Facility CMIS 2.8 build 34

[danIT]

If you based in a birmingham school, cant you just obtain the manuals off the install CD for eportal? was ther nothing on the upgrade CD?

 

if not http://www.bgfl.org/services/itcmis

 

although i bet the manuals have not been updated yet.

[Lee_K_81]

hi all,

long time listener, first time poster..

 

Had to chip in when i saw all this Cmis talk. Its usually a serious gripe for us at our school, the look on the office managers face when she announces "Census Time" !! But the newest update ( i say update, its a bloody cheek, reload more like!) went straight on, no hicups. And after four days still no issues, in the past we've spent days on the phones to the helpline.

Just wanted to let people know, its not been a complete bag-o-crap everywhere.

 

As a side thought, does anyone know where i can get some Eportal manual/instructions/etc..?

 

Run.... It's a Serco Spy :-) Sorry DanH, you must be the only person in the country who hasnt had an issue. Our accounts dept cant do anything. Printing orders wont work and neither will authorising payments!

[CheeseDog]

Same here accounts is the big problem at the moment as most of the reports don't work. (I think we have over 100 custom reports in finance alone)

 

Also still got probs with attendance and mixed year groups.

 

On the brighter side school census seemed to go ok today, but I was expecting that bit to be right.

 

The fun will start now census is out of the way. :twisted:

[kylewilliamson]

We've had one problem, in that when you attempt to run the Events Entry Screen from the pupil dashboard, you get a nasty java error. Bout it though.

 

Kyle

[DanH]

**UPDATE [FROM SPY] **

 

Register's dont scan -simple, resetup OMR

Around 30 pupils decided to 'leave' mysteriously immediately after the install - yet still decided to attend our school, how gracious of them!

All not deleted but 'left' teachers (not support staff though) all immediately decided to take back their old posts. (really scared our office manager, when she saw the wages bill!!!) - ticked back left, and has since stayed that way...

 

seems i may have been too early to defend Facility..

[WATTYUK]

not realy much to say other then CMIS is totaly cack!!!!

[Lee_K_81]

**UPDATE [FROM SPY] **

 

Register's dont scan -simple, resetup OMR

......

seems i may have been too early to defend Facility..

 

Resetting the OMR attendance associations didnt work for us, Link2ICT have changed their message to say there is still a prob with it and they are trying to find a solution. I just hope serco take not and dont release anything this bad again.

 

@DanH: lol, never defend CMIS, just when you think it's fine, Bam, hits you with the most annoying error! Better just to have low expectations of it. then when it lets you down you dont get depressed (too much)!

[Diello]

DFeS and contract hours lost, AuditTrail causes ePortal to lock up like never before, error messages that mean diddly squat during SLASC.

 

All in all, a nightmare.

[tosca925]

Yep, we are still having all sorts of silly problems which i could type here and fill half a page.

 

Your not on your own, but if you phone support you will spend hours on the phone feeling you are.............................!

[kylewilliamson]

Had a lovely problem with Exams today - Science Modular codes. On the board submission file, it ended up with a student from a totally different module and year (almost) going to the board. One who'd left, too.

 

Not sure if this is just normal CMIS, or because of the upgrade. We'll see.

[prof_cuckoo]

'CMIS'? Don't talk to me about CMIS.

 

We have had to scrap our year 11 reports and meeting with parents - after they had been invited. Maybe some of our Y11 pupils like SERCO - because they're getting a day off school thanks to Facility 2.80 b(otch) 34.

 

My major worry is that there is some pressure building within my school to 'lash out' at SERCO by switching to 'other' solutions for attendance/assessment/reporting/timetabling etc.

 

Those out there using more than one MIS: How practical do you find this approach and how do you ensure each contains up-to-date data?

[Lee_K_81]

We only use CMIS as an MIS, but our SEN department use Senco Manager (which is very very VERY poor), and for discipline they use Sleuth, which is average at best. Neither tie in with CMIS particularly well. Every year we have to run a list report of pupils so we can import into both these apps. plus there's the drips and drabs that come in throughout the school year. Senco Manager only allows one password, which is VERY annoying when somebody decides to change it!

 

NOTE: opinion is based on design (basic front end on an access database) other tech aspects. Functionality maybe ok for people who use them.

[CheeseDog]

 

Those out there using more than one MIS: How practical do you find this approach and how do you ensure each contains up-to-date data?

