NorthernSands

Woot!! Thanks Vik (+ anon). I've not had the time to search for a solution. EDIT: Or rather I did but didn't have time to try the plethora of potential keywords to bring up the correct article. :-/

I'd like to chime in and say we have the exact same problem, although we also have the new Multiple Timetables module. On the new timeline we do have the all the correct lessons, but the huge AM and PM blocks (at the wrong times) are squashing all the normal lessons to half their width. Most annoying! I have a dedicated AM lesson in the Timetables (effectively a registration 'lesson'), and PM being taken from lesson 5. Lesson Monitor has been setup correctly with A in the first lesson and P in the 5th, the correct lessons coloured in to reflect AM and PM. 'Copy Lesson Marks to Session' is set for both AM and PM.

Thanks all, got it working now. It was me being stupid. I thought .Net 2 was already installed for something else, but that was my laptop! Oops. :-)

I am currently trying to install Impero 3502 client on my Windows 8 workstation, but it errors out with "Service 'Impero Client SVC' (ImperoClientSVC) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start the system service." I'm logged is as a Domain Admin with Local Admin rights. UAC is set to 'Never Notify' though, and I know Windows 8 really doesn't like that. Any ideas, anyone? Version 4 should be available to us soon, so I may have to wait. Love the product, though! :-)

I use Windows 8 and Office 2013 64Bit. Office appears to work fine. The only niggle is when you run a report bound for Excel, it launches an Excel window and shows you it filling in the data. This then closes and Excel opens again with the final report. The filling in Excel window is meant to be hidden. MS still recommend only using 32Bit Office. Or at least it still says that when downloading Office 2013 via VLSC. And yes, the tagging issue with Individual Reports has been around for at least 2 years I think.

I've been playing around with a handful of workstations (Lenovo ThinkCentre M58p) and have a Server 2012 failover cluster setup with the shared storage running over iSCSI. Although it works, the inbuilt iSCSI implementation within Server 2012 is, well, interesting to say the least. I did eventually get it working, but adding more iSCSI drives has proven tricky and I keep getting WinRM problems. I've asked to speak to one of the technical guys at the IBM shop to see what my options are with the DS3512. If I can't connect all 4 servers up via SAS (and have it working correctly) then I will look down the 10GbE route. I could even swap out the SAS modules and replace them with the 10GbE iSCSI ones.

Very true. One of the x3650s could become the host. They have an SAS port built in, but would need two for redundancy (both SAS cards then). I'll need to check what expansion slots they have tomorrow. Does what you suggest still allow for a fail over cluster? I'll keep all this in mind and get quotes for both solutions. I still feel it would be good to utilise the 4 SAS ports on the storage box, and link it to all the nodes. But now I have more options.

The DAS controller is one of the 4 I was looking to put Hyper-V on (sorry, not clear in the first post, but it's the x3550 M3 with 2 x E5620). Also, both expansion slots are taken by the SAS adapters. I'd like the DAS controller server in the cluster anyway as it's the most powerful.

The DS3512. Yes, it is a DAS. When I first inherited the network, it and its host server were simply called a SAN. Consequently the host server was left simply being a file server, despite its power. For that matter the storage had remained empty as well! The hardware we have may be pretty good, but the network is pretty poor. Still, I'm under the impression that it will enable a fail over cluster. Just got to get my head around it all!

