Sivadam

SIMS Discover was NEVER scheduled to be released in Autumn - except to the Field Trial Schools! This is actually what has happened. The release to all schools was always scheduled for the Spring Release. The delay of a month has been arranged so that EXTRA functionality can be added as a result of requests by the Field Trial users! Users will benefit from the enhancements and so waiting that extra few weeks will be well worth it! What you saw at Bett 2011 was a version in advance of what the Field Trial schools have. We will see the updated software at the wokshops at the beginning of February! There was no 'Discover' at Bett 2010. What you saw was just the 'Concept' of what Discover would look like! I am sure that Chris would have explained this at the time! I have still got a Copy of the SIMS 2010 Roadmap as well as the SIMS 2011 Roadmap and the dates are very clear on both!

Yes it does in some cases, and performs quite well. The pattern is not a simple one however! Hopefully I'll see the results soon enough. Better not speculate too much before then! And this delay is to add something that was not in the original spec for the initial release! So in that sense it is a positive move to delay for a month!

That is one thing that is definitely recommended!

Been there............ Done that..................... Many, many times!!! I am the father of a grown up Daughter and Son (in that order!)

At least they ain't arguing with me ............... ................. Yet!

Don't jump Phil ............. or we'll all have to follow ............ !!!!

I wondered why Flash was not on my WP7! It's because it's ahead of it's time! Very inconvenient though!

I would not like to comment on why Capita have these restrictions. I am sure that there are good reasons. Maybe it would affect performance of Register Loading if there were many different options? Perhaps I can pose this question at the next meeting I attend, if a suitable occasion arises. Oh No! I got another Green Square! Bugga! I worked hard at getting rid of that!

The limit is not a total limit! It refers to just those for the Class displayed on the open Register! So if Staff X has opened Register 9x/Sc4 then they can see up to 5 Marksheets for that class. If there are more than 5 available you can right click and Configure which to show! It most cases there will probably not be 5 showing!

There used to be one person responsible for SupportNet but he does not now post on the site. The staff who respond now are usually the Product Managers for the relevant area. And SupportNet is not really a Forum for Capita Staff to solve queries etc. It is for self-help. The fact that the Product Managers do respond is a massive bonus. There was a survey re. SupportNet overhal quite a few months ago that many of us responded to. Not sure what has happened to that now! The searching of CRs was one area that we all asked for improvements. Software consultation meetings are held every year for most areas. At this time the CRs for that area are normally analysed and discussed at these meetings to which Customers are invited. I have attended quite a few of these meetings and this does happen. Whether a change can be made is dependent on it's complexity, costs, priority, demand etc. etc.

See my post above - I have edited it!

There is a current minimum spec but we are all hoping that this comes down at some stage. Performance issues are dependent on a number of factors but some surprisng results have been observed. Until the results of the Field Trial are analysed it would be inappropriate to try and give out a minimum spec here! The performance issues and machine spec will also be re-addressed in a future version (after Spring) I had installation problems so did not have time to test on more than one machine. The installation problem was helpful in the sense that the developers have to address the issues for the Spring Release Discover is part of the entitlement in the SIMS Assessment suite. It is currently delivered via the route: Focus, Assessment, Discover.

Filtering is what I and many of the others spoke up for at the first workshop. I am delighted that this functionality has been added so soon and it should prove to be well worth the extra month's wait. I hope that we can get at least a sight of it at the next workshop in Feb!

Over the years I have had my time wasted in exactly the same way that you have! Them - "SIMS is broken!" Me - "No it ain't - go back and use it correctly!" SIMS very rarely doesn't work as long as you ask it to do summat it was designed for!

I thought that the might be a clue in my post above. Maybe I should have used a Pink Elephant ......... .... gimme my red squares back!

I thought that might cause some merriment/debate/dispute! Have you trialled one then? Ain't it incredible how easy it is to wind people up on here? Now was I serious or not ................. ?? It is a very valid question though. It outsold Android over the Xmas rush!

