michael2k6

I think i know the answer to this, a colleague came across it a while ago. I'll email him and ask him to either check out this thread or let me know the answer so i can post back. I can't make any promises though, i might be wrong. (The reason support won't be able to help you is this is an exchange setting, i believe, that we have come across at random). Mic@Serco (in a non-serco context).

I would absolutely love to work in Buxton. Shame the wage isn't higher.

Ok, thanks for that. Even if it just sorts Birmingham out, it will be worth it, i'll look into it.

Fair enough, i don't know of any schools that are using it so i don't really know. All i know is we've a bug logged with some data not saving correctly, but only in IE8. You're right about timing, yes, and i don't believe we could say it generically because you have to specifiy the name of the service. That won't always be MSSQLSERVER. I'll look into it further though and see if i can find an answer. Just so i can get an idea of how widespread this issue is, how many people on here have had this issue? I'd estimate i've personally done around 200 - 300 installs and i've only noticed it on about 20. But, i supose i haven't restarted the server on every occasion. So if it wasn't reported to me after i wouldn't know. I can understand what you're saying about the code optimisation. We have been optimising the code recently in a few specific parts of the database. It isn't so much the code that's the issue here though it's the size of the db. The more data you've got in it the bigger it gets and so the longer the service is going to take to start. Though, it shouldnt make that much difference. If schools have this issue, they need to report it to us so we can be aware of how widespread it is.

If we had google wave this reply would be easier.... ePortal (last time i checked) doesn't work fine with IE8 which is why it isn't supported yet. I can't remember off the top of my head (and i'm in a hotel so i've got a vanilla rubbish connection and cant check) why it isn't but i know there is a problem with some code in it not working correctly, that does work in IE7. IE 6 is quite old, and MS have said it has security issues, so whilst we do support it i'd say upgrade if you can. We also support Firefox 2 and 3. SQL 2000 is not supported and we know there is an issue with ePortal performance with it. All schools must upgrade to 2005 or 2008 as soon as possible. These are the two supported versions. If performance issues are encountered and you're on 2000, we will be unable to help as, quite rightly said, we don't test on it any more and we do know there are issues. We stopped supporting it long before this issue arose. I can explain the rebooting issue. When the ePortal services (Facility Data Server and Facility ePortal) start, they need SQL to be successfully started in order to build the login name table and the cache. There is no dependancy on the service that requires this. So if Facility Data Server (especially) starts before SQL is up and running they will start but not do anything. Restarting the Facility Data server will fix the issue. This is annoying at best, i can understand. So there are a couple of ways of sorting this out. One is to add a dependancy to ensure that the SQL service is started. We can't do this at install. The reason is depending on the name of the SQL instance will depend on the name of the service. The name of the service needs to be put in the registry and so if we put at install "SQL Server" any school with a named SQL service wouldn't be able to start the services every time they upgrade and would have to change the registry. Hence why we don't include this in install. You can specifiy dependancies in the registry, and you can google that really easily. The other option is, services start in groups. Some groups are predefined. It works, again, in the registry, and you basically have to find a key, create a group, find another key and list the service in that group then find another key to specify the order that the groups start in. One group will not start until the last one has finished. If you want more information on that PM me. (I'll need to figure it out again). If enough people PM me i'll write a document and get it on FirstLine and on here. Not many schools have the problem, though. I think the reason is, obviously it depends how long it takes the service to start. This will depend on the spec of the server, and also on the size of the database - starting the service loads as much as possible of the database into the memory. So make sure the database isn't unecessarily huge (inc. log file). Hope this helps. Mic Tech Team Serco

Hi guys, I've spoken to Beardy and issue resolved. You're right about the bit we've missed, the document is being updated. The 64 bit server requires a 64bit ISAPI and it is dependant upon architecture, AMD or Intel. This isn't publically available to current schools but if you have installed on a 64bit server and need to get it running in IIS PM me. Mic @ Serco

Bearer, PM sent.

Hi, If your data hasn't been transfered yet, we install demo data at the install stage. If you need the data before, speak to your implementation manager. Everything else or anything else, PM me and we'll sort it out. Mic @ Serco

Congratulations, all the best.

Hi all, You're right about the events thing. The way they work is if the field in the event definition is set to staff it will show all staff. If it is set to teacher it will only show teachers. The last version would always enter the currently logged in member of staff. Even if that staff wasn't a teacher and the field type was of teacher. This was picked up as a bug whilst resolving another issue - the name in this section of eportal was displayed differently to the rest of eportal, eg. instead of saying 'm sanderson', it read 'sanderson, m'. Now this is resolved, the way to fix the issue if you want none teaching staff to be able to log their own name, is to change the field type from teacher to staff in the event definition. Please take a full backup first. Mic in the tech team @ Serco.

Duke Nukem rocked my socks.

