[sims] SIMS & FMS Summer 2012 release is available.

[Simcfc73]

I have been bitten pretty much on every release of Sims... should I or shouldn't I????

[fiza]

I have been bitten pretty much on every release of Sims... should I or shouldn't I????

 

Your post says it all. No you shouldn't. Wait awhile for the proverbial to hit the fan, wait for it to get fixed then deploy it.

 

Just look back at the autumn release for clues.

[Simcfc73]

Can't do it anyway, my solus3_deployment_server_log file seems to be 9Gb so theres not enough room on my C drive to run it.

[vikpaw]

I got the SOLUS notification yesterday too

We finish school tomorrow, so i'll try it out and be one of the forerunners for once, that is assuming i can get it all downloaded in time. I also need to apply a bunch of patches, so i may have to wait for them first else i have to get them all re-written and it takes bloomin ages!

 

Full news here - they got so excited they posted it twice, i think they are the same though, minus links :

 

SIMS 2012 Summer release *** Now Available

 

I'm pleased to inform you that the SIMS 2012 Summer Release is now available for download by SOLUS.

 

Overview

The SIMS 2012 Summer Release contains enhancements to Attendance, Cover, Course Manager, Discover, Exams, Homepage, InTouch, Lesson Monitor, Partnership Xchange, Registrations and Admissions, SEN, SIMS Core, SIMS Learning Gateway and SOLUS3.

 

This release contains updates to Statutory Returns to School Census Autumn 2012 (England), School Workforce Census 2012 (England), CTF12 (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), DENI and Leavers Return 2012 (Northern Ireland), DENI Exam Performance 2012 (Northern Ireland) and the POST 16 Autumn Collection for Wales.

 

FMS has been enhanced with a number of changes including improvements to the EFA (YPLA) abbreviated Accounts report, updates to the Aged Creditor & Debtor reports, enabling up to 18 periods within a financial year and improvements to the User Interface.

 

This release requires Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 to be installed on all machines to support this release. If this is not present then the SIMS software will not function.

 

Full details of this release can be found in the SIMS 2012 Summer Release Note (Resource No. 19572) and the FMS release Note (Resource No. 19573)

 

Content

 

• Attendance
  
• Course Manager
  
• Cover
  
• DENI and Leavers return 2012 (Northern Ireland)
  
• DENI Exam performance 2012 (Northern Ireland)
  
• Discover
  
• Exams
  
• Fees Billing
  
• FMS
  
• Homepage
  
• InTouch
  
• Lesson Monitor
  
• Partnership Xchange
  
• Post 16 Return 2012 (Wales)
  
• Registrations and Admissions
  
• School Census Autumn 2012 (England)
  
• School Workforce Census 2012 (England)
  
• SEN
  
• SIMS Core
  
• SIMS Learning Gateway 2
  
• SOLUS3 – in SOLUS 3.4.118 released on 30/04/2012
  

 

SIMS Version Support

In line with the SIMS Version Support, the currently supported Platforms are:

 

• SIMS 2012 Spring Release (v7.144)
  
• SIMS 2012 Summer Release (v7.146)
  

 

SOLUS Details

 

The SOLUS website for details of this Main Release, including all documentation, can be found by visiting: SOLUS Home - Capita Children's Services

Single Direct and Independent Schools that are supported directly from our Bedford office have been authorised to take this release via SOLUS 2 and SOLUS3. The software has also been made available for Support Units to deploy via SOLUS 2 and SOLUS3 to their schools. These schools will be notified when they are authorised to install it.

A CD Image of the SIMS 2012 Summer Release is available for download on

 

A CD image of the FMS 2012 Summer Release is available for download on

Discover

An update to Discover has been made and is available on SOLUS3. Full details are in the Release Note uploaded to Supportnet as resource ID: 19574.

 

For those customers not yet on SOLUS3 a CD image is available for download on

SIMS Learning Gateway 2 (SLG2)

An update to SLG2 has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Summer Release.

Customers on SLG2 should wait to apply the SIMS 2012 Summer Release until the SLG2 Summer Release has been applied to their system. Details on how to obtain this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

 

Partnership Xchange (PX)

An update to PX has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Summer Release.

PX customers should wait to apply the SIMS 2012 Summer Release until the PX Release has been applied to their system. Details on how to obtain this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

 

InTouch

An update to the InTouch Web Server has been made available to ensure compatibility with the SIMS 2012 Summer Release. Details on how to obtain and apply this update will be distributed to you via email shortly.

InTouch customers should apply the SIMS 2012 Summer Release before applying the InTouch 2012 Summer Release.

 

Regards,

Jonathan Wood

Product Manager Deployment and Technical

[Simcfc73]

Decided to do it and..... it worked perfectly.