 

We did this when we switched to CMIS in 2003 whilst staff were being trained and while we waited for the finance module.

 

It's was a bit of a nightmare to be honest mainly due to staff not bothering to learn the new system.

 

In terms of consistency nothing clever was done admin just entered the data twice (most of the time ). The setup at the time only had 2 computers on SIMS.

 

The finance switch over was SIMS one day CMIS the next with no overlap. Allthough running FMS and CMIS side by side didn't cause any big issues

 

Obviously consistency is easier to keep track of from a primary schools point of view though.

[prof_cuckoo]

In terms of consistency nothing clever was done admin just entered the data twice (most of the time ).

 

Yep. I had a feeling you'd say that ...

[kylewilliamson]

Our admin staff did this too. In terms of Finance, we went from FMS to the LEA's SAP implementation at the start of a financial year.

[Lee_K_81]

Sorry to drag this topic up again but thought i'd give you all the heads up:

our IT services have warned us not to create the 2007/2008 financial year in build 2.80. I believe the problem lies in that no ledger codes are created. I also understand that a new upgrade should be with us sometime in the next few weeks. Oh joy! I doubt this problem is local to Birmingham schools but i would suggest checking with your own IT services.

 

Good luck!

[kxv2020]

'CMIS'? Don't talk to me about CMIS.

 

We have had to scrap our year 11 reports and meeting with parents - after they had been invited. Maybe some of our Y11 pupils like SERCO - because they're getting a day off school thanks to Facility 2.80 b(otch) 34.

 

My major worry is that there is some pressure building within my school to 'lash out' at SERCO by switching to 'other' solutions for attendance/assessment/reporting/timetabling etc.

 

Those out there using more than one MIS: How practical do you find this approach and how do you ensure each contains up-to-date data?

 

Can you not just move to SIMS... it far better now

[kylewilliamson]

Had an email from Serco Learning tonight. Grovelling, but offering free reporting conversion workshops in the next few weeks.

 

Kyle

[LabRatt]

This is my first post, and I feel bad that it's such a bitchy one, but what can you do? I trotted over after someone on the Serco "forums" mentioned this place, and you look like a good bunch so far.

 

Anyway, my problems with Facility. We were one of the test cases, installing the upgrade as soon as it was released (yeah, I know, I should know better) and so being one of the first to report the various problems, and the frustrating thing for me is that, despite emailing a detailed technical analysis of what's going wrong and why it's not my fault, the problem list on their website doesn't even list our problems!

 

The main trouble here is with reporting. We're an independent school, but we use Hebron for the financial side of things and all the exam preparation work was done before the upgrade, so it's just the applicants that's causing us trouble. Of course, now is the only time of the year we deal with applicants, so that trouble's big. I know that the Applicant system's never worked properly, but over the years we've evolved tricks and procedures to get around the problems, and it still seems to work fine. Within Facility, that is - as soon as we try to get data out with a report (which we use as checklists and, most importantly, every letter sent to parents regarding the success or otherwise of their little darlings) then none of the information comes out.

 

There was the same trouble with assessment OMR sheets - the right number of rows printed, but I can only tell because the comma between the first and surnames is printed; the names themselves aren't. That renders the sheets useless, but it's not much of a problem because we can enter results through the ePortal.

 

There was other stuff too - Daily absence reports were printing every absence a girl had ever had (so a report for about 40 girls ran to about 300 pages), there were some other attendance reports, and more things that were so quick to fix I can't even remember them.

 

We've had emails coming in from Serco apologising, including the one someone else mentioned offering a reporting course, but nothing that makes me happy. Except the line "We are finalising a new issue of the software which will undergo rigorous testing before being made available to schools" - there's a tacit confession that they didn't bother testing the first release if there ever was one.

 

With all these problems I've been reduced to using Word mailmerges from an Access database that's linked to the SQL server. It's not pretty, and it's taking up far too much of my time to work around the problems, but it's getting the job done.

 

If you're interested, I installed the latest build on my laptop with an offline copy of the database in SQL Server 2005 Express and logged all the queries that the application made. The verdict - it's asking for, and getting, all the right information. The problem in this case is presumably the filtering system, and my guess is it's a simple logic error in the new code. I've offered to fix it (the suggestion's been made before, too) but they won't release the source code.

 

One good thing's come of this - I'm much more familiar now with that dogs dinner of a database they use but refuse to document...

