SIMS Attedance Marks Deleted

[unmode]

We successfully ran the September update (which may or may not be related to the problem) last Thursday. Everything appeared to be fine.

 

The following day almost at 12pm on the dot all of the attendance marks for lessons disappeared from the system. AM and PM marks were fine.

 

After logging a call with SIMS the only solution that they could come up with was to restore from backup. This worked and everything was back to normal.

 

Come Friday again, however, and 12pm on the dot we have exactly the same issue. All the marks (apart from AM and PM) have been deleted.

 

I've checked with members of staff who could be accidentally causing this and have drawn a blank. A call to SIMS is still being followed up.

 

The only thing I have identified (and I want to make clear that I have no evidence that this is the cause of the problem) is that we have the Keep Kids Safe software running on the server which is the only thing which specifically looks at the attendance marks. After checking logs etc. I have again drawn a blank.

 

Has anyone had a similar problem, or can anyone suggest what may be causing this?

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[PhilNeal]

This sounds very odd indeed. Could something be putting back an old copy of SIMS.DB?

[marekbrad]

Wow so I just get onto the site and get a call that something similar has happened at a school I am working at. It appears that it is more of a random issue here where certain marks are changed for certain students... major issue is that school is under HMI scrutiny for attendance... HELLLLLPPPPPPP!!!!!!

 

update: called sims support they are not aware of an issue: unmode did you log the error with capita support?

Edited October 6, 2008 by marekbrad
update

[unmode]

Just to narrow it down, is your school using Keep Kids Safe?

 

It's slowly becoming apparent that it may be a NOVA - SIMS issue. All of our lessons are showing but in places such as Report Card only AM/PM are showing for students instead of all lessons.

 

Also, in NOVA 4 the timetable was set to a 2005 copy called PRESQL which we have never seen before.

 

The only way I can see this happening is if someone was manually copying a blank timetable across from NOVA to SQL.

 

SIMS can't shed any light on this and it's getting to the point where there have been too many changes to do a restore.

 

Anyone have any other information?

[Mcshammer_dj]

Are you saying that this happens every week on a friday????

[unmode]

It's happened for the last two weeks.

[marekbrad]

Report card all appears to be working fine over here.... The problem seems to be more and more a random student thing and not even the same student each time... ours has only started today by the looks of things and we appear not to be using the keep kids safe stuff

[Mcshammer_dj]

Have you checked on the srver for scheduled activity on or around this time on a friday?

 

set a job to copy the .mdf and ldf to a different location earlier than this has happened, or use a script to backup the database. If you have a fast server this should not take long.

 

Have you checked the event logs for SQL activity of happening on the days (times) in question?

[unmode]

I think I have identified the problem.

 

It appears our timetabler has been exporting a copy of the 2005 timetable from NOVA to SIMS.

 

SIMS haven't explicitly said that this is the problem but it seems pretty likely and they are looking into it further. And, in an amazing strike of karma the timetabler is my line manager who has been perstering me to get this fixed!

[marekbrad]

excellent news... still got the problems here and it is definitely restricted to attendance module... any thoughts guys

[Tonyoung]

Marekbrad - are you using any third party modules that may be writing back to SIMS attendance such as Keep Kids safe or Bromcom ?

[marekbrad]

Now thats a good question Bromcom still in use ... does that affect the SIMS database... still no answer from sims but they have taken a copy of the db to look at.

[PhilNeal]

Bromcom can write back to SIMS.

[marekbrad]

thanks guys I have asked the netmanager to have a look at that.... cheers

[webby74]

Hi All

 

Did you resolve this issue?

 

We had something similar happen yesterday and at a loss to see why.

 

Yesterday morning all marks were added to SIMS. Our Attendants Officer also looked back at last weeks and all fine. Went on to update yesterday afternoons marks and that mornings had gone and as well as Thursdays and Fridays!

 

SIMS team say that it was down to the academic year change. But we it had been changed by our SIMS manager but had no effect data still gone.

 

Has anyone one got any ideas?

[ticker]

We have also had this issue, marks were there this morning but when attendance officer came to edit marks before dinner they had gone.

 

A couple of strange things we cannot get it to populate the edit marks section of SIMS and morning registration class are not appearing but academic class are.

 

I have since discovered that the exams officer did roll over to the new academic year and then back again? Could this have been a factor

 

I have spoken to our local LEA support team and they are investigating.

 

Anyone any ideas!!!!!

[ticker]

*edit*

Resolved this issue, some one had ticked the two boxes in module setup in Attendance setup setting the date range outside of this year. This made the edit marks and morning registration class in lesson monitor disappear.