Dear all, I'm looking at virtualising our server rack, and seeing as we have an SAS SAN, using a failover cluster as well, all using current hardware. We are a split site school, fibre-optic joining the two sites, with one network / AD, approx. 3400 students and 450 staff. Current hardware: 3 x IBM x3650 (2 NICs, 1 x E5430, 4GB) 2 x IBM x3550 M2 (2 NICs, 1 x E5540, 10GB) 1 x IBM x3550 M3 (2 NICs, 1 x E5620, 16GB) 1 x IBM x3550 M3 (2 NICs, 2 x E5620, 16GB) 1 x IBM DS3512 5TB SAN with dual controllers (4 SAS ports & 2 NICs per controller) Currently the SAN is connected to one of the x3550 M3 via both controllers for redundancy. At a high level I'm thinking the following: 2 x3650 as backup DCs (1 on each site) 1 x3650 with a 12TB NAS for backups (on the other site to the main server room) 4 node fail-over Hyper-V 2012 cluster on the 2 x3550 M2 and 2 x3550 M3 The cluster will contain the main DC (inc. DNS & DHCP), MS-SQL / application server, Print server, file server, SIMS server, SharePoint server. Anyway, I think the upgrades I need are as follows: 6 extra SAS controller cards and cables for the 3 x3550 not currently connected to the SAN 4 additional twin NIC modules for the 4 x3550 (to bring each one up to 4 NICs each) More RAM to bring all x3550 to a minimum of 16GB My questions are: How does the SAN connect to all 4 nodes? I think run 1 SAS cable from each node to each SAN controller (so 2 per node for redundancy) How does the SAN connect on the network? 1 NIC per controller is currently plugged in, but I haven't traced where they go yet How do the nodes wire up together for the cluster network / failover? I think each node will connect to each other node (3 NICs per node) or use a dedicated switch (1 NIC per node, or 2 teamed) How do the nodes connect to the main network? Here I'm thinking that the 4th NIC on each node connects to the main backbone / network switch (or 2 teamed if using a node switch for Q3) How am I doing? Can anyone offer any advice on the above? Although my investigation is into a 4 node cluster, I actually suspect a 2 node cluster would suffice, on the two x3550 M3, but if I can get the budget I may as well make it a 4 node. The IT budget here is a very strange affair, so it wouldn't be as though I could use the unspent money on another project. If the 'budget' isn't approved, then I will look to the 2 node cluster and possibly stretch to an additional E5620 CPU. Many thanks for any comments!

Hi Vik, Thanks. Same as what I was thinking. I'll fire it over to the SIMSME group as well. Let's see what they have... :-)

Dear all, I know it's not natively possible to incorporate Arabic script into Assessment / Profiles reports, but does anyone have any advice as to how to work around this limitation? The only thing I can think of is to have the Arabic team enter it into the final exported Word docs, but this is far from ideal. :-( Vik: how do you cope? I know Capita are looking into this, but have been for over 2 years with no end in sight. Many thanks!

I generally disagree with most people here. I've set up SIMS in the classroom in several primary schools (with separate curric / admin networks), and it's been fine with the normal SIMS client. Yes, some curric / admin network setups won't allow it, in which case either change the networks or find another solution. The key, I think, is training and support. I've always found it odd that people see Primary School teachers different to Secondary School ones. The school I'm at operates from Reception to Y13 and at the beginning of 2010-11 we split the school into Lower (Rec - Y4), Middle (Y5 - Y8) and Upper (the rest). The Middle school were intent to have all assessment data recorded directly into AM7. This was essentially managed by the MS but the Y7 - Y8 were fine (being doing it for a little while already) but it was new to the Y5 - Y6. It didn't go well at all, with many Y5 and Y6 teachers complaining about the "Secondary way" of working etc. and they were quite negative. This year, the Lower school decided to also enter their assessment data in directly. This time it was managed by me and the LS. The difference couldn't be more profound; the teachers loved it and found it really useful etc. I also timetabled the entire school this year. Primary is a doddle. :-)

You can do this, but it's not brilliant. The problem is that where there are two teachers, the main class teacher is also listed as a class teacher, in addition to the other class teacher, so you get three results for one class. Anyway, try this and have a look at the results: Create a new Report based on School > Group. Bring through the data field for the Group name, and also the Sub-group Supervisors. In the sub group bring though Role and Full name. Preview that and scan down the list (you may need to filter out results with no Role, or filter the group name). Find a class you're interested in and have a look at the Role and Names. You'll see that for two teachers you'll see three lines. Not a lot can be done about that, I believe. See how you get on!

I run several DBs. However I switch between the live one, and a local SIMS Server on my workstation. The local Server on my workstation runs a copy of the live, plus Waters Edge and Green Abbey. Because it's a different server, it can run a different version of SIMS. It just meant I installed an extra copy of SIMS in a different Program Files folder, and also have short scripts to swap the SIMS.ini files over. I also have one of the ICT suites modified to connect to either the live DB, or one of the ones on my workstation. This makes it really useful for training purposes. If you run a Trusted login system (as we do), and you're copying your live DB, make sure you've already got an account set up in SIMS that's not trusted!