[sims] SIMS upgrade before upgrading SLG - experiences?

[SteveB]

So, another SLG upgrade has gone awry and our SLG is currently down. We try to upgrade our SLG infrastructure outside core hours, (after 4pm yesterday in this case) but when we encountered an issue it was too late to contact Capita as they had all gone home.

 

So, to my question, has anyone upgraded SIMS before upgrading SLG (this current release or in the past)? If so, what issues have you experienced? This is a hosted service we priovide to schools in the LA.

 

Thanks in advance.

[zag]

I was always told to upgrade the SLG first.

 

You can pay capita 1,500 a year and they will upgrade SLG for you.

 

Its a lot of money but gives me piece of mind that it will always work. We're getting someone to upgrade it on Friday.

[SteveB]

I doubt if Capita would upgrade out SLG infrastructure as it is modified and a bespoke installation with dual factor authentication. But that is an interesting service.

[jamesb]

You might be surprised, when I was there Capita were always happy to come to an arrangement for difficult installations/upgrades.

 

Plus the actual SLG components should be independent of the authentication side, so that wouldn't affect it.

[vikpaw]

I'm sure i heard of a few people that did it in frustration. As far as i know it doesn't necessarily go pear shaped, it just means that worst case SLG wont work. I don't even think it would happen everytime, just if something has changed in SLG that needs to stay in synch with SIMS. So the failsafe advice is upgrade SLG first, so it's sure to match whatever goes on with SIMS.

It's not really something you'd want to try on a live system, certainly not across a whole LA, but maybe on a test server...

[Sivadam]

So, another SLG upgrade has gone awry and our SLG is currently down. We try to upgrade our SLG infrastructure outside core hours, (after 4pm yesterday in this case) but when we encountered an issue it was too late to contact Capita as they had all gone home.

 

So, to my question, has anyone upgraded SIMS before upgrading SLG (this current release or in the past)? If so, what issues have you experienced? This is a hosted service we priovide to schools in the LA.

 

Thanks in advance.

We have upgraded SIMS before SLG about five times over the past couple of years. There have been no ill effects on any of these occasions.

 

Capita will still insist on their Advice - to Upgrade SLG first - so take your choice!

[SouthCoastSaint]

For various reasons, we have never in 2.5 years done the SLG upgrade before Sims. Not caused us any problems.

[Sylv3r]

I generally always wait for the SLG updates to be installed first before I install the SIMS updates - although today because we broke up yesterday I have installed the SIMS summer update as I know it's required for the exams and I have enough going on over the holidays without trying to squeeze in a SIMS upgrade. I can't imagine many teachers wanting to access the SIMS webparts, so if it's broken anything until the SLG update goes on it's not the end of the world.

[Greg]

We had to let some of our schools upgrade to fix SIMS issues before we upgraded SLFG in the past, the last one that I remember causing an issue was when the behaviour tables were changed in Aut 2010, this caused the information not to be displayed in SLG as it was calling to the wrong location in an upgraded SIMS.

 

Capita told us that there is no risk of data corruption by doing this last year but it would be worth checking with them again now if you intend to do this.

 

The only other issue is managing the school's SLG user experience during the upgrade mismatch period. One of our schools decided to stick with a problem in SIMS rather than upgrade in advance and confuse pupils & parents with potential SLG issues as a result of upgrading.