralDreedle]

LOL. Yea, obviously I'm not telling anyone to do this. Just saying the only effect a query can possibly have on a database is on performance. That one runs in milliseconds, and in space no-one can hear you query...

[bobsmith]

I used to create a read only user in SQL and only ever use that user for queries.

 

Capita still weren't happy.

 

Thankfully that was with Serco - Facility CMIS and the support guys were more reasonable.