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Surpass - Secure Client (what a pain)

chazzy2501

By chazzy2501
in Cloud Services

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FragglePete

FragglePete

Posted
Posted

Been on phone with them (least I got through). It only works with me using an account which has admin rights!!!! Sheesh! We've had this working before without this.

 

Pete

3s-gtech

3s-gtech

Posted
Posted
It’s downloaded and started on the one client we have here today. That’s on a separate SSID that doesn’t go via our Smoothwall, but is still filtered offsite. No performance issues so far.

 

I should add - this is on a 1-1 issued student laptop with their account in Azure, the student has admin rights (sixth form). Not tested on a domain PC.

APMerry

APMerry

Posted
Posted
Ours worked fine this morning, a bit slow loading the tests, but they all got in after a little wait. Yesterday was a nightmare and nothing started working until 10:45 when I'm guessing everyone else had almost finished. What's the point of the pre-download? I pre downloaded the test but they still download again when the kids entered their keycodes to start the test.
RLR

RLR

Posted
Posted
Been on phone with them (least I got through). It only works with me using an account which has admin rights!!!! Sheesh! We've had this working before without this.

 

Pete

 

Ours are all running without admin rights.

APMerry

APMerry

Posted
Posted
I used standalone Windows machines for mine. It's the first time I've used Surepass and other than the server issues it ran okay on a standalone windows 10 machine. Appreciate if you've got a lot of people doing the test, that's a bit of a pain. I only had 5.
KK20

KK20

Posted
Posted (edited)

So far this has been the most reliable method for us:

 

1) Use a dedicated examuser logon for our domain users. This account will be disabled and enabled as appropriate. Ours has limited capacity to email/use our sharepoint and teams etc. It has a simple A1 licence.

2) bypass the proxy if you can - we do have a dedicated way of doing this for guests using a transparent proxy.

3) edit the proxy.xml to reflect a direct "no proxy"

4) install the secureclient to c:\secureclient and give the account in (1) modify rights

5) except the secureclient.exe in our AV and any application block software

6) predownload (if you can or practical)

7) download the invigilator pack as close to the exam as possible - others have reported keys changing

8) on test day - consider disabling the internet for predownloaded clients until they have started their exam - the client double checks for paper updates. Of course the paper COULD have been updated - no idea what would happen in this scenario.

9) leave the client in a secure position if the test does not upload afterwards. The test should retry upload if it fails to do so. The invigilator screen will update the status of each candidate and what stage they are at.

10) use the WebURL if you need to but be advised that this is "Live" and subject to the whims of the internet and their servers.

 

Notes from me.

* the client appears to make a call to .surpass.com immediately upon opening. This does not always seem to use the same settings in proxy.xml I suspect this does look at the system proxy settings. I have had some luck setting the proxy.xml to be a known dedicated "low priority user" account and embedding this proxy.xml with all the installs (i.e. copy manually). It has ALWAYS worked for us when I have a method of bypassing the proxy - irrespective of proxy.xml contents.

* deleting the proxy.xml sometimes causes the program to go into a lock state. Once in this state the program will appear to open "to check for updates" but simply closes itself with no error. Once in this state only a profile clear seemed to get it going again. Not an issue for us as the account in (1) uses a mandatory profile.

* Two log files are created, one in "config files" and one on the desktop. The desktop one appears when the proxy settings cannot be determined. Deleting proxy.xml usually fixes this particular error (copying a known good did not clear this particular error)

* If the invigilator screen wont open you usually get a white screen after the keycode has been entered. This is their servers and nothing you can do.

 

 

good luck. Our session today was better than yesterday at least.

Edited by KK20
  • Thanks 2
JSpaced

JSpaced

Posted
Posted

So after yesterday's debacle, I said to the exams officer (and SLT) in an email: At the end of the day, take your seating plan for tomorrow. Log on using the exam user credentials. USe the keycode for the candidate. Download the exam and get to the stage where they are ready to start the exam, then just leave the station like that. (I have no idea if our connection to Surpass would get timed out, I just thought it -might- work.)

 

So I got up there this morning to find out she'd listened to half the instructions: logged in, downloaded the exam, then logged out again on each station. Then first thing this morning she revised the seating plan, so there's no point at all. We had to log everyone (7 candidates) back on. The clients downloaded the exams no problem, but then gave us the "invalid keycode error".