But what about the platform of the future? WP7? It is compliant with Sharepoint 2010 and Silverlight right now!

Agreed Phillip. But staff would have to maintain paper registers and then catch them up later! Please see the above Update. Essential Pupil Data can also be in NT4 on the datastick! It would just need Tel.Nos adding! Come to think of it, I can even print Group Lists from there as long as I maintain them and I have power to a printer!!! Clive Stott was/is a magician! Maybe you should retain support for NT4! Now there's a thought - step backwards in order to step forwards!

Hi Phillip From a Safety aspect it is an absolute must that Registers of some sort have to be available - preferably Session AND Class. We have a duty of care and must be abale to ascertain the whereabouts of any pupil at any particular time - as far as that is possible. It is totally impossible to maintain 50 Reg Group Registers and a myriad of Class Groups Registers without access to the system. Printing Paper Registers, 'just in case', every time there is a Timetable or Group Membership Change is totally impracticable! A record of Cover is also vital as it is another absolute must that a member of staff is in front of every class at all times! (Chris Sherwood will have heard that one before from me quite a few times!). Fortunately we can save to HTML and print a Cover Summary in advance (i.e. tomorrow's!). We now do this as a matter of course but we only print a paper copy one day in advance! Update There are loads of other areas too but I guess these will differ for different schools. For example, I still maintain NT4 even though I have been using NT6 since it's inception. Each time I make a change to the timetable I take a copy of the updated NT4 Timetable and load it on to my Datastick. NT4 runs as a satellite installation directly from a datastick, so I always have a timetable available even if the electricity goes down (as long as I can find a laptop with some juice in the battery!)

Thanks for the thanks ......!! You see I ain't actually the ogre that some folk think I am, am I? I actually try to help people with genuine queries re. SIMS etc - as I have done for many years on SupportNet. On the other hand I ain't just gonna ignore any ridiculous statements similar to those that used to abound on here at one time. I actually think I may have made a difference - there are certainly fewer of those type of posts than there used to be. As for getting my red squares back - I am sure I'll need to have a go at somebody soon! You might be interested in the following CRs which ask for the same as you are asking:- CR.1003-691174; CR.1003-677674; CR.1001-652329 One is quite well supported but hasn't been acted on - so I don't hold out much hope!

Ouch! Steady on! That Bump hurt! Mind you - it had the desired effect - I have voted. I am pretty certain that this has been requested before though.

Would the roadworks on the road outside school that cut though our telephone cables be a 'natural disaster' I wonder! One wonders how big and versatile that cloud will be. Our current experiences with Hosting company that cannot deal with the complexity of our systems are not encouraging. How would God, who controls the clouds, ensure that every single eventuallity was covered? Would all our functionality have to be degraded to a common denominator! Every school would want a slightly different setup! Maybe they would employ me! Now that would lead to a few arguments! Wot Fun that would be! Sorry guys I'll be gone by then!

It ain't that long since we had the Sheffield floods. Our network was down briefly at the start of one day because of the power cuts. The web was down or unusable for days!

Sorry, I cannot really help. Ours are working fine - even with Exam marksheets which are the ones which are usually a problem. You seem to have everything set up ok. I assume that the templates are not locked? If your issue was the other way round (Not in AM7 but in LM7) then there is a report of this being a real problem - to be fixed by Spring Release. KB93278

Good point! Maybe I was a bit hasty in that. Maybe we ought to look into it, Now there's an admission eh? But not ME. What with Discover, Alternative Curriculum, Extra Curriular etc etc to sort before I 'go' (as well as trying to in-service somebody into how to write a Timetable and also how to Set up and Maintain SIMS to it's optimum), then I would never get round to looking at it. Maybe now you will see that I have made no attempt at all to denigrate the Software! Perhaps you should read me more on SupportNet. I suppose my sense of humour takes some getting used to!