Jeremy69

Fair point but perhaps it has changed since you last used it? I think I recall installing an upgrade from 63 floppies once(and if number 62 failed you weren't well placed) but it has moved on from there

Only if there is a drug to remove prejudice and pre-conception first. Make that three. Probably rather more. To say it's quite difficult but I haven't used it for years seems a bit blinkered. Of course people should find support wherever they can if they view it to be authoritative and helpful. I think there were three times when I found a supportnet solution deficient in some way and when it was pointed out and accepted it was corrected. The forums had, for the most part, people who were keen to help resolve others problems if they could including some who contribute here also. So no supportnet is not perfect but it is the main way of getting online support (more comprehensive than this forum) so get inside the tent and make it better if you view it to be deficient.

Anyone is entitled, of course, not to like a site. I used Supportnet for a long time and agree that there are areas such as logging change requests where it could certainly improve but when looking for solutions for SIMS problems I found it saved time and saved logging calls on occasion. There were plenty in my school who would not know what supportnet was (despite it turning up on quite a few SIMS screens) but they reported faults to me first and I could solve at least some of them as others on this site could also. In supportnet and elsewhere I have found Sivadam very helpful and he has solved more than one problem for me and occasionally I hope I returned the favour. Supportnet is more targeted and thus in my view the first port of call for SIMS problems but yes it could certainly do with an overhaul in some areas. I expect you meant clearer but it isn't my experience that this is what a number of question marks mean rather surprise/shock over what is being said. Frustration is 27 exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However easy it is to deal with Reason 0 the point that error messages might be more friendly and also better documented is a well taken one. The error listing on supportnet, for example, frequently doesn't have messages recorded. With Reason 0 the first person to see it is going to be an end user so making what they see a little more firendly would remove some aggravation however I'm not sure which ivory tower this comes from.

If it isn't on your system then support should be able to email it to you.

With HP printers the best solution is to install an older and fairly standard driver instead of the specific one for the model. Even something as old as an HP4 driver does the job usually.

"An authority can take into account the costs attributable to the time that persons (both the authority’s staff and external contractors) are expected to spend on these activities. Such costs are calculated at £25 per hour per person for all authorities regardless of the actual cost or rate of pay," This comes from advice issued by the ICO in June 2009 and is used in respect of charging and determining whther the cost would exceed £450 in which case the request maybe refused.

My school always used the direct support route because the LA was not a SIMS authority. When talking to other schools about their experience the majority view was that the LA often put an additional delay into the process whether that was upgrading, fixing faults or getting patches and with a few exceptions did not have all that much expertise. Going direct was a major bonus if there were a serious problem that needed fixing NOW!

I think it will still work. We have one workstation with Launcher on and each year it produces a report from the old dbf system using Repgen Lite because the archive is (crazily) not available in .net. However it will be useless for anything recent as once the dbf database was transferred across to .net no updating of dbf takes place so it is heaven knows how much out of date.

My school did UAT testing for a couple of modules and in each case we got to try it out and had some feedback into how the final product looked. Capita were appreciative. listened and did their best to sort any problems. Whilst the modules were in test the school got enhanced support so any problems could be quickly fixed. I might not have been paid but then I didn't expect to be and found the experience, on the whole, a rewarding one well worth doing.

I came to this thread(and read the other one) late so don't know the specifics of what the fuss is about however closing threads because one person doesn't like what is being said doesn't strike me as the right thing to do. If there is offensive language or something said is possibly libellous then I can understand some action being taken. Before I hung up my hard drive I used to read a lot of Sivadam's posts on Supportnet under his other name and slow person that I am I've only recently realised that his two ego's are one! Without exception the posts were a. knowledgeable and b. helpful and on occasion filled in gaps which, in truth, might have been filled in by user support. I've reviewed some threads/comments(obviously only the one's the moderators are prepared to allow to be seen) and what comes across is someone who has some positive but well thought out views. What's the problem?

The cost for my school this year is about £6.4k (School over 1000 pupils). If we added a module we had not had before then that would be an additional cost. We did have a look at SERCO sometime ago to see what else was out there and it was the preferred LA solution. The sales people were quite reluctant to specify exact costs but after some dancing around it came to about £14-15K each year i.e. not just a starting up cost which seemed to be getting on for 2.5 times what we paid at that point. Couldn't see how that was any sort of value for money.

When that has happened on machines (both with Word and Excel) it has been because the macro setting in Word or Excel was set to high and turning it to low brought dire warnings but a solution.

I've never heard so much rubbish! When sims.net was created it took data from the old dbf database and put it into an SQL database. The old launcher programs still use the dbf database. I can think of dangers such as people having access and thinking that the data is up to date or can be edited and used but I don't believe there are any technical dangers and moreover it is needed if you want to get to exam results or address data from anyone who was archived in the old DBF version of STAR. If this man is ringing your head to try and put the frightners on then he doesn't know his job. I can quite understand that it would not be supported but not that you could not access your own data!

I'm surprised you put up with this. Why should support determine which bits of the database you can get at? Although I no longer have any disks(sorry) we keep Launcher going because occasionally we need to see information in the archive which is not available in Sims.net. Sounds as if support are doing this to suit themselves and having one station that can access Launcher would be prudent

Sophos definitely has an impact on SIMS when upgrades are done so it is worth excluding the setups directory on the server from being scanned. Excluding the directories that you have is also likely to have a positive impact. I think you need to get users to define when it is slow because there are some fixes, for example an addition you can make to the connect.ini file if sims times out doing certain jobs.

You can choose whether to have your sims ids in the simes database (traditional method) or tie them up with AD. FMS has a separate set of user ids and passwords. Don't think these can yet be same as AD but someone will correct if I've got it wrong.

I think the cover bit is due to be switched off quite soon but the reports section will last until the new .net reporting engine is ready. This is March 2010 at the earliest so T4 will be around until the end of this academic year, I think, for certain.

We've installed 7.120 and Attendance 6 is still appearing on the bottom of the Focus menu just above examinations. Attendance 7 is there, you don't have to install it but previous posters are correct in that you need a patch to wake it up and make it appear. Although it is some time since we applied that we didn't go on training and frankly nor did we need it. It is not that different from Att6 in many ways.

As this post started with a lost T4 password it seems strange that the discussion should move on to students changing the timetable. All students know that you now use T6 for timetabling!

We find we need admission numbers for several purposes before the new Year 7 are admitted. Examples include cashless catering cards, identifier for school photographers, identifier for school computer access. We could not wait until September to sort all this out without causing significant inconvenience to lots of people. To achieve this we admit the students once the list is as final as possible (early July) but make sure the date of admission is set to the start of the new term. Then if you produce a report and set the correct date as a parameter all is well.

We use SIMS and have done for just over 20 years. Man Boy and DOS. Is it perfect? No. It has, however steadily improved and behind it is a large organisation who can devote the time to sorting out the many changes of mind that government, exam boards etc have on an almost weekly basis. It might not be a popular answer on this forum but I would recommend it.

I think the admin staff who said 2008 is needed over the summer are planning for some pain. As SQL2008 is not supported until the October 2009 release and not compulsory until after October 2010 it seems a bit premature and there are likely to be osme aggravations to sort out so being an early adopter may not be best and being one before Oct 09 risks SIMs not working if it is done on a live system.

Sounds like really good planning!