Sivadam

I do all the Training here! It costs 'nowt'! (Comment Edited - 99% Cost - almost 'nowt'!) And I get my knowledge by the number of Software meetings, UAT meetings and workshops that I attend! And from SupportNet Forums of course. The wealth of experience there is vast! And that is my real value - contrary to the innacurate personal comment that somebody posted on here some while ago!

That's what has frightened everybody and so we have not changed! But it does show what we have had to put up with for years!

True that the school moved? True that the Teachers did not understand how to use SIMS? True that the Admins did not know how to set up SIMS? True that I don't know what I am talking about? Where have all the other hornets gone? I thought I would hear a larger 'buzzing' noise than this! Hopefully I'll get a few Red Squares back now!!!!!

Myself and my technical expert have been trying for years to pursuade the school to opt out of the current provider and buy in our own ISP. It would actually be cheaper AND more efficient! But that is another story!

Unbelievable! As has been said many, many times. No matter what the system is then it will be no good in not used efficiently! SIMS is specifically aimed at Teachers in the Classroom! If the Admins cannot set it up in the background to work for Teachers then that is NOT the fault of the system!

With the state of our Internet Connection, via YHGfL, then that would rapidly kick out all those three options!

One smiles with amusement! Until I have further details I can only repeat what I have been told! As for what may be missing in other systems, then the recent additions to SIMS of Alternative Curriculum and Discover are just a couple that may be worth a mention. Then again - other systems may already have this functionality anyway! I am sure there are many waiting to pounce on me again!

ec94210, I do not agree that there is a generic problem with the printing of AM7 Individual Reports. Or it just does not manifest itself on our system! We have been printing them very successfully for many years, since AM6 days, without suffering speed issues. This includes using previous reports year on year, though the Template always has to be edited anyway to account for the changes that need to be made to the different results sets required for each new reorting period. Recently we have moved to a new style of reports that contain much more graphical information, such as English and Maths progress graphs, with Achievement plotted against Targets over a Key Stage. This has obviously slowed the printing down somewhat, so that we now print a Reg Group at a time rather than a full Year group. However we are satisfied with the time it takes to produce each set of reports.

If you have SLG then you have much more functionality using this with a good mobile phone. My WP7 is absolutely superb with SLG! You can do advanced processes like completing a Report Card and recording Ach/Beh Incidents directly from the Class Register screens - just as you can directly from SIMS! Schools should really evaluate the best option for them! (And before somebody 'jumps' on me - I have suggested Emerge to our school as one of the alternatives!)

The Reporting in NT6 has been improved greatly over the past few upgrades. I am particulalry pleased that we can now have a font size of less than 8 Point when printing Timetable. I caused some amusement when I requested this at one of the workshops but it has since been actioned! What we still cannot do, however, is reduce/increase the Cell Width and Cell Height by increments less than 5 when printing Timetables. I find this functionality to be extremely useful in NT4, as I like to spread my Year Timetables across one full page of A4 Landscape etc. The combined use of small fonts and a more sophisticated Cell size selection enables this process to be much more efficient. So I will still be pushing for this to be improved at any consultation group that I attend (and I am usually at the Nova ones!). I think that I have mentioned this at previous meetings but I have now created a new CR - No. 1105-899612

A lot of the NT4 funtionality is being added to SIMS via the Summer Release. However, reports such as Year Timetables will not be in SIMS by then. The NT6 reports for this are not as flexible as those in NT4. NT4 will be around for a while (for reporting purposes only) but NOBODY should now be using it to edit timetables!

Hmmmmmmmmm......... That all sounds very strange to me. I think that 'jiggery-pokerey' just about sums it up! If you were paying for SIMS direct to Capita then you must have had a SIMS Direct Licence. Do you use FMS? If so then the records of payment for the licences should still be there. And you can still access the old DOS programs via SIMS Launcher! I did exactly that not so long ago! So you can go back a long way if you so wished! If you did have the licences at one time then surely they would still be valid for SIMS Core at least? I doubt you could give them away to the LA!

Angelica, You are a SIMS Direct School are you not? As far as I am aware, and from what Phil has posted here a number of times, I believe that the cost of novating your licences is in the order of £300, should you wish to retain exactly what you have at the moment. The Annual Costs should then be the approx the same as you pay now. Or have a misunderstood something in your circumstances? I think that you need to contact Capita Sales again before you make a big mistake, by moving for the wrong reasons!

Have you checked out this thread on SupportNet?: Verify Tags (31721) This may also be helpful: Profiles - Word 2007, VerifyTemplate (30975)

Have you tried contacting the guys at CHQ? Managing of Facilities is one of the things that they were hoping their extra-curricular software would be able to do. CHQ Group | Effective management software solutions for schools

You may find it helpful to refer to File 601 - 'Which profile........', on SupportNet, User Posts, File Sharing. It is a document I first prepared a number of years ago for my school and has subsequently been shared with others via SupportNet.

I have posted the following CR re SIMS Report Cards feeding into SLG. You may wish to support it (or not!). CR No. 1105-893512 The new functionality allows a link to SIMS Report (Conduct) Cards in the Conduct Panel of the Student Summary Page. This link delivers Current Report Cards and also Previous Report Cards. I would request that schools can filter this to either show or hide either of these categories. Also, schools should be able to select which Academic Years are shown for previous Report Cards. As far as I can ascertain it is not currently possible to filter thse different categories!

The big snag with that idea is the assumption that I will have access!. Once we are taken over by BSF & the hosting company then this may not be the case! Though here is one person who will be fighting to maintain access to the database! It is absolutely essential that somebody like myself has access to a Sysman Backup so that I can get a dataset to UAT and/or Capita Support as soon as it is requested! If it is not present in System7, and an alternative is not provided, then we will still have to use Sysman6 to do it - until they switch that off. And that is just plain stupid! I never want to touch Sysman6 again once System7 is with us! My suggestion was well supported at the UAT I attended. If the idea was squashed after the second UAT then I will be shouting very loudly at some senior staff at Capita about the issue!

At least two of the last three Posters to this thread have tested System7 at UAT! Matt - I hope they have left my backup routine in as requested!

Methinks that we will have to get a darn sight better Broadband connection to work solely in the clouds. YHGfL installed their latest super-dooper offering over Easter. At times my old 256k modem was much faster! And I am not kidding! All my Timetable (NT6) files are saved to DropBox but it is a good job they sync to my PC at 7am every morning when I log on, else they would never be up-to-date! The connection is appalling during the 'normal' working day. If we were all running around in the clouds then we would be able to get 'nowt done!

Try it, as Phil says, on older lower spec kit but ensure that you add a separate graphics card first if it is not already present. It does not need to be an expensive one either! You may be pleasantly surprised! It is fine on my workstation:- Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU, 2.66 Ghz, 1.98 GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS

System7 will be with you via the Summer Upgrade!

We enter the Absence Marks obtained via Telephone or Schoolcomms AFTER we are sure that the Reg Group Tutor/Class Teacher has completed the register. This is obvious to the Attendance Officer via the Missing Register Report on their HomePage!

And I have requested that 'Yesterday' includes Friday when accessed on Monday. And the date before the holiday on the first day after a holiday. It's the CR before yours! CR No. 1105-883333 I don't think we thought about this when we tested the SIMS UAT Upgrade it was first introduced. I was just glad that 'Yesterday' was being implemented! This is going to be looked at! (Qute from Graham Cooper SupportNet:- We are making a change to link this feature to the school diary, so it should take account of weekends, school closures [inset, Holidays etc]. Not sure what release yet though.) P.S. You have my two votes for your CR!

It ain't been working here for a good while now!