 

Even the clients are updating 12 hours after the deployment.

 

Solus 3 is still not perfect but it seems ok.

[matt40k]

What edition of SQL are you using @Simcfc73? Standard or Express?

[Simcfc73]

Standard edition 64bit.

 

The onyl issue I have is the solus3_deployment_server_log is 8Gb and is filling up my C drive...... and Sims case logging is down

[matt40k]

I believe if you have standard edition, you have a maintainance task to truncate the log file. Log a call with Capita, takes a few mins to knock it down to a mb.

[Simcfc73]

Got the ShrinkDB file from Sims this morning... nice and tidy now.

[Simcfc73]

Ermmmm.... T4 seems to have vanished from the menu, which is a bit of a pain.

[PhilNeal]

T4 going was planned and announced quite some time ago.

[Simcfc73]

Is it defunct or is the version in the program files still workable. I only ask this as T4 is still used by lots of schools for reporting as T6 reporting isn't much good.

[PhilNeal]

T4 won't stop working.

 

I've just spoken to David Stott author of much of T4 & T6 and he doesn't think there is anything of significance not covered in T6 and SIMS now. Please email me if there are specifics.

[Simcfc73]

Here is a reply from our Sims guru.

 

The reporting of timetable info out of both SIMS and T6 is still not as good as T4. If you run an All Staff timetable it comes out alphabetically using the 1st initial, rather than the surname, which is not much help. Our 10 period day does not fit onto a year group timetable and I can't remove the footer, or change the margins to make it fit to one page. Just a couple of things ..

 

The T4/T6 reporting issue has been going on for years and its still not been addressed properly.

[PhilNeal]

Simcfc73 David Stott has looked into this. His response is below.

 

It's not clear whether he/she's talking about the All Staff timetable in T6 or in SIMS.net (we've provided both!)

In T6, the order of the staff is determined by the standard Staff ordering specified by the user using the menu route "Tools|Ordering".

Three options are provided: by Code, by Surname and by Department.

 

It looks to me as if the All Staff timetable in SIMS.net doesn't have this flexibility: the staff rows are simply ordered by Staff Code.

We should probably add this to the change requests.

 

I've played around with the Year/band timetable in SIMS.net and have managed to get 10 periods across an A4 sheet:

The control over the margins is pretty good. So the problem here is probably more specific and detailed than the comment would suggest.

 

There isn't an option to remove the footer completely. (There are options to remove the row and column headings on "subsequent" pages)

 

I suppose the idea here is to be able to stick the pages together with sellotape for a wall display. But frankly, if you remove the footer, you'd be in danger of losing the plot completely, as you then can't see which page is which! Much better to stick the pages together with the top of each page covering up the footer of the page above!!

 

I do have a copy of the timetable print that proves that it all fits, but its too much to add to this post!

 

Cheers

 

Phil

[pete]

T4 won't stop working.

 

*quietly adds another ACL entry to simsperm.bat*

[synaesthesia]

If someone would port T4 into 32/64bit then I'd love them long time.

 

Actually I wouldn't, but one of our SLT certainly would...

[PhilNeal]

Shame because T6 saves SLT weeks and weeks of work. Perhaps that's the issue!

[synaesthesia]

Don't get me started It's nothing more than a training/will issue.

[Edu-IT]

T6 documentation available anywhere?

[vikpaw]

T6 documentation available anywhere?

 

S:\Sims\Documentation\Nova-T6.pdf

 

unless it's moved in the new version, just running on test server now.

[Edu-IT]

I've not got the latest release to updateto yet. That's why I was asking. Is it online somewhere?

[vikpaw]

Ah, you want the latest manual from summer version? Are there that many changes? The basics should be in your documentation folder as i pathed earlier.

Otherwise go to SupportNet, resource #19603

[matt40k]

I have been bitten pretty much on every release of Sims... should I or shouldn't I????

 

Hahaha.... you'll find out why I'm a laughing shortly.

[matt40k]

We have found a problem with the AMPARK version 7.146 which is included in the SIMS 2012 Summer Release.

The Primary Tracking templates included are incorrect and should not be used as they contain incorrect values for some P scale grades. Please do not auto-import the tracking templates in a school.

If you are aware of a school that has installed this version and imported these materials, then we will be posting an update to Supportnet by COB Tuesday 3rd July detailing what you will need to do to resolve the issue in AMPARK..

We have temporarily withdrawn the SIMS 2012 Summer release to prevent this issue from affecting more users. An updated version of the SIMS 2012 Summer release is currently in testing and we aim to release this by COB Tuesday 3^rd July along with more information on who should apply it and how.

We sincerely apologise for this error and the extra work that it may have caused you.