tombry

I've been sent a document from a school that has information about them adding the codes 7, 8, and 9 (well aliases to I and Y respectfully) and been told by another school that it allows you to enter 8, 9, or Y without raising an exceptional circumstances routine. I'm waiting to get access to it myself in our test system to see how we'll handle it for our attendance write backs with our other schools, so really hope they aren't pulling it and changing it!

When I click the documentation link all I get is a warning message "Documentation Index File missing..." I suspect that's the file that has the web links.

Disclosure - I work at a Capita partner, and only have the test database. Some of the users have the full folder of documentation PDFs, yet when I install the sims client onto my PC I'm not getting them. I've run the SIMSManualSetup.exe, and while that seemed to copy over a bunch of help files (.chm), it hasn't given me the documentation folder with all the PDFs. Anyone know which install file I need to run to get the "documentation" link in SIMS to launch?

All the partner links are on a different site - not sure if it's a new thing, but the ones I have all are at the portal - https://partnermanagement.sims-partners.com/

I need help with creating a scheduled task to restart OpenVPN service and Hosted SIMS update service to help prevent timeouts when pulling information from the hosted service - is it possible?

You need to use a conversion tool to convert the raw marks into fine grades. Ben Fuller from Herts Grid used to have spreadsheets up here: HGfL: Teaching & Learning: Assessment: Attainment Data But they are no longer there - I imagine someone here might have them, but they probably haven't been updated - which software package are you using that is wanting the 5dp?

The DfE are going to measure from it to be more accurate - one student I looked at the other week shifted her P8 score by .25 by moving from 2dp to 5dp.

oh, well now, this gives me much more hope!

I think you will have to set up your courses for the new spec stuff - I'm waiting for my replacement to come in so I can show her how to do it, but I know when I submit the timetable it tells me loads of new spec courses aren't there.

So, when I try to delete the current houses it says I have to move students to a new house - at present the school isn't planning on using a house system next year, so if I manually remove everyone from the houses, will I be ok? Or does each student need to be assigned a house (I can't imagine every school uses a house system)?

well, we have Go 4 Schools (who I'm going to start working for in August), but I'm still going to do the SIMS thing - in part to use as training with my replacement exam officer, but also because with the fixed term contract and salary they are offering for a replacement data manager, I don't think they'll get one, and I figure setting SIMS up will at least get them some analysis!

Posted that too quickly - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6d_WbH092ZbbXVsNG4zY2k2Tzg/view?usp=sharing

I got a couple things from Capita MyAccount: https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/Search/DownloadDocument?s=RESOURCEID-1-5409

Bill, Pretty sure that's a good 3 years away though. It matters not, I'm leaving at the end of this school year for greater things (well, in my mind)

she's not happy, and I'm sure I'll upset the attendance officer and office manager, as they'll have to do paper registers, but leave that headache for the new person

well, got that stopped. thankfully I don't have to stress the loss of attendance marks!

I haven't a clue - honestly, she's trying to tie it in to us having Year 9 start their options on the 5th (we've done it since I've been here) - which is also a nightmare. It is honestly driving me crazy trying to do it simply. Especially as I'm also the Exams manager - kind of a busy time!

So against my recommendation, the acting Head wants to scrap our current house system and move to horizontal registration groups. She wants this to take effect on the 5th of June. The first hurdle I'm hitting is when I go to move the registration groups to horizontal, it wants me to re-assign all of the current registration groups to specific years - which I don't want to do, as these will be all-new registration groups. I can't get rid of the current registration groups as the students are all members - and while it will let me move the students to generic groups, I'd rather not move them all to some generic group and then have to move them back. Am I missing an easy way to do this? I think I recommended against it as I seem to remember reading somewhere that changing in the middle of the year is a bad idea - maybe it was just that it's such a pain!

Thanks - feel like an idiot now. our governance information can't be corrected by our head accountant, so has been red for the entire year, I've just got so used to skipping past it, I hadn't noticed!

So I'm trying to do my super simple summer census, and I need some more ULNs, so I log in for the the KtS batch one, and I cannot access KtS. I also don't have access to COLLECT or S2S either. They are in my list, they just aren't hyperlinked. Now...I know what you're thinking - but I'm the lead account, have approver rights, and have checked my rights, which haven't changed. I'm hoping I missed an email or something

it's prettier - I had a little play with it during lunch yesterday - after my AHT gets through the hiring process of a second AHT, I'll sit down with her and come up with some feedback - but in my initial opinion, it seems better designed than ROL

@GrahamB - with SchoolPod, it was the general look of it, I had other notes, but I passed them over to the NM a while back and can't remember what I had listed in my negatives - wasn't awful, think it mainly dealt with them having a load of tools that we'd be happier sticking with the third-party ones, and them not working with third-parties as much as we'd like. @Banjo - maybe that's why he's so keen!

Funny that - it's apparently designed so that you don't need any other modules/software, but doesn't include timetabling...not a good start to me! I hadn't really thought about the SSRS part of Progresso, but when I originally looked at it in 2014, it looked pretty easy to get through - I'll keep that in mind though. My fear with Integris is that the adviser is looking at it from the lower two schools perspective, and not ours (we're in a three tier system). Bromcom is on my list of ones to look at, but as I've got exams in 3 weeks, it's a post-exams job at this point. Can I have a link to the video? Test driving is always nice - I was lucky with the Progresso demo that the sales guy let me take over his laptop and just have a play around for a bit - haven't had the same with the other systems - but visiting schools that use them would definitely be on my list - my big concern is that I won't actually be asked, and the trustees will just go with the adviser! Thanks to all for your responses too!

Nah, we're a small Academy Trust across three schools - I know we are trying to get away from server based MIS to cloud based, thus my looking at things, but Integris wasn't even on my radar, as I can't say I'm a big fan of the company as a whole, from my very limited experience with them.

Apparently an adviser to our Academy has recommend our schools move to Integris - this is without involving me (the only data manager in the academy), and now I'm curious how well it works. I've gone to RM's website, and downloaded their brochure, but it doesn't show much, and seems to spend as much time talking about it's value for money as anything else. The listed modules it shows make me wonder as well - does it do timetabling? I have to imagine it does, but it's not one of the modules it mentions, and outside of booking a demo, I figure the best place to find out is here. So - any good to those that use it - do you have anything to compare it to? Does it do timetabling? Is it really good value for money (In your opinion obviously). I went to Greed's website, but RM hadn't answered his survey, so not much there. For reference, we're a SIMS school, who uses G4S, and I've looked at Progresso (liked), ISAMS (liked) and Schoolpod (wasn't keen).