Sims, spawn of the devil i tell you

[dezt]

What a week, 2 days off work ill, then when I get back there's a nice brown envolope waiting for me, Sims .net September upgrade......

 

Shouldn't be too bad I think. i've done these before.

 

2 days later and now Sims .net won't do anything interesting, the database version is wrong and it doesn't look like it updated the database last night, so there is no backup, but when I go to check for updates there are none.

 

I get an error when I go to student details, click on the web help button next to the error code you might say, tried it, the answer i get is "sorry can't help"

 

What a waste of computer power.

 

Well, that's my rant about Sims done with.

 

Just heard that the possible reason it wasn't working was because their might not have been enough disk space.

 

A simple message would have helped a lot.

[bossman]

I have just had 2 weeks of hell racking my brains with the Sims as the latest update srewed our SQL database. But to be fair Capita have rallied to the occasion and come up with a patch for me which has been tested on my copied database and works a treat. These things happen with all software, it just takes time to get things working correctly all the time with all the number of people accessing the database i find it is going to cock up once in a while to me it is the service afterwards that gives you an indication whether it is worth carrying on.

[kingswood]

SIMS. Is. "Nice".

 

Sounds like I am not alone in the two exhausting weeks I have had too. And that was with a patch applied over the summer and re-introduction of a server by .ICT that completely mashed up our admin network. And that's not mentioning that it never used to be my job but on becoming "senior" systems manager they have dumped me with the whole bloody lot! So even though I have had nothing to do with the management of the SIMS network- everyone blames me for inheriting something that doesn't work.

 

Schools are mad. So I went mad. I told the Head it needs re-installing (which to my surprise .ICT are leaning towards now). Hehehe. Apparently the server hasn't been defragged for two years; it only has less than 1GB on the C: partition and our SQL database at nearly 60MB in size is *way* too big. Apparently.

 

And now I'm going on some nice SIMS courses to bring myself right up to speed. Damn.

 

Anyone need a technician?

[Jake]

I truly. truly cannot stand SIMS, it has to be one of the worst pieces of software I have ever encountered. Its not in the least bit surprising to me that when the people who had "bunged" money at the labour party was revealed, the chairman (or was it CEO, I forget) of Capita was on the list having "donated" £1 million.

 

I have come to believe that SIMS stands for "Shit In My Systems"

[CyberNerd]

Sims, spawn of the devil i tell you

 

Not suprising since Capita is a Microsoft Partner

[bossman]

I suspect that not many of you like "Capita" and their sharp business practises. Well what would anyone else suggest as an improvement on Sims.net? i hear all you people crying out loud for an answer! . I have not seen anything else that does the job without any problems.

[broc]

I don't think Capita and SIMS.net are any worse than many other software suppliers/products that we have to deal with in the education market place.

[woody]

Just to say I ran the September upgrade with no problems. Sims may not offer the most fantastic MIS that we would all like, but none of the alternatives are perfect either.

 

What SIMS do offer in most localities, is a first rate support service, usually local, who sort things out when they go wrong.

[wesleyw]

60mb? Mines 600mb! As for SIMS Spet update I only had problems when I realised I hadn't got enough space on c: to install it! I think I'll look at installing the sims server again this time with a bigger disk lol!

 

Wes

[CyberNerd]

I suspect that not many of you like "Capita" and their sharp business practises. Well what would anyone else suggest as an improvement on Sims.net? i hear all you people crying out loud for an answer! . I have not seen anything else that does the job without any problems.

 

IMO with the amount of money our LEA's individually pump into Capita (33000 schools in UK?) all paying large amounts to Capita/SERCO for SIMS/CMIS the government would be much better off puting a *fraction* of this money towards employing software developers to improve existing OSS developments such as FreeMis, Sciooltool etc

[Jake]

I still expect better from a supposed professional piece of software. I havent checked any alternatives (cause I cant be arsed and its not my place to do so anyway), but to say that its not so bad because others are poor too seems like a silly view. A professional piece of software should be as good as it can be, not merely as good as anyone elses.

 

Everyone here strives to have the best possible network, we dont sit back and say..well it will do running like that cause its still better than other networks, so thats ok. Capita should be doing the same.

