CMIS Upgrade to 2.81.8.0

[limbo]

Ran this upgrade this morning and seemingly no problems so far.

 

There is, however, rumour of another upgrade that will need to be done before the census on Thursday (17th May, 2007) to do with excluded pupils!

[openhgs]

I did ours yesterday and just as I'd finished, the LEA called to say don't bother installing it as there is a new version out on Wednesday. Our users are not best pleased.

[limbo]

They did not tell me that yesterday when I spoke to them, and they sent out an e-briefing about it this morning saying it needed to be done!

 

Anyway - probably best we have done it because at least we can start to prepare for the census now with the new routines - even if it is not the finished product.

 

Wednesday is cutting it awful fine!!

[btdt]

As the problem wasnt identified until mid morning its hardly surprising that the message took a little while to get out to all schools.

 

And dont forget these things need checking....

 

Not all schools will be affected either !

[Lee_K_81]

Direct from Link2ICT http://www.bgfl.org/services/itcmis/latest_software.htm

 

Please note - You must have run the May Upgrade before you can complete the Summer Census. Not all the fields referred to in the notes will be visible until this is done.

 

Warning: A bug has been identified that effects the Summer Census attendance calculations. This will only affect schools with permanent exclusions in the spring term. We will be releasing another build later this week to deal with this.

 

If your school had no permanent exclusions in the Spring term this release can be used for your census return.

[limbo]

As the problem wasnt identified until mid morning its hardly surprising that the message took a little while to get out to all schools.

 

If it was known about as early as mid morning how come it was in the afternoon we were told about the upgrade being needed! And how come we got an e-briefing this morning telling us to run the upgrade?

[Lee_K_81]

And how come when i called to ask about an error message about upgrading stures.dll i was told to ignore it, but when i asked how many problems this build was going to cause was told they didnt know yet. That was around 1:45. Well after mid-morning.

[btdt]

Serco published this yesterday

 

"Database update failed in module StuRes.dll error on upgrading

 

Some users have received an error message saying 'Database update failed in module StuRes.dll' when Facility has first validated the database structure after installing the latest version. This error is caused by an incorrect query being run by the software. This query is designed to update the structure of the Foundation Stage Profile assessment and will not affect any results data. If you do not use the Foundation Stage Profile within your school you can ignore the error and continue with the upgrade. If you do use the Foundation Stage Profile then please download this document which takes you through the steps to correctly run the queries to update the model."

 

Therefore it can be ignored if you dont use Foundation Stage Profile

[limbo]

*wonders how much time to bill the LEA for the 6:30 start this morning to do an upgrade that was unecessary*

 

The best bit is we did not even know there was an upgrade going to be released until we phoned the helpdesk yesterday with another problem - and then they told us to do the upgrade - which was the first official notificiation we had from the LEA that there was even an upgrade due this week.

[limbo]

Just called the LEA Helpdesk to calrify the situation and before you can talk to anyone you have to sit through a message telling you that there is a CMIS upgrade available and you need to install it in order to do the census on Thursday! No mention of problems with it!

[Lee_K_81]

@btdt: I dont mind ignoring the error, I'm more annoyed that i called at 1:30 and wasnt informed about the second upgrade in a week. Why was this error not picked up sooner in testing? Surely in your test cases you have permanently excluded pupils? Sorry to rant at you, i'm sure it's not your fault. I'm sure this will be a pretty heated thread.

 

@limbo: sorry mate, i knew about the upcoming upgrade. Should have thought to mention it on here. Big thing to remember:

census = upgrades

 

where upgrades >= 1

[limbo]

@Lee_K_81 - somewhere in the back of my mind I think I knew there was an upgrade coming, and that it would be just before the census, but for some reason had not done made the link between that and there being a census this week - probably because our admin team are so good I rarely have to get involved in the census these days.

 

Should it really be down to word of mouth and second guessing or should we be able to rely on our suppliers to keep us in the loop?

[Lee_K_81]

Should it really be down to word of mouth and second guessing or should we be able to rely on our suppliers to keep us in the loop?

 

I'd agree with that statement. We should have been notified as soon as it was discovered. Most people would have done the upgrade yesterday afternoon or stayed behind after work or even come in early this morning. A lot of angry people. The big question is will LINK2ICT be staying around until 6pm like all the technicians / NM / SMs will have to incase of any problems?