 

In the end, this morning I had folk just repeatedly clicking "OK" on the SecureClient until the Key code stopped being "invalid". (Cambridge/ BTL sort out your error codes!)

 

Hopefully it should proceed fine from there.

3s-gtech

3s-gtech

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If the client has no internet access, they get the invalid keycode error. Probably the same if it’s blocked by filtering or if the servers are not responding.

 

Not the best piece of feedback.

BGlanders

BGlanders

Posted
Posted (edited)

There seems to be plenty of good info in this thread now, but its grown plenty over the last few days.

Can we get a sticky at the top of the thread with a collated version of the info?

 

It looks like I cant edit my post after a certain time period has passed, as I was interested in making a single helpful post.

 

Edit - Also: Our single exam went mostly well this morning. The student logged in and after question 1 was booted back out with an error message. I thought this was going to happen again frequently throughout the test, but amazingly it didn't. The test finished and submitted fine.

Edited by BGlanders
MartinT

MartinT

Posted
Posted

Yesterday we had a few problems with hung connections but nowhere near as bad as on Wednesday. We stuck resolutely with the HTML delivery method since the SecureClient is a pile of poo.

 

As for feedback, I've already sent BTL a rocket in the feedback request and our Exams Officer has written two full pages, with screenshots, in the special considerations form. All done now, 15 students managed to complete their tests.

  • 6 months later...
ITGuyNW

ITGuyNW

Posted
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Haha! Well ours said invalid code (to be fair, these exams have worked well in the past) but didnt start working until an hour later..
PotNoodleTech

PotNoodleTech

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I had one pupils that repeatedly had invalid code then on the 4th of 5th time it worked. The other 16 worked ok.

 

It's a shame there's no "test" button that tests connection to servers etc - that would be far too forward-thinking for an exam board.

mikes

mikes

Posted
Posted

Ours worked OK, all of them showing as finished. Not sure if I need to press "upload responses" on them or if that is only for offline tests??

 

And yeah I wish there was a PIN you could put in that gave you a test exam, I'm sure they could program in some autogenerated mock test just to test if the damn software works. The way it is now you have to a) pray that when the kids sit down it will accept their keycodes, and b) when the kids sit there for 2 hours solid typing, it actually uploads the results to the server.. it's not a pleasant experience. Also we had the paper exams but the PE dept chose to do it on computer instead of using the paper exams. Baffling to me why on Earth would you choose to do it on computer and add all that extra worry and confusion for the students, when they could sit in a nice quieter cooler room and do it on paper?

  • 11 months later...
3s-gtech

3s-gtech

Posted
Posted

Just deploying this again.

 

My script is:

 DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:"\\server\shares\sources\sxs"

 

To install .NET 3.5 which it needs to run. You'll need to put the install source on a share.

 

Then:

@echo off
ifexist "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient\Surpass\SecureClient_WJEC" goto END
robocopy "\\server\shares\SecureAssess\SecureClient" "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient" /MIR /R:00 /W:00
icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient" /grant "Students":(OI)(CI)M /T
:END

 

This copies the install from a server share (rather than install it from the MSI) with the configs pre-set, then grants student user permission to the install directory. Pretty bodgy but works in testing - test it thoroughly in your environment.

PotNoodleTech

PotNoodleTech

Posted
Posted
Just deploying this again.

 

My script is:

 DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:"\\server\shares\sources\sxs"

 

To install .NET 3.5 which it needs to run. You'll need to put the install source on a share.

 

Then:

@echo off
ifexist "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient\Surpass\SecureClient_WJEC" goto END
robocopy "\\server\shares\SecureAssess\SecureClient" "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient" /MIR /R:00 /W:00
icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\SecureClient" /grant "Students":(OI)(CI)M /T
:END

 

This copies the install from a server share (rather than install it from the MSI) with the configs pre-set, then grants student user permission to the install directory. Pretty bodgy but works in testing - test it thoroughly in your environment.

 

Nice work I'll try that!

3s-gtech

3s-gtech

Posted
Posted

Notes:

Your server share 'SecureClient' folder should contain the Surpass folder and its contents. If you're using this for more than one exam board, you can install it separately into other folders under 'Surpass' and change the install paths to reflect them.

The example group shown is Students (you may wish to use Authenticated Users but don't use Everyone) Modify permission to the install directory.

 

I have tested this with a proper SecureAssess test account and it has uploaded. This was using a regular student AD account - local profile on Windows 10.

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