[sims] Backup on different drive?

[ProjectO]

(With thanks to those who responded to previous queries) We began the new school year on Monday with first 'full' use of SIMS core plus lesson monitor... most staff are quite impressed... those of us centrally involved feeling relatively pleased with 'successful' solutions to various teething niggles with timetable...

 

Then, with several senior staff working on class changes, SIMS crashes regularly!! Looking at the server, the disk is partitioned to 40Gb C: and hundreds of Gb E: intended for data. SIMS is installed on C: but also backs up to c: so we are left with approx 3Gb free. Is this a likely cause of our difficulties? and, more importantly, how can we change the drive SIMS uses for backup?

 

And on an issue only vaguely related, why on earth do teachers not see the actual class searched for, when they use 'class list'? It prints fine and previews OK but the first screen shows a fairly random class list - perhaps the last one looked at!!

[Mcshammer_dj]

are you using Full sql? or express

[matt40k]

Depends how SQL was installed - have a look at the registry -

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQLServer]

then look at the BackupDirectory key - this will define where the backups are set. Capita also has a nasty tool to set where it can backup also - why the default sql location isn't good I don't know (even if you do change it Capita, the master backups etc still go to the default mssql backup folder)

 

Can also use my awesome tidybackups to compress and remove old backups

[vikpaw]

Many staff on class changes will defo cause problems. Also if you send the timetable back from Nova whilst someone is in the curriculum management screens it will crash out on them.

 

It would be good to redirect the backups to somewhere else. Depends on version of SQL and how you're backing up. I have a scheduled task in management studio and it is directed to the E drive, but i'm on Full SQL. Whichever way you work out in the end, make sure you regularly monitor and compress the .bak files, perhaps using a handy tool to zip the files for you. I'm sure @matt40k can think of something that will help

 

With regards to class list, it is doing what it should, if you're using the Reports | Student Lists route. The tick box you add is as only for selecting what to export and print. The list you get presented with on screen, will be whatever matches your chosen criteria. e.g. you ask for class list of maths, then untick all and only tick your Y7 group. It will show you and allow you to 'next arrow' through each maths class , but only print yours. It's not intuitive, but the column heading where you tick does say it's for export/print purposes. However, the results shouldn't look that random as it should be in order of the display in the filter dialog.

 

anyway, that probably sounds confusing. Try it, and after ticking the class(es) you want, click on Selected only, so the list is reduced to only the ticked one, then it will only display the ticked ones, which will be less confusing for staff.

 

hope that made sense.