PhilNeal

It could be that they created a Discover Group - these are available on marksheets.

Interestingly I was at the Midlands Support Team user group last week when one LA described how well SOLUS3 performed. They manage all their primary upgrades from a single instance of SOLUS3 with 98% success rate. Another LA reported that they'd put SOLUS3 into a Birmingham secondary school and were amazed at how efficient it was in finding and installing SIMS. A third LA had not had success. Clearly there have been issues but I do believe we are close to having a system that can save enormous amounts of time for schools. Producing an MSI has not been ruled.

Delete is not the same as making a pupil leave and then re admitting. Delete is obliterate! Please raise a case - I'm not sure that the data can be recovered.

The new Staff Performance Module allows storage of documents against staff. Lesson evaluations etc.

So tell me who that was!

I'm not sure that I should encourage the use of paper

Sorry you are right - Cover does look at working patterns. I'm afraid there isn't a global update.

I don't think the work patterns in Personnel should affect availability in Nova. They are only there to work out salary commitments.

Names aren't generally a problem with DPA its when you start to include personal data such as SEN, ethnicity, pupil premium that it becomes a major issue.

Unfortunately it's unlikely that a fault code will be found in the database as we fix things if they occur. The fault code does help is pinpoint where the problem is however.

@Steven_Cleaver I think so but I'm not that close to the detail. I'm not in the office now until Tuesday - if its any different I'll re-post after then.

I am indeed referring to the A2C project although I am looking to make some changes to how we update base data if the A2C project gets delayed further. @Steven_Cleaver thanks for your feedback. Communication is something that we have to address. We are implementing a new customer system that will allow schools to register interest in various areas for one or more people. So for example exams, timetable etc.

@Matt44 I was indeed away for the weekend! We have been working with the exam groups to improve the process and largely they have agreed to move to a homogenous method of working with on-line access to base data and results issuing. However implementation has been postponed on a number of occasions. @Steven_Cleaver sorry you’ve had a hard time. The exam system is hugely complicated with vast numbers of qualifications from many bodies and I’m not certain that it is possible for all schools to have a zero issue results day until the changes mentioned above have been implemented. Even then, I’d be surprised if the first run went without any issues but they should be easier to resolve. Dealing with boards & governments is the proverbial “herding cats” problem; we get information at the last moment or later. Everyone including us makes a couple of errors which have to be corrected. This year we made extensive changes to the way SIMS deals with the various problems encountered with the equivalences and in general I think this paid off as we had very few issues that couldn't be dealt with promptly. One of the side effects of this change was that had results been entered already they would need to be re-keyed. We did issue notices to warn schools both on SupportNet and to LAs suggesting that results should not be entered until after the summer update. We deal with errors, ours, the boards and governments by issuing patches and that always makes it look as if all the errors are ours – they aren't. Can we do better? The team is constantly looking to do better so I’m sure the answer is yes!

InTouch is seeing messages pass through it so I don't think there is a problem. It was very busy yesterday sending out GCSE results but its quiet today.

@Sheridan who supports you - your LA or Capita? Only your support unit can issue a patch to you. If its us please let me have details and I will investigate.

John thanks for the offer. It's all ready to roll out but unfortunately I don't think we can parallel run.

With the awful problems we've had this week with our servers we are going to wait until after the GCSE results before introducing another variable.

We've upgraded 200 schools this afternoon via Solous3 so I'm more confident that it is back up and running properly.

I have discussed this issue with architects again and can confirm that it is Delphi/Windows that is responsible for printing. It is possible that due to the age of Delphi that it is using legacy calls that are not supported on all printers. There are some things that were down to our programming so for example a long time ago we sent cheque prints out as separate jobs so it was possible to find another print job get into the queue. The checking that a default printer had been assigned came about as on occasions FMS would crash if one had not been assigned. We have never been able to reproduce this error. Generally there are very few reported printer issues compared to the number of active users. We are currently planning the next generation of FMS but it’s a huge task so it won’t appear for a few years yet.

@MrMat, thanks for your input. I completely agree that we need to sharpen up our communications. At present the product managers are responsible for managing the fix and communicating; they naturally focus first on finding the fix. On a slightly different tack, we are looking at MSI options for those that are technically able - it's not confirmed but I am pushing to make them available.

Unfortunately I can confirm that the SOLUS3 service is not fully operational; needless to say this is something that we regret and are working hard on resolving. By way of background, we had a catastrophic hardware failure. We had already commissioned new more powerful, resilient servers and brought them on-line ahead of schedule in order to resume the service. For reasons that as yet we have not got to the bottom of, these servers are running at 100% even though no software changes have been made. This is leading to inconsistent effects in schools and support units - hence some schools are upgrading whist others are failing.

TBH, why Capita think 15:41 today is a suitable time to email exam officers with an urgent update that needs applying before they do the Exam results tomorrow morning, I haven't the faintest. This is a consolidated patch i.e. nothing new. We've issued it to help schools that have just come back in to process results so they can apply a single patch rather than ~5. It tidies up the small number of minority qualification anomalies.

It should be working now.

Sorry I can confirm there is still a fault.

Service was resumed at 11:00.