Banjo

Profiles - flexible? Your having a laff!

Has anyone turned or knocked the server off by accident? No, but we did have a power cut over the the weekend, would that have done it Priceless!

Why would the OP have told the support team he’s competent? Why would they care, they deal with new starters all the time. This job is in a school, he rings the support team explains they have an inspection and would like a help in preparation for the visit, problem solved.

If that were the case you'd ring your support team and ask for help/visit to get your school through. The important thing with interviews is not the mechanics of using 'Sims' but the good practice of using MIS and data handling in general. These are the skills that the school are looking for, that are then transferable between systems, if the school decides to move MIS. Things to drop into the conversation/interview when asked about handling of data. Privacy notice (FPN) Data integrity Data security Data protection

That OS isn't supported anymore, this could be more trouble than it's worth. Discover will add an extra load to the servers at the end of the year, best advice is to replace it, or upgrade the OS.

Rich, When you print the coverslips for the teachers you have the option for a class list /photo. FOCUS | School | Arrange Cover | then the print window.

Which report are you running to look at the number of events per teacher? Some schools create non-contact time as subjects as they like the way this then prints out, others use the NC Activity drop down under the Subjects tab on the event to place NQT time etc. If it's a report that you are running then you can filter out the union meeting etc to give you the correct total at the end.

That depends on when the contract between them runs out and how friendly the companies still are. They were not competitors before, now they are. David Burgess (Director) moved from Capita to Schoolcomms last year, so maybe they will still play nice. Talk of the Devil and I get this email. "Dear Colleague It was great to meet so many of you at the SIMS Conference last week. Thanks to those that attended our Elective presentation - the PowerPoint slides (including those from Becta) will be up on SupportNet shortly. The purpose of this update is twofold: to give you advance notice of some Summer Special Offers available to schools (see email below) and secondly to pick up on a popular question from LA colleagues at the conference. Please feel free to make schools aware of the offers. As many of you know, schools using Schoolcomms get additional buttons in SIMS that enable them to send messages (text and email) direct from the Student screens. These buttons appear on the main SIMS Student Details screen and also on SEN, Exclusions and Behaviour Management. Messages (e.g. reminders about forthcoming reviews, notification of an exclusion, praise cards for positive behaviour) can be immediately fired off when updating student information"

The installation fee is the bit that niggles me. Schools that buy their support from their LA have to pay again for Capita to remote on and install it. With Capita now pushing their technical training courses, why isn't Intouch installation offered to LA's to reduce the costs to schools. Seems a bit greedy to me.

I have seen missing assessments before when printing reports, usually the groupid missing, but not rows missing from one table and not the other. You could restore a backup of the dataset to an offline copy and have a look at when they went missing, also check the audit trail. I would check the TG to see if staff have been overwriting each others assessments (shared group), but this shouldn't leave records in comments table. Try logging in the eportal and checking help | about | I have seen a data server with a different version number to the eportal service.

And what a mistake that was!

A case of Chinese whispers. We were informed that Discover would run side by side with PA for a limited period of time (Nova T4/6), and then PA would be retired. This information came from the product update conference in Milton Keynes a few weeks ago. The annual conference is the 23rd of this month, so it will be interesting to see if their policy has changed. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1282/4687821292_0fb1fc4595_b.jpg http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1297/4687820724_44ecd505de_b.jpg

I woundn't invest too much time and effort getting to know PA, as it's being replaced in the near future.

Some other questions arise, do we need (are required to have) a LP anymore, what about the parental engagement agenda & online reporting, lots of uncertainty in the near furture. Capita were doing the Home Access programme, that contract will not be extended as there will be no next wave.

You might be ok if this was a minor upgrade, no SQL table changes, just an update to the application, but I wouldn't risk restoring exam data into tables that may not exist/changed name in the newer version.

It may, it depends on how you are transferring the data from one SQL server to the other. If you do it via backup files (bdb) then the file structure is different between the two versions, (extra exam tables in the newer version). This route would not be a good idea. You could detach the mdf/ldf files from the old server and copy and past them across to the new server and attach them. Connect with Admin 10.1 and it will upgrade the database, then install the same version of Eportal. The best way would be to create the blank database on the new sever using the older version of Admin (the same as on the old server). Restore the backups in that, then upgrade to 10.1, then install Eportal.

If you are using eportal don't forget you settings, make sure you copy or replicate these on the new server. Also copy the photos across if you have any. The hardest part will be distributing the new clientfiles folder (.CDB file) to users. Some users tend to create their own shortcuts and have a local copy of the connection file that wont be updated to point to the new server. Config files can be coped across, don't bother to install Facility Admin on the new server, just copy the root folder structure across. You only need to install Eportal on the new server(from setup.exe), say no to reboot, fire the services up manually (creates eportal folder in Webapps), wait 2 minutes, and close them back down. Now you can edit the setting/config files. Tip:- Remove the events bitlet from the home page, as this 'can' cause tomcat to crash.

Yup, and the weirdest thing is, I've been logged into Sims and have been demonstrating Assessment Manager 7 when a member of the office staff has run Solus and completed a successful upgrade (apps & database upgrade) with me logged in. AM7 crashed 10 minutes later, fired it back up and the workstation started to upgrade.

Another thing to think about is training. Without your LEA support and a local training centre how far will staff have to (be prepared to) travel to receive training. If you loose a TT or the exam person through illness etc, then their replacements will need training. You can book Capita to provide onsite support, but that costs upwards of £1200 a day.

You can try de-attaching and reattaching the databases – this has worked for me in the past.

I would do it in a different order. Map a drive from the new sever to the old servers. Copy the Sims folder and DOCstorage across. Run Simsinst and install what you need workstation + docserver and possibly SQL express if you are going that route. Backup Sims from System Manager on the old server, and restore backups onto the new servers Sims database. Copy the Docstorage into the correct location > server name - instance, etc Ready to Go. Then test. When your happy do another backup restore (Friday night possibly) and create a logon script the remaps the workstations to the address of the new server rather than the old. You could even change the original connect.ini on the old server to redirect to the new server as a temporary catchall.