 

The support in our area is "ok", its not fantastic...but its definately not poor either. Having said that, if the product was running well enough , the support would be a nonfactor anyway. I personally wouldnt buy a poor car and be satisfied because its got a good maintenance agreement, I would set out to buy a decent car in the first place.

[TechMonkey]

Just to say I ran the September upgrade with no problems. Sims may not offer the most fantastic MIS that we would all like, but none of the alternatives are perfect either.

 

What SIMS do offer in most localities, is a first rate support service, usually local, who sort things out when they go wrong.

 

Quick he is possessed. Grab him and get a Priest!!!!

 

I am still smouldering that we choose SIMS over CMIS a while back when we had the chance to change (though I understand the reasoning and that it does have it problems too) and then that we choose Lesson Monitor over Pars. As much as Lesson Monitor 'works' it just seems awkward, unintelligent and less feature rich.

 

That is my main gripe. Sims does 'work', but it just seems never to do what expected, even Capita seem suprised when you mention what things do or should do, and is just not a great application to use (the almighty user friendly interface). Then it takes 6 months to fix it which then introduces more problems.

 

Grrrr, now I'm going to have to sit in a dark room for a while.

[broc]

I suspect that not many of you like "Capita" and their sharp business practises. Well what would anyone else suggest as an improvement on Sims.net? i hear all you people crying out loud for an answer! . I have not seen anything else that does the job without any problems.

 

IMO with the amount of money our LEA's individually pump into Capita (33000 schools in UK?) all paying large amounts to Capita/SERCO for SIMS/CMIS the government would be much better off puting a *fraction* of this money towards employing software developers to improve existing OSS developments such as FreeMis, Sciooltool etc

 

The Government would probably give the contract to manage the project to EDS, Capita, or RM, & then where would we be?

[woody]

IMO with the amount of money our LEA's individually pump into Capita (33000 schools in UK?) all paying large amounts to Capita/SERCO for SIMS/CMIS the government would be much better off puting a *fraction* of this money towards employing software developers to improve existing OSS developments such as FreeMis, Sciooltool etc

 

You could say that about all areas of privatization that have occurred in the Government. It's less hastle to pay for someone else to do the job for you, with the added benefit that you get to blame them if it all goes horribly wrong. (Look at the shambles of the NHS IT infrastructure to name just one example.)

[bossman]

Jake

I personally wouldnt buy a poor car and be satisfied because its got a good maintenance agreement, I would set out to buy a decent car in the first place.

 

well even RollsRoyce's breakdown and quite a lot more than you would know as they have a good setup for recovering these vehicles. Nothing these days surprises me as everyone wants everything like yesterday so we have to expect glitches in everything.

[woody]

Just to say I ran the September upgrade with no problems. Sims may not offer the most fantastic MIS that we would all like, but none of the alternatives are perfect either.

 

What SIMS do offer in most localities, is a first rate support service, usually local, who sort things out when they go wrong.

 

Quick he is possessed. Grab him and get a Priest!!!!

 

I am still smouldering that we choose SIMS over CMIS a while back when we had the chance to change (though I understand the reasoning and that it does have it problems too) and then that we choose Lesson Monitor over Pars. As much as Lesson Monitor 'works' it just seems awkward, unintelligent and less feature rich.

 

That is my main gripe. Sims does 'work', but it just seems never to do what expected, even Capita seem suprised when you mention what things do or should do, and is just not a great application to use (the almighty user friendly interface). Then it takes 6 months to fix it which then introduces more problems.

 

Grrrr, now I'm going to have to sit in a dark room for a while.

 

LOL.

 

In Cumbria, two or three schools have gone for CMIS over the past few years. As far as I know, (In one instance I know for certain - just ask Stewart Knight. In the other instance, it's what I've heard off the grape vine) the schools have had terrible problems with CMIS. All support is telephone based - there is no Local Help desk like SIMS have which means a lot when you are in Cumbria. They have found the software to be buggy. And because CMIS adapts greatly to the individual school running it, support is difficult to keep consistent.

