Stuart_C

So I currently trying to get an overly complicated mail merge out of SIMS. It's overly complicated becuase I need to include the initals of each students middle names (if they have any) So without creating a UDF with that info in I'm a bit stuck unless I can flush it through Excel. The good news is that I can flush it through excel and into word and keep everything reasonably automated. My problem however is this. As the length of each list I need will change I need to have formula's in many cells. However my mail merge's all detect that there is data in the cells even though the value is blank ( A1="" for example). Even if I copy and Paste Values into a new worksheet the mail merge still thinks there is data and puts in blank records which muck everything up. I've saved my spreadsheets as CSV Files to see what they look like and there are additional lines coresponding to the rows that have formula's in but no data. Anyone know a way to get round this behaviour? A side question, anyone know a way to return the cell reference of the last value in a column to contain data?

Cheers. I was thinking something like that but wanted to check.

I hav epreviously deactivated all the behaviour types that we were not using in SIMS (Phased introduction of things). I'm now looking at enabling some more of the values and I notice that there are two records for some things, e.g. Bullying and disruptive behaviour with slightly differnet Codes. Why are there two? Does it matter which one I use?

I've got 2K8 R2 servers and a mix of 7 (not SP1 yet) and Xp SP3 machines and my folder redirection works fine. Admitidly to a local source but still fine. One thing I notice your message says you redirect to \\server\start$ but the message log (image) says it is re-directed to \\server\start\ Does the event log knock of the $ for some reason or is there a typo? Though that wouldn't explain why your other machines still worked.

I thought it could. You deployed a little agent out to each workstation you wanted as a SIMS workstation and that keeps it all up to date and install's any components neede to runs SIMS, i.e. SIMS.

I'm currently messing around with Word filed codes in a mail merge and I've hit a but of a stumbling block and I was wondering if anyone can help. I need to manipulate the text such that only the first character is displayed for a record. For example if the data brought through was "EDUGEEK" The only data show would be "E". In excel this would simply be LEFT(,1) but I'm trying to work out how to do this in Word. It would also be usefull if anyoine knew of a way to use the Excel command "Find" to find a specific character in a text string, as well. I'm trying to avoid the extra step of flusing it through Excel which complicates things for the end user.

Ah jsut found my own answer. You need to filter it twice, once on the sub-report and once in the main filter going into the subreport again. Complicated....

Hi there, I'm trying to create a report and I'm having some issue getting it to filter properly and I was wondering if anyone can help. It've very basic, name and house and then a Count of a subreport to list the students who have got a specific achievement and the number they have. It mostly works, the problem is that my list has all the students in, the majority with a count of 0. I need to filter the list so it just shows those students with a count value greater than zero. I can't seem to filter on the "count" of a subreport. I also can't untick "Include records with no such student conduct informations" as I haven't added any fields. And if I do I no longet get the "count". I can then put that list into an RTF template to produce the notice I need. Any advice?

Has anyone else seen this on the BBC website? It was on the main news and the press conference looked funny. It's a good thing the President of the USA isn't dealing with important things and has time to spare.

The point is to get rid of what I have. I don't think I get any benefit. I jsut wanted to talk it through with some experts to see if I'm missing anything.

I'm really just talking out load here and would like some input. When I started working here many years ago our network configuration consisted of two networks connected via a router (PC). Our, larger, accademic network and a much smaller one for our Finance department and some of the sercretaries. This worked as it kept our pupil records sepearte from the main school and provided a layer of security becuase you couldn't see the finance network from the accademic. Times have moved on now and resources like SIMS and PASS are required on both networks. Files are spread accross many servers and users require access to all the resources, Trust relationships exist between both domains. All sorts of people want to do training in different rooms and so on. So baring in mind that my Finance network consists of only about 20 users, I'm starrting to feel that I don't gain anything be having two networks. The security component has gone and all I'm left with is the added complications of security, seperate AD's, Group Policy, scripts. Routing is a bit of a pain as well. Generally I don't think I get any benefit compared to a large number of downsides and the removal of the "finance" server and replacing it with another DC for my accademic domain looks very sasty. A bit of re-cabling to put everything on one physical network and Boom! Done. Easier admin and management and usability for staff moving round the College. Is there anything I may be missing?

On each Win 7 Machine, disable Network Discovery (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings) stops them browsing the network. Re shares. Simply set your root permissions (e.g d:\users) to something like System+Domain admin full control and leave inherriance on. Then use DanRhodes's instructions (or equivilent)to set the permissons on eace user folder to only that user. Job done. Works fine for me.

Hi there, I'm currently having the same issue on some of my machines (2K3 Server and 2K DC's, XP clients). The problem is that it happens at random and NOT at peak times, i.e. now when only a couple of people are logging in. All other stuff from Group Policy is applying, login scripts are running however the homedrives are mapping to "\\server\users\" rather than "\\server\users\%username%". A couple of PC's had erorrs that I had been looking at as possible causes but I've just had it happen on one, that accoring to the logs, has had a faultless boot. As the Home area is mapped from within the users AD account NOT on a login script it's very confusing and it's random nature makes it very irritating. Before I go and re-wite the login scripts so that they map the users home area I was wondring if anyone had managed to find a solution.

Ok Chang of plan. Having just upgraded my techs which is a copy of mine I fear it's an issue with mine. Given that it's got some other software glitches from stuff ive done in the past its time for a reinstall of windows. If someone could delete this for me it would be nice:)

Not had quite that many printers but having done what your doing you really need to get downloading! You need the 64bit drivers to install them in the first place on the server. Takes time but at least you then have all the updated drivers

The classes timeline on a teachers SIMS homepage goes forwards and backwards 1 day. Is there anyway to modify this to a longer period? Say the week? I think the answer is no but I wasn't sure. If the answer is know does anyone know if there are any plans from Capita to change it or are they happy the way it is?

I did wonder if I should put "Mangle Networks" for the second part...

Again I wasn't convicned you can re-set the panels easilly. As the staff don't really use them or know what they are for I wanted to get rid what people had done during training sessions and reset everything to something sensible. Which would have the effect of reducing the server quereies for the panels when put on what I want them to have, instead of what I want them to have plus what they have added. Oh well at least I can provde some order

Great isn't it! OK so it's probably the case that I need to manually correct them. Which is not an issue but I thought I'd ask the question as I didn't want to damage anything else.

At a guess, they don't have a valid start date? They may also be missing a teacher status. Sorry for guessing, I.m not at my desk.

Well that's dull conspiracy based answers are much more amusig

To be honest the more serious question is "why is question 17 intentionally left blank"?

Not meaning to be too argumentative but what do you gain by not filling it in? There's the obvious risk of prosecution on the downside but what upside is there for you by not doing it? Yes all the information is probably out there, so what's the downside to filling it in? Just think of all the future episodes of "Who do you think you are" you are causing problems for by not completing it .

Same with you on both sites

Well yes. The main issue I had was over the dynamic nature of them. The instructions for sys admins is in one of the configuring and setup documents. I have found it and it implies he setup is based on the pastoral structure, which is fine but it clearly isn't as I'm missing some class teachers and one of my housemasters isn't current. Yet it is in the pastoral structure. I just wondered what other people thought before I got bored and just went and manually corrected it.