Surpass - Secure Client (what a pain)

[jthompson]

It's running on Azure, so either they never tested horizontal scaling, or they forgot to pay the bill

 

Yeah, this. You'd think the capacity requirements would be predictable enough when they know how many candidates are sitting which exams and when.

 

We only have a few candidates, sitting tomorrow, so I'll be looking to get tests downloaded to computers today. Not having access to an invigilation dashboard would be a pain, however.

[3s-gtech]

Remember when we had to run our own SecureAssess servers on site? You can see why now - cheap out on the infrastructure and make the client schools pay for it. Now it's cloud based, they're using the same cheaped-out infrastructure but without the load balancing of the intermediate servers.

[mavhc]

If it's a computer based test then everyone could have a randomised set of questions, with different numbers in the maths based ones. Then doesn't matter if one person leaks their own answers

[keyboards]

Ours are now working post 11, looks like the load has dropped so it is now working to a degree, we managed to get two rooms worth running for the first session somehow

[AJWhite1970]

We have the students working at 11:16, no admin screen but we are going for it

[KK20]

invigilate screen is back for us. Mac browser launch ( https://admissionstesting.surpass.com/LaunchTest )works for us now as does the manual web page launcher ( https://admissionstesting.surpass.com/secureassess/htmldelivery/#!/keycode ). Client accepts the key but whitescreens.

 

One client key says exam completed yet they have not been able to get in. They are in tears. What an absolute mess.

 

edit: Spoke too soon. Invigilate screen back but candidates missing now.

Edited November 3, 2021 by KK20

[FragglePete]

Still "no go" for us. Just Invalid Keycode at each attempt.

 

Pete

[AJWhite1970]

You can get at them from the schedule screen to get keys, thats where we got ours from under "additional candidate details"

[FragglePete]

They were there this morning, but not on the invigilator screen now - we can see the scheduled test, but nothing is available to print keycodes when it was there this morning.

 

Pete

[JSpaced]

Well that was an omni-shambles.

The statement I've had is "we recommend using Secure Client" (we were) and "make sure to fill in a special consideration form" well our exams officer couldn't even log in for two hours!

[JSpaced]

You can get at them from the schedule screen to get keys, thats where we got ours from under "additional candidate details"

 

WE couldn't even see the list of candidates. It's like BTL/ Cambridge Assessment just invited schools to DDoS them!

[Tones]

Our offline ones finished at 11 apparently sent back up - the only issue we had was that extra time wasn't actually applied to the test like it should have been for one student.

[Chockster]

Forgive me for posting this one (and you have my symapthies if you've had a 'mare today - we had loads of hassle last year) but we've had no issues this morning. This is partly due, I'm sure, to having only five candidates, but I think it was mainly because we used the option to download the tests yesterday. Our exams officer specified a seating plan and we used a generic login rather than user specific. Using each candidates's keycode we downloaded the test to their machine yesterday and got them to sit in the correct seats this morning. I was a bit worry about the upload, but this completed without issue, thankfully. The invigilator dashboard was never very usable though.

 

I guess this method isn't scalable if you've got more than a handful of candidates, but if you've got any exams tomorrow I'd recommend giving it try.

[RLR]

Forgive me for posting this one (and you have my symapthies if you've had a 'mare today - we had loads of hassle last year) but we've had no issues this morning. This is partly due, I'm sure, to having only five candidates, but I think it was mainly because we used the option to download the tests yesterday. Our exams officer specified a seating plan and we used a generic login rather than user specific. Using each candidates's keycode we downloaded the test to their machine yesterday and got them to sit in the correct seats this morning. I was a bit worry about the upload, but this completed without issue, thankfully. The invigilator dashboard was never very usable though.

 

I guess this method isn't scalable if you've got more than a handful of candidates, but if you've got any exams tomorrow I'd recommend giving it try.

 

This is what I did and we where able to complete our tests today as normal. My only issue was the invigilation screen was not loading so wasn't able to pause tests if it was needed.

[Scrambles]

We had the exams downloaded and ready to go.

However when we went to agree to the terms and conditions we couldn't get any further and kept getting 801 and 803 error messages.

We then tried to exit the software and reload it ... however that completely locked us out ! We were getting invalid key after that point

 

I uninstallde the secureclient and reinstalled it. Redownloaeded the paper offline (That took about 20 minutes) and then we got the exam started.

When you download the test - is that completly offline or is there an element for it to check online that the exam has started? I wonder if thats the part that failed for us.

 

We managed to get the exam started today around 1030 when we were originally ready to go for 0900

[mikes]

I didn't download our tests beforehand, our problem was when the student finished his exam, it would not upload. But then by the time I'd gotten into the room with an Ethernet cable (assuming it was a wireless issue) the test had uploaded ok.

But our problem then was the Invigilation Page did not show any data, that seems to be the problem now - people can't see any data on the Invigilation page so they can't get PIN codes etc. For us, we could not see if our student's test had uploaded OK - it said on the laptop that it had uploaded, but we could not see anything in Invigilation - so we were worried that our students exam had not gone through.

We are on phone to support now but they seem clueless tbh.

 

EDIT - ok the invigilation page has loaded now, it is showing our exam as Finished so it looked like it did upload. So I'd say their servers were overloaded, that's why our students exam failed to upload the first time; luckily it got through the second time and now we can verify it via the invigilation page.

