det Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 Hi, I new to SIMS and new to this forum so please excuse if I look and act like a newbie! I have been given the fun task of getting the Attendance module up and running in school, but there is an issue that I don't fully get. When I click on a lesson on my time-line it throws up a class list for that group and it looks like I can take a register. But when I hit the / key it ignores it - the register appears to be R/O. However, if I select 'Take Register' i get my am/pm sessions and I can take a register. The SIMS chappy reckons that the Attendance module will only allow am/pm registrations and that we need to buy Lesson Monitor if we want to register any class during the day. Is this true or is he trying to con the school out of £7k;) Dave
jcollings Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 Yep - Lesson monitor costs - mind you it wasn't 7k for us! 1
Sivadam Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 It is certainly a lot less than the figure quoted above!
det Posted October 12, 2009 Author Posted October 12, 2009 We were told £5k for the module, £1k for installation and £2k/year for 'maintenance'. Why does it need maintaining - is it so crap? Still can't believe Attendance displays a register that you can't take - surely its just a permissions thing?
Jamman960 Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 (edited) The annoying thing with Attendance is that it'll do Am reg groups & PM lessons for OMR sheets but won't work when your taking it within sims. You can however register by sets via Focus > Attendance > Edit marks and then choose academic groups rather than registration groups followed by finding the class you wish to register(will double check tomorrow) - its a very long winded way of doing it but it works. Also its not attendance showing the timeline/teaching groups via the timeline its NovaT that adds that functionality, without NovaT you'd just see AM and PM registration on the timeline. Edited October 12, 2009 by Jamman960 1
Jeremy69 Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 We were told £5k for the module, £1k for installation and £2k/year for 'maintenance'. Why does it need maintaining - is it so crap? If you bought it I don't see why you couldn't install it and configure it yourself. Maintenance means a. upgrades. b ability to talk to support if there are problems amongst other things and is paid for all modules including the ones you already have. 1
Sivadam Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 (edited) The inital cost is probably just a one off and you can then use it for ever, so the real cost per annum is then just over £2k. It is so long since we bought into it I cannot remember if we had to make such a large payment for the initial purchase. Installing is quite easy! Edited October 13, 2009 by Sivadam 1
f21970 Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 Just install it yourself - I did & I'm no SIMS expert. It's just like installing a standard upgrade, only for us it didn't come down on SOLUS as we only get what is authorised by the LEA. Saves a grand.
ChrisH Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 5k and 2 k for us as well. The lack of it means we do OMR registration on Wednesday because it is a shorter day and their is no form periods so it is done P1 and P4. Right pain is the arse. We will get lesson monitor eventually.
jcollings Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 I think we paid about 5K but no install fee. Go to say we've never looked back - it identifies so many little issues such as post registration truancy very quickly and easily. It's really helped us hammer attendance issues.
bossman Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 @det: Lesson monitor just works great, we take register morning and afternoon sessions and it works flawlessly.
vikpaw Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 about 5k, 2k on-going costs. no install - received a patch to activate, then applied with dbupgrade. but, you are supposedly obligated to do their training in order for them to release the patch and then support you. i just read the manual. it's awesome, i'm just trying to get my head around all the reports and links. it also makes using behaviour management module easy as loggin incidents good or bad is only 3-4 clicks from register screen. plus soon we'll link to marksheets and lesson plans on the fly too. don't ask, just haggle them a bit it and buy it. i think we bought mid-year so maintenance costs were pro-rata. You have to pay for maintenance immediately on purchase. the best thing is if a teacher forgets to do the register i can send them a message from the home page which makes SIMS squeal next time they log in!
CAM Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 Don't forget you can combine it with the homepage panels for live updates on the attendance of anything from an entire Year Group down to an individual troublesome pupil.
Sivadam Posted October 13, 2009 Posted October 13, 2009 Ain't SIMS wonderful when set up correctly ...............!?! 1
kxv2020 Posted October 14, 2009 Posted October 14, 2009 I think Lesson Monitor (v7) is great ... links from Behaviour, Assessment and Student Profile! The problem is getting staff to fill it in on time (sometimes they forget!).
Sivadam Posted October 14, 2009 Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) Try bombarding them with Missing Register Messages. If that fails then set a Senior Manager on to them. It helps if you have a couple of the fierce variety! And why just single out LM7 for praise? ALL of SIMS is great! Any issues on the system nowadays are annoying but pale into insignificance when you consider what it can do successfully! Such anomalies normally occur in new features anyway which are then looked at with later updates. Edited October 14, 2009 by Sivadam
kxv2020 Posted October 14, 2009 Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) @sivadam I really I believe that Sims.net is great. I've been working for a school who uses CMIS/facility recently and it just makes Sims.net look fantastic!! I'll don't know why people would move to Facility. A question ... does Sims.net allow one DB and application for "all-age" schools/academies - this could be a major factor I believe!! Edited October 14, 2009 by kxv2020
Sivadam Posted October 14, 2009 Posted October 14, 2009 We have such a school in Sheffield which, I believe, uses SIMS.
vikpaw Posted October 16, 2009 Posted October 16, 2009 @kiran - What do you mean by 'all-age'? We cater from creche up to 18 year olds, but there's no reason why we couldn't cope with the upper limit being 50+, apart from needing masses of NAS to store all the data!
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