[sims] Office 2010 compatibility?

[Kyle]

Got 3 of us running 2010 ans so far no problems with anything. One of the users is the Sims manager and has had no problems with any reports yet as i know if, in fact he says it runs much quicker.

 

Planning on rolling it out to all our key Sims admin staff after half term. Will keep you informed.

[vikpaw]

I sitll can't get 2007 templates into my reports. That would seem to imply a failure to support 2007 fully, let alone 2010.

 

Having said that I'm eagerly awaiting some keys so I can install 2010.

 

It's been supported since the 2007 release. Search SupportNet for Office 2007 and there are lots of KB articles.

 

I only recently moved, and have had no problems, though i think for a different issue, needed to run a patch which helps with these things. Check out KB74060 and KB74345, though the issue may not apply to you, having the patch and the updated template files should solve your problems.

 

I'm assuming you'll need that fixed before you can get close to working with 2010.

 

Got 3 of us running 2010 ans so far no problems with anything. One of the users is the Sims manager and has had no problems with any reports yet as i know if, in fact he says it runs much quicker.

 

Planning on rolling it out to all our key Sims admin staff after half term. Will keep you informed.

 

Would you please ask one of your users to try a mailmerge report. I know that the only supported template files in SIMS are .dot, but i can't even get one of them to work.

 

On clicking EDIT it just says "Error: Command failed" but it's working fine on 2007.

 

On clicking NEW i get "Error: This command is not available because no document is open."

 

On clicking OPEN and choosing a locally stored .dot file i get "Error: Office has detected a problem with this file. To help protect your computer this file cannot be opened.

(C:\Users\pawv\...\ReportMailmerge.doc)" for labels or "Error: Command failed" for standardlandscape.dot

 

(

 

 

I want to rule out permissions, which i'm having trouble with on the Win7 box, so am going to start a setup with office 2010 on an XP box.

Edited May 25, 2010 by vikpaw
clarify and add errors

[vikpaw]

I've got this spreadsheet that's supposed to help with the migration and it mentions that under mailmerge certain things have been 'removed from product', i wonder if that has an effect...? If it's part of the SIMS macro that sets up the document...

 

It's a really useful spreadsheet for training though

Reference_Word_2003_to_Word_20101.xlsx

[John_Howarth]

Although we haven't formally tested it yet, I've been using SIMS with the Office 2010 Beta for quite a few months now - and without incident.

 

That said, I won't be recommending it to my supported schools until Capita give the green light!

[karls5]

Office 2010 and Sims seem fine together, trialling it on about machines at the mo. However one issue we have is Outlook 2010 doesn't seem to like Public Folders which have Home pages assigned to them, it just won't display them. We have a Public Folder setup with displays a web page to Room bookings assigned to it. We have Exchange 2007.

 

Trying to find a Solution. Anyone else had this? We've tried creating a new one within Outlook 2010 but you get the same issue, on the home page tab the Show Home page is greyed out.

[featured_spectre]

See we have had issues with our sims (When creating Reports, columns get missed off, CSV Export files missing information etc), and until capita get it sorted, I am not gonna bother putting it on ANY machines. When its ready, I will be pushing it site wide.

[vikpaw]

Anyone else having problems or anything else to report.

I've found that users with roaming profiles keep getting spurious errors, like they can preview an individual report and then print, but not print directly.

Also mailmerge reports don't work as mentioned before.

Can't get late letters to work either, i guess as it's a mailmerge.

Not sure if it is roaming profiles or just permissions, but in testing, a domain admin with roaming profile can't do some stuff whereas the regular admin account that has no profile can.

I fear we may have messed up a little when migrating from XP to Win7 so the profiles are a little funny.

Edited October 11, 2010 by vikpaw
typo

[teejay]

We've had problems with Assessment Manager throwing errors and have had to roll back the Data Managers machine of Office 2007 to fix the problem. No issues anywhere else though, we've been running 2010 since the start of term.

[CAM]

Vik, I have come accross similar issues here. RTF Reports are a no go, Individual Reports don't work and according to SupportNet forums it isn't supported still.

[creese]

The question was asked at the Software Update Seminar at Coventry, should Capita move to 2010 or continue with 2003?. A quiet seminar but most said stay with 2003. I can't see many schools (Primary) rushing to 2010.

[GREED]

I would guess part of it has to do with the cost, a good number (not primary usually) are on schools agreement with Microsoft and so have access to the new software essentially free of charge.