[limbo]

Having spoken to the LEA, and I must emphasise I am waiting for a more complete answer for them, it appears they see the two routes for letting us know about upgrades and any associated problems are a telephone message on the helpdesk line and an e-briefing.

 

Now at the moment both of these routes mention the upgrade being needed but nothing at all about a problem.

 

Also I was encouraged a couple of weeks ago to use the online helpdesk so I can keep better track of problems - and through this route I would not get the telephone message so it would be totally reliant on the e-briefing which only sends out digests overnight so at best is several hours out of date.

 

In this case simply registering your email on the downloads page to be notified everytime it changed would at least let us know as soon as something is available - even if we did not know it was coming!

[mark80]

I got this in an email at 5:30pm yesterday

 

Dear Facility User

 

Important

 

Please note, if your school has not recorded a permanent exclusion in the Spring term 2007 you may ignore this email.

 

Should your school have recorded one or more permanent exclusions in the Spring term 2007 you may receive an error for each excluded student when generating your School Census return (“Error 2530”). This is due to the total absence sessions being incorrectly augmented by the exclusion in the latest Facility release from 9 May.

 

This does not affect your attendance or any other part of the census return, and if you receive error 2530 please ensure that the exclusion has been entered correctly and continue to check other errors. To resolve this issue you must install the next Facility update (released this Wednesday 16 May) which will rectify this calculation.

 

If you have not recorded a permanent exclusion in this period – you do not need to install the update and may complete the census return on Thursday 17 May with our previous release (Version 2.81 build 8).

 

If you have any questions, please contact us on the support desk.

 

We apologise for any inconvenience this update may cause

 

we'll see :?

[limbo]

@Mark80 - who did this email come from?

[btdt]

As downloads have to be obtained from the website, this is the obvious place to check on a regular basis for latest information etc etc

[limbo]

@btdt - but how often do you have to check if you are not expecting an upgrade.

 

Had I checked yesterday morning and seen the update and downloaded it and installed it I probably would not now check for another week, the fact that this page at some point late yesterday would suggest that this means I have to check it two or three times a day regardless of whether I am expecting an upgrade or not.

 

And to know whether there is anything new on the page you have to know what was there before to compare it to it. There is a date of release - but in this case that would not have helped as the pafe was updated on the same day.

 

It is just too clumsy a method for something so important - especially when we are left with as little time to do the upgrade as we have been on the last couple of occasions.

 

I know it is not the LEA's fault the release is so late and wrong - but the fact that nobody seems to know what is going on certainly could be.

[mark80]

@ Limbo this was from serco midlands support

 

you would of thought that you could sign up to a mailing list for changes to the downloads page :!:

[limbo]

@Mark80 - Thanks, I will have to find out whether I can get on their mailing list

[mark80]

no m8 i mean you would of thought they would of created the option for us to sign up to - i have not signed up to a mailing list i got this email after my manager was on the phone with Serco discussing the error code we had for the census

[Lee_K_81]

Yeah having some sort of "Sign up here for instant updates" type of thing, or even RSS would be better. Who wants to look at a static page every day "just in case"

[kylewilliamson]

We're a direct Facility school and get the emails directly.

 

Kyle

[AndyCope]

As soon as a problem had been identified with the 2.81.8 release (which only affects schools with Permanent Exclusions in the Spring Term) Link2ICT pasted a message on the downloads page of the website informing users of the issue.

 

We also contacted via telephone all schools who had been identified (by the Exclusions Team) as having Permanent Exclusions in the period in question to inform the Network Manager directly of the issue. It is clear in these circumstances that telephone communication is preferable to an email which may have been missed.

 

Schools had been informed via e-briefing, servicedesk telephone line messages and at numerous events over the last three months that there would be an upgrade required before the Summer Census could be returned.

 

We always listen to feedback from our users and welcome constructive comments.

[limbo]

@AndyCope - As I have already said - the notice on the downloads page is only any good if you have not already been and downloaded it.

 

Having placed a call with the helpdesk this morning I still do not know what the situation is with the upgrade i.e. whether I need to run it or not. I have not had a phone call from anyone so I am guessing not, but it is not totally clear.

 

This is the closest thing to clarification from the LEA that I have had so it is nice to know I can get a reply through EduGeek - even if I am still waiting for a reply from the LEA helpdesk.