 

On the other hand, my brother works for a school in Rochadale and has written his own web front end to give the staff what info they want out of the CMIS SQL DB. You can't really do that with SIMS.

 

My point being, if you have someone with enough knowledge and time to get CMIS running and tailored to your school - Great. But what if that person then leaves? If you run into problems, Tech Support can't help because they don't know how the system has been adapted for your school. It takes them a lot longer to get to the route of a problem.

 

I am not speaking from personal experience, so correct me if I am wrong.

[Jake]

well even RollsRoyce's breakdown and quite a lot more than you would know as they have a good setup for recovering these vehicles. Nothing these days surprises me as everyone wants everything like yesterday so we have to expect glitches in everything.

 

Obviously everything has glitches, but even so, I still wouldnt buy something which is poor and be happy that its got good maintenance. I would just buy something of better quality in the first place. Maybe thats just me, but thats how I am, I like to buy decent quality stuff rather than poor slop which is well supported.

 

To use a software analogy, I would rather buy a decent game, which has limited patches, than buy a lesser game which has regular patches. Likewise I would rather buy a decent Office suite, which has less support, than buy a poorer alternative which has decent support. I am more interested in the quality of the original product than how well it gets supported when it breaks, as with a superior product it should be less inclined to break in the first place (although as you rightly say, a glitch of some kind is usually inevitable at some point)

[bossman]

I fully concur with what you are saying Jake but that does not give us any answers to our problems does it. What i think everyone is hoping for is that Sims.net does and will become more and more friendly as the upgrades go. Plus who knows the real difference between good and bad software anymore unless you are a professional software builder. it all comes down to individuals choice and if everyone chose just one piece of software as apposed to many then i feel we would not get the experience of being able to compare which is precisely what we are doing here. So instead of us bleating about bad software we should maybe look at it's good qualities and then try to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

[Jake]

True..my mistake, I didnt mean to come over as bleating, I just meant to discuss SIMS, to partake in a discussion not necessarily come up with answers.

 

I should say that my thoughts on SIMS are entirely my own, and do not represent the views of any others. For the difference between good and bad software, you are right..I guess that comes down to whether its good or bad from the viewpoint of the individual using it. I am sure there are some schools around the country for whom SIMS runs largely flawlessly, and who thus think its a terrific piece of software. For me I have had troubles with it for 6 years or so, had troubles with its old DOS incarnation, and its new fangled .Net version. So you can see why my viewpoint on it is somewhat..tainted

 

Anyway, thats where I am coming from, I shall leave this discussion now to others who can look at SIMS good qualities somewhat more objectively than I

[webman]

... its old DOS incarnation, and its new fangled .Net version.

 

Same thing isn't it? 8)

[Disease]

From our point of view (jake and mine) sims.net is crap. I think it all boils down to how much you use the software and at our school we use all aspects of it far more than other schools (Capita's Words not mine).

 

We get out SIMS support through our LEA which is crap as well, so all in all there are more negative factors to sims than positive, but hey it's still in beta.

[_Bob_]

A new Edugeek project perhaps? An open source SIMs replacement, or at perhaps a few members should get involved with schooltool or FreeMIS?

 

 

[webman]

I just cannot get my head round Ruby on Rails (FreeMIS) 8O I tried... I really did

[woody]

A new Edugeek project perhaps? An open source SIMs replacement, or at perhaps a few members should get involved with schooltool or FreeMIS?

 

 

 

Hands up who's SMT and Governors will agree to adopt a MIS that is largely untested, unsupported and 'no garantees it will work properly' as opposed to SIMS or CMIS or whatever currently paid for MIS they use.

 

And is it worth it to take on board the support implications that any school will expect if they trial such a system?

[CyberNerd]

Hands up who's SMT and Governors will agree to adopt a MIS that is largely untested, unsupported and 'no garantees it will work properly' as opposed to SIMS or CMIS or whatever currently paid for MIS they use.

 

And is it worth it to take on board the support implications that any school will expect if they trial such a system?

 

Same argument for Moodle,Ubuntu,FF,OpenOffice,apache,samba etc but many schools do.

OSS MIS systems just need some investment.