 

Aware the biggy is the new-ish interface, but schools I have worked with (and in) often adopt the new versions quicker than some think, if they have access to it.

[creese]

IAware the biggy is the new-ish interface, but schools I have worked with (and in) often adopt the new versions quicker than some think, if they have access to it.

 

Our Primaries moving from 2003 to 2007/10 with the ribbon would be a nightmare to support. I have enough trouble finding things in 2007 as an occasional user.

[featured_spectre]

I find the ribbon much easier to work, as do the children. They find it far easier as it is more visual for them.

[GREED]

Our Primaries moving from 2003 to 2007/10 with the ribbon would be a nightmare to support. I have enough trouble finding things in 2007 as an occasional user.

 

In my previous life we had a massive headache when we did the move over a summer without letting staff know!

 

Training all of a sudden became a love of my life!!!

[creese]

I find the ribbon much easier to work, as do the children. They find it far easier as it is more visual for them.

 

Must be an age thing. Mine's due to increase Saturday.

[Sivadam]

I find the ribbon much easier to work, as do the children. They find it far easier as it is more visual for them.

 

Even better with 2010 now that there is a File Tab on the Toolbar.

It ain't supported for SIMS til Spring tho'!

[GREED]

Yes, just to confuse matters with File menu in 2003!

[vikpaw]

Vik, I have come accross similar issues here. RTF Reports are a no go, Individual Reports don't work and according to SupportNet forums it isn't supported still.

 

We can generate Ind. Reps okay, but bulk printing seemed to fail, though that's a win 7 permissions thing i think. Editing the template is a defo no-no. RTFs are gonna be a pain as i rely on those a lot, especially since mail merge is not working.

 

Spring looks like the time but that's a long way off. You better keep a few Office 2007 machines to edit your templates, else you're really not gonna be happy with your reporting!

 

I find both Office 2007 and 2010 hard to deal with, but don't use them that often, so it's frustrating when i'm looking for buttons i'm used to. Those that use it all the time, are now used to the more intuitive layout. Plus there are the help docs like the one i posted earlier to help with the transition.

[vikpaw]

Must be an age thing. Mine's due to increase Saturday.

 

Happy earth day ... ???

[sjatkn]

Has anyone tried Sims and Office 2010?

 

We're running it here on a few machines and its superb but I'm a bit reluctant to roll it out to the office staff if its going to cause problems with Sims.

 

We received this message from our County SIMS support team "We have noticed recently that some schools have rolled out Microsoft Office 2010 which has been causing issues when running reports from SIMS .net. After further investigation we have found that Office 2010 is not compatible with the current versions of SIMS .net due to changes that Microsoft have made to areas used to merge the data from SIMS .net into the office documents."

 

I am still running Office 2003 and am likely to leave it like that for a while.

[GeneralDreedle]

We started out with SIMS this year and had Office 2010 and Windows 7 to contend with too. We've already had funnies in anything that uses Word automation. Late Letters don't get up the right list of events. Now, after struggling uphill all term and finally rushing to knock up some student reports using Assessment/ Individual Reports it just crashes SIMS all the time. So you guys are telling me that

a) Windows 2010 wasn't supported until the Autumn release so I was probably doomed from the start.

b) Office 2010 is still not supported and has known incompatibilities (Is it adopted in Autumn release - I can see no reference in Release Notes?). So I'm still indefinitely stuffed.

Is there any way round to get some reports out for kids?

[localzuk]

Office 2010 isn't being supported until next year.

 

Your only option is to roll back to Office 2007.

[vikpaw]

@generaldreedle Depending on your error there are some workarounds for running reports on SupportNet. Not fixed late letters issue yet but as it's a mailmerge that is probably gonna be a pain.

 

I've given the upper school assessment chappie a VM with office 2007 to run reports on. Most other users can get on fine.

[zag]

We had to roll back to 2007 as well, pretty ridiculous that they can't be bothered to fix this for 6 months.

 

They should have used the release candidate and got it ready for release really.

Edited December 3, 2010 by zag

[localzuk]

We had to roll back to 2007 as well, pretty ridiculous that they can't be bothered to fix this for 6 months.

 

They should have used the release candidate and got it ready 6 for release really.

 

Phil Neal stated somewhere that they don't work with RC software as it is liable to change (ignoring the fact that Microsoft release policy is that RC is near enough release quality, but with extra bugs, and that no major features will be changed).