Sivadam

This thread brings back a few memories. Sorry I can no longer be of assistance but I have been retired 10 years now. I am amazed that the same problems are still cropping up after all this time!

This is a blast from the past. I have been retired 8 years now. I used to be a regular on here but I often used to refer people to SupportNet where I posted most of my help messages.

Wow! This is a throwback a few years - I've been retired for 5 years now! Glad to see my advice is still useful. I wonder if it still is in SupportNet (or whatever it's called now! )

Sorry Bill, but I have been retired nearly 3 years now and so do not have access anymore. I am also 3 years 'out of date', which is why I no longer normally contribute to this forum. (Tho' I sometimes still do keep glancing at what is happening!)

Things don't change much on here! Pity I have retired. I could have had a much more informed input. But why do people do the wrong thing and then blame the software or the suppliers! It seems that somebody else needs to pick up the cudgel I used to wield!

Yep. Anne's and my paths have crossed a goodly number of times!

I wish .....................

You could volunteer your services Gill! I bet they would welcome a Junior dataset to test on!

Thanks to you too Matt. I very much appreciated the tips you gave us to enable us to get SOLUS3 running efficiently! I am sure that others will take up the cudgel if things start to get out of hand again! And I've used the 'I told you so!' speech far too much in the past!

I just thought that Edugeek Users would like to know that Sivadam retired as from last Friday, 7th September. After 44 Years working in schools (including 29 as a Teacher and 15 as a member of the Support Staff as well as over 30 as Timetabler!) I think it was about time to call it a day, especially as I turned 65 last January! I have one major regret in leaving at this time! I managed to collect a number of those infernal Green Squares instead of those lovely Red ones that I like so much. (Never let it be said that Mike Davis was not a helpful soul when he wanted to be! ) Ah well! I will still be keeping a watching brief on these forums so, who knows, I may be able to redress the balance at some later date! Thanks to all those many users on Edugeek who have supported my stance over the past few years and I hope you all prosper in the future, SIMS users or not!

Matt, I beat you to it! I started my retirement on Friday after 44 Years and 1 Week working in Schools (including over 30 years as a Timetabler)! Not sure who Suffolk will be consulting now when they have NT6 issues! Good Luck with the new venture Matt!

You will find it in Examinations Organiser. If you do not have acces then see the Exams Officer. If you want it from SIMS via a report then it is in the 'Additional Information' section of a Student Report design.

It may just have been the OCR Nationals file that was incorrect. Or it may have just been a few schools that were affected. I certainly helped somebody else out on SupportNet that also had a faulty file! Sorry Pete, I didn't realise you were talking about a different issue.

We posted a solution to this (for ONATs) on SupportNet Forum this morning. The File format was wrong!

Sorry swiftysw1 - it was not aimed at you specifically. I empathise with you on this! If nobody had used EO here in the recent past, then I would be asking some very pertinent questions to the Exams Officer and maybe to senior other staff as well.

It seems very strange that you have not found these issues before today. Surely somebody has been logging into EO for the past few days/weeks to ensure it works ok! Capita Support will be snowed under with Cases today, as they normally are. And most of that will be fielding questions about issues caused by the Exam Boards with faulty results files. A good example of that is on the SupportNet Forum re. ONAT results!

That's the problem. They ain't replaced a couple of 'em. I bet I use NT6 & SIMS Reports more than most but I still need the odd NT4 one! As for Release Notes I read 'em. In fact I often read parts of some of them pre-pre-release at UAT. I have, on the odd occasion, been responsible for getting 'em changed prior to release!

I have been using NT6 ever since it's inception as Modelling & Curriculum, and Yes! that is a good few years! That is not the issue I am addressing here! What is a problem is that Nova has always been brilliant at reporting - far better than SIMS initially was. And there are still a few things that NT4 will do that none of the other methods will (or it does it quicker and better!). Unless the new functionality is in NT6 Summer Release! And I bet that there are few others that have contributed to the development of Timetable reporting via consultation and testing at UAT than I have! CAM, Never mind the Timetabler - The System Manager should not allow access to NT6 in this way!

NT4 does still exist! It is not on the Menu Items in SIMS but you can create a shortcut for it on your desktop (as long as you are not on 64bit!) And there ARE still certain parts of the Reporting functionality that have not yet appeared in NT6 or SIMS. Not many - but a few that some of us old timers do use! And I did pass on a few of these when I was last consulted about replacing NT4 Reporting a few months ago! Therefore I will maintain it for as long as I need those reports and am able to access them! And that is despite the fact that some new innovations will not be compatible! I have indicated one such example on SupportNet but there are others!

Has she also made sure that she is working in the correct Academic Year via: Tools, Academic Management, Set Academic Year? This is specific to the user! Many users will not be on the new Academic Year and nor do many of them need to be.

That is what I questioned in my first response. However, if they did buy a Nova Licence in the past then I guess that they could still use it - especially as NT4 is now no longer supported by Capita.

They have no support contract from Capita so I guess they are no longer SIMS users either. So they won't have been able to upgrade from NT4 to NT6. If they had SIMS then surely they would be looking at moving to NT6 and not to Timetabler (and that is not a slur on Timetabler because I know that it is a good program!) The OP does ay that they import the timetable to Integris! They don't want SIMS but have clung on to NT4! Strange ................!! As for NT4 Cover not working correctly then the last thing I can think of is that the Access rights within NT4 itself are incorrect for the user trying to do this. The Cover system itself actually still works perfectly!

Good question! For most people there is no reason. As for me ................. NT4 still does the odd thing better than either NT6 or SIMS. And No! I ain't going to explain wot! That's just for me and whoever I might discuss it with at Capita. I have already given them many pointers, over the past couple of years, as to what still needs to be replicated in NT6 or SIMS. I haven't yet tested the Summer Upgrade improvements as we have not been able to upgrade to v7.146, for a couple of reasons related to migration to LA Managed service.

I have a stand alone laptop that I use for beta testing of SIMS when these releases are available (and when I have time!). This is maintained with a copy of our own SIMS Database, whenever I wish to do some testing. Why don't you follow that route?

Nah! You have to pay for that! Just email 'em via SIMS InTouch! Yep you pay for that too, but if one has always had a communications package linked to SIMS, then it is 'free' in one sense! I can also say that the Timetable Reports in SIMS are very good once you have set them up correctly to the pattern you favour. And remember to save them for future use (either privately or globally!). Also, make sure you warn anybody with Timetable access not to click 'Default' else you will lose the reports you have designed! (Then you would only need NT4 for very specialised use - as I do!)