PhilNeal

Tilda - you should ask how many academies chose FMS!

No that's not related.

Nephilim it would be helpful to know the case number as giving out this news has to be handled sensitively; we'd also like to understand why you've had a total failure. It is the right advice - if an upgrade fails with SOLUS 2 the fastest way to get going again is to do a workstation visit. We did an early adopters roll out as usual without any reported issues and we do not have a large list of cases so I do not understand why anyone told you that "this upgrade is known ..."

You can also use trusted mode without going to TS.

They do.

Yes its supported.

TechMonkey please do. Cheers Phil

SOLUS 3 is available for installing and upgrading SIMS. No hacks are required and upgrading of the EXEs will be possible too.

TechMonkey. If you'd like to drop me a PM, I'd be happy to send out one of our architects to investigate. You may have an environmental problem or it could be that there are issues emerging in your school that we need to understand and fix.

For information, we're quite happy for you to have a test version of SIMS in addition to your main licenced product.

I can't add to my original statement and there's a lot in here off topic i.e. FOI requests etc. FOI requests are clearly a competitor trying to gain competitive information.

I'm generally staying out of this debate however for us the LA pays per pupil of the schools that are electing to use our software.

Please raise the issue at the session tomorrow. Custom groups should be supported (i.e. they shouldn't go wrong) although we can't help with groups that you have created and tell you why they aren't working. Crashes are a completely different matter.

If your local team solve the problem then drop me an email.

You will need to go through your support team.

Please log a call - it shouldn't take that long.

If your LA bought SIMS it will have done so under extremely favourable terms in comparison to a single school purchase because dealing with one purchaser is much more economical than dealing with several hundred. As a consequence our LA licence agreement specifically rules out novation of licences to bodies outside the LA (or its successor body). There are a number of reasons why we require an academy to purchase SIMS in its own right: We have had to make extensive changes to the software both in finance and originally the statutory returns. These changes have to be funded by the academy sector. Academies rightly test the market to ensure they are selecting the best system going forwards but that comes at an enormous cost to us – we have to employ people to demo, create marketing materials etc or we will get out sold. We are wary of being accused of using our market strength to keep competitors out. Even after licence fees our charges compare very favourably with leading competitors. LAs are able to transfer their licence to other schools under their control although I accept that is less likely to happen than it used to be The government has made £25K available to new academies for start up costs such as transfer costs of buildings and purchasing appropriate software.

We can supply SIMS as a hosted solution. If you are interested I can get someone to make contact with you.

In my experience, admittedly >20 years ago, a good comment bank will provide much more varied and accurate reports than anything hand written with notable exceptions. The problem always come if you allow neutral comments that say nothing! If you have say 5 sections each with 20 comments the permutations are enormous. Try looking through some handwritten ones - they are very very similar o each other!

I hope the decimal point is in the wrong place!

It will almost certainly be for 1 or 3 years.

Do be careful to compare like with like and check what's included.

I think it could be that the document has been flagged as private to the poster.

I'm off to the States!

The steps listed in this thread are originally from 2 years ago when that was what was required. Since autumn 2009 we have updated our installers to resolve these issues and the steps from 5 onwards should not be required. Alternately use SOLUS3.