SIMS & Migration to OneDrive HOme Directories

[Kyle]

We have recently moved all home directories from local servers to OneDrive. All is working well but we seem to now have problems running reports in Sims, mainly when exporting to excel. If i preview the report it shows correct data, if i run the report it shows nothing like the data that was in the preview.

 

Do we need to do anything particular now we have moved to OneDrive as far as Sims is concerned?

[psydii]

Its a known undocumented feature.

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/221118-reports-using-old-data-files-onedrive.html

[victory2015]

We just exclude the tempSimsRpt folder in documents in the onedrive settings from syncing and then delete the contents of the folder. This fixes the issue.

[Kyle]

We just exclude the tempSimsRpt folder in documents in the onedrive settings from syncing and then delete the contents of the folder. This fixes the issue.

 

 

Managed to do this individually on certain users but can't find a way to do this on Mass via GPO as the GPO settings only seem to be able to exclude files not folder's.

 

Did you have the same problem?

[victory2015]

Managed to do this individually on certain users but can't find a way to do this on Mass via GPO as the GPO settings only seem to be able to exclude files not folder's.

 

Did you have the same problem?

 

yes afraid so we havent found a solution to roll it out on mass yet

[Boredguy]

We have recently moved all home directories from local servers to OneDrive. All is working well but we seem to now have problems running reports in Sims, mainly when exporting to excel. If i preview the report it shows correct data, if i run the report it shows nothing like the data that was in the preview.

 

Do we need to do anything particular now we have moved to OneDrive as far as Sims is concerned?

We do not sync the temp folder, but we have also recommended that any report that is output as a excel file is altered to generate a CSV instead, as it is just the Excel Macro to convert the outputted text file to the Excel view that is the problem.

 

Generating it as CSV is perfectly fine.

[thimon]

We add the user’s OneDrive c drive folder as a mapped drive. Exporting reports to this drive seems to work fine, no problems reported.

[petben]

We do not sync the temp folder, but we have also recommended that any report that is output as a excel file is altered to generate a CSV instead, as it is just the Excel Macro to convert the outputted text file to the Excel view that is the problem.

 

Generating it as CSV is perfectly fine.

 

 

Hello, I suppose this SIMS reporting error if using OneDrive is still a thing? Can you please clarify is this the folder C:\Users\username\OneDrive - School\Documents\tempSimsRpt

 

Have you found a way to prevent Documents\tempSimsRpt to be excluded from OneDrive syncing globally? REG, GPO?

 

Thanks Boredguy.

[Boredguy]

@petben that folder is correct, but we also contacted our SIMS Support company as they had a newer ReportData.xls file that had the macro updated to point to the OneDrive path that has also seemed to resolve the issue.

Depend

 

I manually copied the file into users areas through the 365 Admin console since trying to push it via GPP resulted in onedrive Sync errors

In our Workstation GPO we do have the OneDrive "Exclude specific kinds of files from being uploaded" set to *desktop.ini to prevent lots of files from every PC the user has logged on to from uploading, but nothing specifically for SIMS, but you could put the ReportData.xls value in there

[victory2015]

@petben that folder is correct, but we also contacted our SIMS Support company as they had a newer ReportData.xls file that had the macro updated to point to the OneDrive path that has also seemed to resolve the issue.

Depend

 

I manually copied the file into users areas through the 365 Admin console since trying to push it via GPP resulted in onedrive Sync errors

In our Workstation GPO we do have the OneDrive "Exclude specific kinds of files from being uploaded" set to *desktop.ini to prevent lots of files from every PC the user has logged on to from uploading, but nothing specifically for SIMS, but you could put the ReportData.xls value in there

 

hi we are having this issue also is there any chance you could pm me the ReportData.xls you have for onedrive?

[petben]

hi we are having this issue also is there any chance you could pm me the ReportData.xls you have for onedrive?

 

Yes and me for the file if it will work. Thanks.

[Kyle]

I'd be interested in that file also please.

[petben]

The official ESS response:

KB0038994

https://customer.support-ess.com/csm?sys_kb_id=9f9128111b0eb410c723edb2b24bcbcb&id=kb_article_view&sysparm_rank=1&sysparm_tsqueryId=e9651d3c1b782150408d8557d34bcbb3

 

"SIMS has not been tested in environment where personal or document folders has been redirected to a OneDrive Setup, at the time of writing there are no plans to test this."

 

Why????????????????????

[psydii]

We should open a ticket with them every time a user hits this problem. Tie up their service desks, hurt their KPI’s.

 

And tweet them calling it out.

 

Every single time.

[petben]

Ive just spoken to ESS, OneDrive support is 'being considered for development' as they are aware many schools now use it. The only advise they can give us is to subscribe to the KB0038994 article (started in 2020, so they've has 3 years to test this so far..) so we can track progress, and for schools to put in development requests to add weight and possibly push things along a bit quicker. It is only when it gets confirmed for development we will get some kind of eta.

[CrootUK]

Hi All,

 

ESS workaround is a joke, will cause nothing but sync issues when working collaboratively.

 

See below for what has worked for us, with no negative impact so far, configured in word/excel options.. also available in gpo.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by CrootUK

[FN-GM]

Why????????????????????

 

Because SIMS is a legacy product that wasn’t designed with cloud in mind. SIMS was dated 10 years ago before OneDrive sync was a thing.

 

Time for a new MIS that supports the modern way of working.

Edited February 2, 2023 by FN-GM

[petben]

Because SIMS is a legacy product that wasn’t designed with cloud in mind. SIMS was dated 10 years ago before OneDrive sync was a thing.

 

Time for a new MIS that supports the modern way of working.

 

 

Maybe yes, but a lot of schools are finding themselves stuck with SIMS for the foreseeable future due to contract/financial reasons, or even just a general staff reluctance to move. My comment is that for ESS to not make some effort (or even test) it's widely used product to make it work better with OneDrive (which has also been around a long time) is inexcusable. From the posts above it seems they could make some minor changes in the way reports run, location of temp etc that would help.

[petben]

Has anyone had any luck excluding My SIMS Documents and tempSimsRpt from the OneDrive sync using GPO 'Exclude specific kinds of files from being uploaded' and wildcards e.g. tempSimsRpt*

 

Surely if they never sync, SIMS will always use the C:\Users version and work happily?

[jakebale]

How did you manage to map the OneDrive C Drive as a drive and tell SIMS to use that? Thank you

[mikeglover]

Does anyone know what ReportData.xls does differently in the fixed version.

I've tested it and it works well on alot of our reports but sadly there is a Achievement Report that was custom made by another member of staff that is very knowledge about custom reports and the fix doesn't work on it.

The member of staff that made the report isn't available and it would have to be the report that all the staff are trying to run at the moment

[bknaggs]

The roadmap for SIMS suggests this problem is to be fixed in the Spring 2024 release.

[mikeglover]

Sadly I can't tell staff to wait for a report until Spring.