Hi, I would recommend setting up one route in and using that for all incoming queries. Setup the highest level of authentication you require and use that. There are other possible ways - If you had more than one installation of ePortal, you could set one up with the teacher accounts and one with the parent / carer accounts. You could do this using multiple servers, or you could have multiple dataservers installed on one machine. There is a very specific way to set this up, don't try it without speaking to us first. It involved multiple more services and batch script to do things for you. You'd also have multiple sets of XML file,s images, etcetc. If you did do this however, you could have a website in IIS running for each dataserver and apply different authentication to each site. This method is only really recommended for LEA's hosting multiple schools on ridiculous servers, it's a lot of management for a school to handle, and greater overheads on the server(s). The other way to do this would be to have the entire eportal install on multiple servers. This would mean the utilisation of another server but it would be much easier to manage. It would also give you a failover eportal for the internal connection should anything on one server go pear shaped. That's pretty much the only way you're going to get 2 different sets of authentication. But if you can apply one set of higher level to everyone, i would. Don't let the SMT bully you into reducing it, you can always point them at things such as BECTA and explain that they are in part if not wholy responsible for the security of the data. If you want any more specific advise, ask away or PM me. Michael @ Serco

Sorry, every one here is spot on, as usual, we don't support My SQL. There is Orcale support for ePortal, which the HEFE establishments sometimes use, but i believe it is a different Facility version, which is pointed at HEFE, so that wouldn't be any good for you either. So it's M$ SQL all the way. And standard or enterprise, not express, due to the resource limitations of express and the fact that there are less features, some of which we use. Mic Sanderson Technical Engineer Serco Learning

I would configure IIS to run with ePortal. We have a doc on how to achieve this which is on the first line site. Are you using 2003 or 2008 on your eportal box? The document only covers 2003 (IIS6) but if you want 2008 (IIS7) configuring, we're happy to do that with you remotely. If you have 2003, give support a ring, they'll send you the doc, if you have 2008 email me directly on [email protected] and we'll get it done. The default port for IIS using http is port 80 and using SSL (https) is 443. So you won't need to change any ports in IIS. Michael Sanderson Technical Engineer Serco Learning

Hi guys, I'm unsure about the Licensing question, but http://www.sercolearning.com/documen...nicalspecs.pdf Is an outdated document which has been replaced. The new document is on the firstline site and also available from support. I had no idean that this document existed and will have at removed at my earliest convenience. Michael Sanderson Technical Engineer Serco Learning

No problem - i should of put on the bottom of that post i do work for Serco, so although i'm nothing to do with timetabling i probably should know that, lol. Michael Sanderson Technical Engineer Serco Learning

I'm not a timetabling expert, but i think you need to look at weeks. Events have weeks assigned, and you can set them to occur for any range. For example, on a one week timetable, your current events will all (unless some are in rotations) span weeks 1-52. If you're on a 2 week timetable they will span 1 - 26. Assuming it's a 1 week timetable and you're running on 1 - 52. You need to work out where the current ones need to stop, and change them accordingly. You can do this in bulk. You can then set your new events to start the week after the first set finish. Off you go Also, i'd recommend trying all this out on a standalone system first to make sure it's going to work ok. If you don't know how to do that PM me your email address and i'll send you the docs (it's an easy job to do if you can find 30 mins to an hour and a spare standard desktop machine with M$ Access on it). You can also get the docs from the firstline site if you have access to that.

Thanks for all the posts, i'll try all of the above and see if it works.

Hi all, I have a problem which is racking my brain and it will until i get to the bottom of it, someone please give me a hand! I have a laptop, which has a dvdrom in it and windows doesn't recognise it. It's not there at all in the device manager. BIOS recognises it, but you can't boot from it. So i thought duff CD drive, fair play. Plug the USB DVDRW into it, and windows detects it, sticks it in the device manager, and says that it's installed it but couldn't find it. If i unplug it, of course it disapears out of device manager. It also won't boot from this drive. The drive works fine in other laptops, and i've checked that USB is enabled on boot. Any ideas? Oh and the USB socket works with both a wireless stick and an external HDD (all 4 of them do). The USB CD drive is externally powered aswell so it's not a lack of power to USB. I've also moved the external drive much closer to it in the hope it will fine it easier but no luck Any suggestions appreciated.

lmao, Leeds is like Mars a lot of the time. Not that i have much experience of Mars. It's where i'm originally from, not my current location

Is round the corner from me i think i might go for that :-)

Hi all, I don't want to start a our SMS is better than yours thread, but just to fill in the gaps - we provide the functionality to use our database in order to send contacts messages - we don't have anything to do with the actual sending of the SMS, or the account attached to it, the schools sort thisout between themselves, and (as you say) a third party. If the helpdesk have the data i'm sure they'll spot anything that might be wrong with it. Also, if you did try groupcall and still got the errors, you'd know it was definately the third party provider, as that's theonly thing that's changed. If Groupcall still fails, it has to be the numbers.

Tomtom rocks my socks.

Also, it could be a timeout thing? When a lot of them fail, is it the first x amount succeed and then the rest don't? Or is it random?

Hi, We use gotoassist, i think it's not so much that we can't see the users computer, but more that you can't do it on demand, it seems to be when it feels like it. But there must be a set of circumstances that cause it. It might be worth getting some info from reliable staff when it happens - what time of day it was, what class they were changing, was it roll call or lesson by lesson, were the connected on a cable, or on wireless, anything else u can think of. Michael @ Serco