[sims] How do you distribute an updated QuickLetterTemplate.doc?

[enjay]

As the title suggests, we're about to start using Quick Letters, so I've updated my quicklettertemplate.doc file to include our letterhead and such like. How do I go about getting this updated file out to all the PCs? SupportNet isn't very helpful on the subject.

[TechMonkey]

Copy and paste to each station. Automate via script where you can.

 

I have constantly asked our County to get this sorted with Capita and have it in a central location but no doings yet. I don't understand the decision that a networked product that even uses a document server has a standard template distributed locally on to stations.

[matt40k]

Copy it to everyone's my docs via some clever vbs.

[vikpaw]

I think it's supposed to be manual, as each user in theory can set up their own.

There is info somewhere about a relatively recent change for use with terminal services whereby there can by a single one held on the server and others all share it, but i don't think that would apply outside of that scenario.

I've just made one for our Upper School and was going to ask the lovely ladies in admin to copy it off my shared drive onto the local C drive.

You could always send it to the PCs remotely with a batch file. In fact i might write a batch file for my gals so they just click on it and it will copy the file locally for them.

[Kyle]

I send this via a VB script accross to all our network computers via Group Policy

[enjay]

I think it's supposed to be manual, as each user in theory can set up their own.

 

That's ridiculous, as the file is in C:\Program Files so making it manual totally ignores the way schools work, whereby a teacher uses several different computers. Nice one Capita. Not.

[enjay]

You could always send it to the PCs remotely with a batch file. In fact i might write a batch file for my gals so they just click on it and it will copy the file locally for them.

 

Batch scripts are no good, as that won't survive the PC being re-imaged. I'll write an MSI round it, and distribute that way.

[PhilNeal]

You can create mailmerge headers in the report generator if you want a school wide template.

[vikpaw]

I have constantly asked our County to get this sorted with Capita and have it in a central location but no doings yet. I don't understand the decision that a networked product that even uses a document server has a standard template distributed locally on to stations.

 

I agree, though it's nice to have variants too; to save even more precious seconds we were thinking that each PC in the admin office would be responsible for a different quick letter, i.e. one for being late a lot, behaviour, uniform etc. So once i send them the basic they can customise for their own need.

[vikpaw]

Would be nice if you could put one on the server that would get copied local on install.

Also if you could redirect it to a shared drive e.g. my docs for roaming profiles. I thought you could do this actually.

[enjay]

You can create mailmerge headers in the report generator if you want a school wide template.

 

The mailmerge fields are fine, what I need to do is put custom headers and footers in the document, and change the font.

[TechMonkey]

I don't run SIMS but AFAIK here quick letter is for a generic letter home. Anything like lateness, behaviour etc, would be part of a report and that has it's own letter associated with it so can be customised accordingly.

 

As Enjay says, it is per computer, not per user, so fairly useless unless you were to decide you wanted quick letter customised per area a letter came from (so per department) & even then that would be less than ideal as people move computers. What about shared resource areas? Add to that we don't give access to C:\ to users so they wouldn't be able to customise it anyway.

 

It really is a solution that has had little or no thought given to it.

 

Ohh and add to that we have had problems where the macros stop working after an upgrade so we have to make a fresh install, copy the quick letter, add the header and footer back in and copy around everywhere.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Dos_Box
Little bit sweary.

[SteveB]

The mailmerge fields are fine, what I need to do is put custom headers and footers in the document, and change the font.

 

We design custom Letter templates for our schools and they can store them centrally via the Doc Server. Then to write a letter they use the reports link instead of Quick Letter.

[enjay]

to write a letter they use the reports link instead of Quick Letter.

 

We're looking for something simpler than that, this is a quick letter after all!

[SteveB]

We're looking for something simpler than that, this is a quick letter after all!

 

To be fair, I think our soultion is better than quick letters anyway, as we can have custom letters already setup depending on the reason for sending them. Downside of our solution, is that thhey cannot be auto uploaded to the Doc Server.

[enjay]

To be fair, I think our soultion is better than quick letters anyway

 

I didn't say your method was worse, I said it was longer and more complicated.

[SteveB]

I didn't say your method was worse, I said it was longer and more complicated.

 

Oh i know, i wasn't getting defensive. I just think Quickletters are limited in their usefulness as the user still ahs to type the bloomin thing.

[enjay]

Oh i know, i wasn't getting defensive. I just think Quickletters are limited in their usefulness as the user still ahs to type the bloomin thing.

 

Okay, wasn't sure of the tone :-) QuickLetters are more limited because the user still has to type the letter, although for our purposes that's actually more applicable. Detention letters and such like are still sent out on paper, so QuickLetters are there for the one-off instances when a head of year might want to write home, in which case a blank letter is what we need.

[matt40k]

People, you do know you can place the quickletter into the users my documents folder and SIMS will use it rather then default in the Program Files directory??

[enjay]

I didn't know that, but it is easier to get the file onto the PCs as part of the install than to remember to do this for each new staff member. Also, some people would delete it from the MyDocs if they didn't know what it was!

[matt40k]

True, I'll get worried if they start deleting stuff from My Documents | My SIMS Documents.

 

Anyway, for me, I like having a default schools in Program files, a copy in a shared folder (read only for everyone) and a copy in everyone's my doc, that way, SIMS will use the default in my docs, and users can customise it. So the bursar has a different quick letter to the attendance officer and so.

 

Also keeps them out of the local disc, which like + I don't have to worry about backing it up.

[enjay]

We're not in the place where people would start wanting different quickletters, although when we do, I'll definitely go with the MyDocs one now I know you can do that.

[vikpaw]

People, you do know you can place the quickletter into the users my documents folder and SIMS will use it rather then default in the Program Files directory??

 

I said i thought that was possible. How does it work? It looks to My Docs first then if it finds nothing goes local, or do you have to remove the local one to force it to look at My Docs? I couldn't see any instructions but i was sure i'd read it somewhere.

[matt40k]

Looks for the my docs one, if it doesn't exist, then it looks at the local one. Can't find anything in the Capita documentation, or rather can't find where it says about it!

I found an old email refering to it in BETA (2009 August Update) - you have to place it in My Documents | My SIMS Documents, you had to rename it QuickLetterTemplate_local.doc. Having said that, I think they changed it back to the default for the actual release. QuickLetterTemplate.doc

[vikpaw]

Looks for the my docs one, if it doesn't exist, then it looks at the local one. Can't find anything in the Capita documentation, or rather can't find where it says about it!

 

I found an old email refering to it in BETA (2009 August Update) - you have to place it in My Documents | My SIMS Documents, you had to rename it QuickLetterTemplate_local.doc. Having said that, I think they changed it back to the default for the actual release. QuickLetterTemplate.doc

 

 

I was just about to click thanks and i got this error

 

When i came to post i thought i'd try a few different combinations first, and got one to work.

 

So for anyone else i'm on XP, Office 2007, with summer release [in case it matters], My Documents is mapped to a shared drive.

 

You need to name the file QuickLetterTemplate_local.doc and place it in the My SIMS Documents folder in My Documents.

 

There doesn't need to be a local one unlike the error message states, and you can delete them, so that it doesn't accidentally pull that one up.

 

As it sits in the root of the My SIMS Documents it is available to all SIMS users using the machine under that NT account, so quite handy if you have a shared admin machine with a generic logon.

 

Does anyone know if you can add other fields, i'd like to show the Reg Group, i tried some tags in various formats but it didn't really work.