They did the same thing our Video Parents Evening company did IMO - they do not spec anywhere near enough hardware, they cheap out, and it crashes and burns on the night. You would think that all these problems would cost them a lot more than the few thousand for some better infrastructure but they never learn...

Edited November 3, 2021 by mikes

[FragglePete]

I still can't get it started. Just Invalid Keycode.

 

We've used this before, so don't download the exams before hand as it's always just worked (once we've got the software itself running following any updates).

 

Only 50 minutes left to start this.

 

Standard copy & paste responses on help desk, just get directed to voicemail when calling.

 

Pete

[supportman]

Just started 20+ of our students off using the secure client after a 3hr delay

 

Lets see how it goes.

[KK20]

A mixture for us. We just got white screens for our own candidates (pre downloaded). The external Apple Mac student with their own laptop got to the mac viewer page, entered details and then it locked, after that we got a mix of 404 and timeouts. The external candidates that had not been predownloaded got key errors from the secure client. The URL workaround didnt work. Everything started working about an hour ago (invigilation screen needed a lot of coaxing). We still have one student whose exam must have started somehow as that key is invalid due to being completed. Trouble is the exams officer cannot get through on the phone to get that key reset. Candidate is in pieces and couldnt take the exam now.

 

A note for keys and pins, I had already downloaded and printed the invigilator pack - this has the pin and key for each candidate. Obviously this needs to be kept with the exams officer under lock and key etc. I have the ones for tomorrow already.

 

Ive managed to predownload our "tomorrow" candidates but again we are only authorised to pre download our own internal ones, not the external ones so that might be fun again.

Edited November 3, 2021 by KK20

[mikes]

We never downloaded the exams here, we've never bothered downloading the exams with this software beforehand, as it seemed like it would lock each PC to that particular student when you download the exam firsthand? even if not, it seems if you don't download the exam, the student gets an error message before the exam starts. If you do download the exam, the student does the entire thing then gets an error message when it gets uploaded. I know the exam data can be recovered but I'd almost rather the student get the error message before the exam starts, rather than potentially waste 2 hours doing an exam only to have to do it again. I guess it all depends on how robust the software is - e.g. if the backend comes back up 5 hours later, can that exam completed earlier still be uploaded?

 

We only had 1 student so it wasn't too stressful for us.

[mburland]

First time using this software. We downloaded the tests (BMAT) last night. Just got a blank grey screen after clicking "OK" this morning. I'm guessing even if the test is download the client tries to "phone home" and this timed out and prevented the test from loading.

[gerardsweeney]

This software is "not great", and their support is... "not great".

 

 

I downloaded their secure client. Modified the install dir to allow users to write to it (uh - why should I need to do that, but OK?).

Installed the software. Configured the proxy.xml file so that "false" is changed to "true".

User gets prompted for their network creds. All seems good.

 

Except.. there's an issue - it embeds the user name and password to the proxy.xml file in the public folder.

Meaning that if pupil2 runs it, it's authenticating to proxy as pupil1. Not good.

 

So I script it so that proxy.xml is overwritten with a clean one at login.

User runs it - they don't get prompted for proxy - but it's trying to go direct (keycode not found).

 

Doing a robocopy of a full clean "first time" install to the install dir makes no odds.

Each time we run it - no proxy prompt.

 

Try it again after an hour - prompts.

 

So clearly there's a setting in the user's profile/registry which says "I've had my proxy configured in the last hour or whatever - don't bother checking the config".

 

 

Likewise - user runs it, gets prompted for proxy. If they click cancel, it tries to go direct and there's no apparent way to force it to re-prompt.

Other than waiting about an hour..

 

I ask their support folks on the phone how I go about forcing it to re-prompt - "have you tried switching it off and on again".

The next day, I get an email in reply to my query - "that's an internal IT issue - we can't help". Say what?

I just want you to tell me which registry key or file gets marked on the user profile which says don't recheck the config.

Or if there's a command line switch for the exe it runs.

 

In the end, I had so little confidence in the secure client that the school has gone with the HTML Delivery option.

And then this debacle.

[FragglePete]

With just over 35 minutes left to start, I've yet to get our one candidate started. Still getting Invalid Keycodes.

 

I've got 5 more attempting this tomorrow - however, even on the invigilator interface the Download Invigilator Pack button is greyed out for each candidate

 

Pete

[HAEadmin]

So just to chime in with our experience with this software today. While it was slow we didn't have any major issues with students taking the test but we only had 11 students doing it. I created a standalone non domain image with surpass secure client and nothing else on the laptops. I also allocated the devices to individual students and downloaded the exams to them all yesterday. We didn't receive any errors uploading the exams but the exams office was unable to view them on the website initially. This is working as of 12:31.

 

It sounds like we had a lucky escape compared to some of the other horror stories in this thread. To people doing this tomorrow it sounds like the most reliable setup is the local supass secure client install and downloading the exam in advance. Good luck to you all running this exam again tomorrow, luckily we only had students taking it today.

[bknaggs]

We've just got underway at 12:15 after being ready to go at 9.

 

Did anyone else try using the web version and get prompted to download and install the Surpass Viewer?