 

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Hmm, my first post turned into a rant. I'm not always like this, honestly...

[maniac]

I've had nothing but trouble since the installation of the upgrade.

 

Initially E-portal was really messing around, locking up, being extreeemly slow to do anything, and really messing staff around trying to submit report data. We've solved this now by installing E-Portal on it's own dedicated server (we were very fortunite to have a spare server just sitting there) and running it in apache insted of IIS (honestly it runs sooo much smoother)

 

CMIS on the other hand, what a nightmare. When we try running virtually any report, it gives us a table lock error, except the table isn't locked. Have spent hours of my time on the phone to serco support, who were very helpful in trying to solve the problem, although not the sympathetic, their final response being that we'll "have to wait for the next upgrade at the end of February for this issue to be fixed" Great!

 

We have discovered however that the first user who logs in of a morning can run these reports, so obviously the table is being locked by the first logged in user, except that no where is it reporting a locked table. Very weird. Serco know about all this, and apparently we're not the only school with this problem.

 

Just thought I'd add my 2p into the equation.

 

Mike.

[Kained]

CMIS *doesnt it just give you that shudder down your back like if someone walks over your grave*

 

CMIS / ePortal is the baine of my existance, constant problems, Attendance always has an issue, from not working at all to incorrect data to wrong codes.

 

Assessment Data - ePortal hates submitting any data at all by any user ever, the only person it seems to work for is me, so when i test something i always get told " you must have changed something" or "it didnt do that for me", i know theres problems but there seems to be nothing i can do to resolve the issue.

 

Reports, one day a report will work the next it wont.

 

Cover - When it works its not a problem as one person does it, the problem becomes is when it doesnt hes high up in the school, so i know about it.

 

But my biggest gripe of all is, I HAD JUST GOT IT RIGHT THINGS WERE WORKING MAYBE SLOW SOMETIMES BUT STILL THEY WORKED, so all i ask is name the guy in serco that wanted to make my life hell ? i want to meet him.

 

ePortal - Red, i mean red and white, i mean why just why *sigh*, on the plus they are in style sheets so this is easily changed i have attached the blue with modified pictures to this post for those who arent confident with css, you will have to modify the Gartree blue swop it with your name in a simple image editor.

 

Oh and hi to all of you, just wanted to vent some of my annoyances to someone other than a serco support representative.

 

Jason Bagley

The Gartree Community School

gartreestyles.zip

[maniac]

Assessment Data - ePortal hates submitting any data at all by any user ever, the only person it seems to work for is me, so when i test something i always get told " you must have changed something" or "it didnt do that for me", i know theres problems but there seems to be nothing i can do to resolve the issue.

 

 

I urge you (if you're not already) to try running it from apache instead of IIS (I presume it's running in IIS now of course!) It should already be setup on your server as when you install E-Portal it also installs and sets up apache webserver as well. All you need do is access it on port 8080 insted of port 80 which is used by default. e.g "http://servername:8080/eportal" and it will be served from apache insted of IIS.

 

This solved all of our e-portal problems including problems submitting report data and problems with registration, and has been very reliable for the last 2 weeks now (I don't think we've had a single complaint!) it also doesn't ever seem to fall over like it does in IIS when you have to stop and restart the services to sort it out.

 

Mike.

[steve]

CMIS *doesnt it just give you that shudder down your back like if someone walks over your grave*

 

Makes a nice change people moaning about CMIS instead of SIMS.

 

Sorry I can't offer any help, but maybe give Phil Neal a call, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to offer you a solution to your problems.

 

A smug SIMS user

[Kained]

Steve :- Damn you, just damn you that is all, we cant change we are stuck is the answer i get from above.

 

maniac:- In some of serco's technical documents we read that to solve "issues" and for things to run smoother in general, use iis.

 

So bit unsure really what to say about that but i m ight give it a go, it just seems this most recent version is causing issues.

[maniac]

Yes, I'm aware running it in apache goes against Sercos advice, they even told me that themselves, but I just had a hunch, and to be honest was desparate to find a solution, so I just tried it.

 

As I say, we've been running it from apache for the last 2 weeks, and we've not had a single complaint about the E-Portal system. That's totally un-heard of! The system is quick and reliable and performing exactly as we'd like.

 

All I say is try it as you don't have to disterb your existing installation to do it, just e-mail a new link to a few reliable staff and ask them to try it for you.

 

mike.