Sivadam

We registered and downloaded & installed the software with no technical issues at all. All the Boards we use are connecting ok - once we had pursuaded AQA that their Password did not match their file - and they released another version to us! We will be sending in a small Summer entry file shortly, as a tester.

We have our own Inbox, Outbox, Inbox Archive and Outbox Archive folders that we always download to and from. Then we manually copy the files into the Exam In/Out boxes in SIMS. That way we have an exact copy of each original file, just in case they get corrupted during the exam processes. That used to happen a lot some years ago!

I must be mellowing in my old age! Then again - we ain't had any malicious posts recently!

I bow to your superior knowledge on this one!

There is a Bulk Update Tool within InTouch but you still have to copy and paste the email address. It does ave having to go into each pupil's record though! I think you can also get Capita to do it for you but you would have to pay for the service!

I guess it would depend on how good, or otherwise, your local support is/was. I was the prime mover in moving from LA to Capita Direct some years ago. That was no reflection on the LA support but more a reflection of our extensive use of SIMS above and beyond what the LA was offering at that time. Since our move to being a Capita Direct school, I cannot praise Capita Support highly enough.

I support everything that LosOjos has said above. However, surely there is somebody in the school that knows more about the school's systems and can help initially?

I have just been kitted out with a test laptop on which I can run test versions of SIMS. It currently has a copy of our current SIMS with the InTouch demo applied on top, because I am evaluating the added value of this, as opposed to our current communications service! Shortly, a second version of SIMS will be added so that I can run the Beta version of the Spring Release. My advice from Capit UAT is to run each different copy in VM mode, which my Technical expert is currently setting up for me. Then I'll be able to switch between the various versions of SIMS. There is no connection at all to our live SIMS Network! The laptop is Windows7 and Office10 - which currently do not use. Hence the need for testing, as I want to avoid the problems that some have had when moving to these.

Just add the HODs to the Curricular Manager Group and they will then be able to review the Profiles for their Department!

If you are only checking the format then an Administrator could do that. They are all going to be delivered in the same format so surely only a few need checking for each subject's layout?

The SIMS Customer Support Charter is readily available via the Sticky Links section of the SupportNet Homepage!

Have you considered using the Profiles Review option? If HODs are set up correctly with Curriculum Manager permissions then they can review the Deprtment Profiles without printing the reports!

Sorry, fraid not! Currently I am off work too with v.bad head cold! And on a v.special birthday! :-(

I would not ask him anything that I would not feel free to ask at any time. No need to do that at a public event!

You just need to run the Re-allocate UPN tool. You probably already have it in the Setups folder (I think it's in that one anyway!). Support will give you an up-to-date copy if not!

It's worth hanging on to! A couple of years or so ago we had to take down our Network two weeks before the end of the Summer Term. The SIMS Server was then moved to my Office and we operated a single user mode for SIMS. I stepped back in time a decade or so and used one of the two OMRs that we still have for Registers etc. I have also retained a stack of OMR Forms for Registration, AM7 etc etc. I suspect I may have to repeat the process as they start to demolish the building we are currently in and that houses the servers, as part of the BSF rebuild (wot a misnomer that is - it should be BSP - Building Schools for the Past!). Ever the pessimist ain't I! But at least I have a workable backup if things do not go as planned!

In the dim and distant past I used to print out every SIMS Handbook that was updated with a SIMS Upgrade. Can you imagine trying to do that now! And then considering uploading them all to this thread one by one?

I'll second that one! And there ain't that many that know more about the actual software, as applied to a normal secondary school, than I do! (Big 'eaded bugga!) It's a good job I have a colleague who is equally adept on the Technical side tho'!

KB31684, on SupportNet, explains how to Upgrade satelllite versions of Nova. For a new install, then the original NovaSatelliteSetup.exe should still be in the setups folder. Presumably you can use this and then run the upgrade as per the KB. Resource number 10262, which should explain how to install a satellite version of Nova, is currently not available on SupportNet. I wonder if they are upgrading it.......

There are two sets of Forums on SupportNet. One is for the LAs and other SIMS Support Units. The second is for Schools! Never the twain shall meet is supposed to be the rule! However, the Capita Product Managers sometimes post to the Forums. Otherwise, it is just School Users on the School site, and there are some very, very experienced ones too! The Forums are intended for self-help! It's a pity that the two audiences are separate in some ways, as LAs can learn from Schools and vice versa! If you had posted this issue in SupportNet then I would have been on to it quicker than I was in here!

Knowing Paul Metcalfe as well as I do, I would have expected him to have given a detailed reason for not delivering functionality that has been requested! And those reasons can be many and varied! Did you see the lists of CR's for SLG that we discussed at the last SLG Consultation Meeting last Summer? The list was endless!!!!! It DOES work! I have been there many times!

There are currently only a handful of us registered for the Minsthorpe meeting. I am always amazed that SIMS users complain on here and on other forums about various parts of SIMS and yet, when they get the chance to contribute at a Consultancy meeting, they are conspicious by their absence! If you really want to have your say and contribute to the discussions then apply for the meetings! Discuss the proposed changes! Make your views known directly to the Product Managers! It DOES work!

Don't beat yourself up about it. We all have to learn. I have lost count of the number of stupid bits of advice that I have dished out on SupportNet forums - mainly from not reading the threads correctly but partly to do with senility setting in! As a matter of interest, if you do not use SupportNet then I suggest that you do. It is easy to find solutions to problems via the Solution Search facilty (where the KB came from!). And if you can't, then there are some very experienced users on the SupportNet Forums!

Does this help = from SupportNet. KB20319 - Nova-T6 How to access Nova-T6

I follow what you are saying and everybody works differently. Personally, I would never connect my Satellite NT6 (and I have 2 different ones - Home PC and Laptop!) directly to the SIMS Network. There is too big a risk of the different installations not being synchronised. That is why I would save a modified satellite .spl to a data stick or, even better, to my Dropbox folder, and then load it in to SIMS via my School Workstation's installation of NT6. Doing it that way ensures that each instance has an up-to-date dataset! Horses for courses!