superfletch

Having used both S3 interfaces I don't like the new one. But I'll qualify that by saying only because it is a change to something I was familiar with. Looking at it the new interface it does seem more logical with the sort of dual tabs at the top. I guess there are so many different places to go in S3 that it takes a while to get used to. It's like when they re-organise the supermarket and you can't find anything initially, you soon get used to it. On balance I now prefer S3 over S2 but it's taken a while and there is still the odd occasion when I hate it.

Someone has given you the KB's in your other post, since you're a supportnet member you should be able to get to those now. Beyond that the ISO's are searchable from within supportnet.

Thanks all so much for your views and replies on this. I'm totally with @GREED on the pupil history thing which for me, is why you can't just "re-enter" this kind of data easily. If the MIS is being used well in school, it is so much more than a few contact details. When you get into finance, salaries and different issues for academies the water just seems to get even deeper, hotter and more shark infested! I was shocked when the techie in the school concerned with this "nearly incident" recently didn't seem too worried about the whole situation. @PhilNeal - Penny for your thoughts on the subject? Thanks again everyone.

I guess I'm interested in what are the repercussions for losing the MIS data, for the school as a whole. Specifically interested in the MIS data though. (ie - If a school lost SIMS and FMS and couldn't recover it).

Just putting it out there.... A school we support nearly lost everything on their single server recently. Backups weren't done for the last couple of years so there was nothing. What happens if a school loses all its pupil data (lets throw finance data in too - just for fun)? Legally, Financially, With the DfE, etc How much different is it between a small primary and a large secondary? I'm guessing it must have happened somewhere already but google isn't coming up with anything. Given that there really is no excuse for it these days, the penalties must be pretty big. Any thoughts / experiences?

I'm not sure I can help answer the actual question here but I'm sure someone here with good SQL knowledge will be able to. However if there's an issue with running specific reports it may be worthwhile looking into the "Scheduled Reports" feature in SIMS. You could send these reports to run overnight that way. You can look it up in the help files, but essentially you create a scheduled task on the SIMS server which will run any reports selected for scheduling. After that, any users who need to schedule reports do so in SIMS itself. The scheduled reports should then run during the Scheduled task window and turn up in a widget on that users homepage the next day.

Not sure if some of the echo strings might need to be in quotations? For instance: [color=#333333]net use Y: "\\[server]\[share]" && echo %TIME% - set first drive letter! >> log.txt || echo %TIME% - map first drive failed >> log.txt [/color] Might be: [color=#333333]net use Y: "\\[server]\[share]" && echo "%TIME% - set first drive letter!" >> log.txt || echo "%TIME% - map first drive failed" >> log.txt [/color] Maybe?? Can you test that the system account is normally able to map that drive - ie) open a command window as the system account and test you can map the drive. ------ Also has a user other than system already got this share mapped as a drive in a different session on this server? (eg you or the administrator account is logged in with a mapped drive using it)?

We have a school who converted to academy and had a brand new SIMS database instead of applying the patch to their existing one. They CTF'd a lot of details in for kids and have spent the last year or so getting SIMS back where it was as far as the rest of the data is concerned. They are now asking what sort of retention period they should be looking at for the old database. Any ideas?

Yeah - my edit came a bit late...

I've applied it on the capita test school databases - it went through fine (on SOLUS 3.6.94 in SQL 2012 on Server 08R2) - to be honest you'd expect it to be OK on those!! Seems stable on our XP clients. The new documentation centre is nice. The improvements to "Homepage group configuration" look worth a shot if your SIMS Server is still suffering memory issues since the homepage changes. The small change to the wording at the top of a new Census return is nice, includes the year as well as term. Fileset 150 auto imported OK Discover seems no different but I note you can copy graphs and rename the legend on user defined graphs. Overall - it's looking good to me... ...so far.

16th Jan

No worries - Just thought I'd qualify. I've a vested interest in knowing what happens to those sorts of sites. Someone will do it first, and they'll probably be someone who frequents these forums. Someone will do with a mixed economy of XP / 7, again hopefully they're someone on here. Some poor soul will risk their arm running it on Server 2003. TBH - I was just a bit surprised that nobody had already posted a specific "Autumn Upgrade" thread (the other one is a bit off topic) and figured I'd pop one up.

I'm not in a school.

Hi, Has anyone applied the Autumn upgrade yet? Did it work? Do XP clients still load? Did a Server 2003 server process it? Anyone do it with SOLUS 3? Well done to Capita for having it out on the scheduled release date. (reserving judgement)

This is correct. The model you suggested is the one we have in place. You need to install a LA SOLUS 3 Deployment Server at your site, then authorise upgrades from that out to schools. You can still run CES for the schools on SOLUS 2.

We've got a school displaying this issue currently, coupled with Server performance issues. Did you find out the cause in the end. Obviously to do with mixed authentication types, but did you manage to nail it down?

Sorry to add another slightly off topic post to this thread but - I think you'll find it difficult to get many people to be able to demonstrate where they've had long life SSD's for two reasons. 1) The price of SSD's is still relatively high, compared with traditional disks anyway and if you translate that back four or five years to think how expensive they were back then I don't think you'll find many people have had them fitted that long. 2) Any makes / models of SSD that have lasted that long will probably now be discontinued so to get the same one's might be tough. Sorry - I hope you find the info you're after, I think your SSD crusade is worthwhile. Hopefully some more posts like the previous person who said they'd had a fair few SSD's in for almost three years roll in.

Bang on - SQL2012 support is from the next upgrade for SIMS and FMS although you'll have to wait until September for Discover (unless you're using SOLUS 3 an on v 3.6)

Thank you - I understand now.

While I'm sure the information given in vikpaw post is the correct information (as I've read that article and it is the one aimed specifically at SQL Migrations) the Capita Pre-Release note for Summer 2013 says this: "This release is fully supported on SQL2012 for SIMS, FMS, Discover, SLG, Solus3.6 and InTouch." Basically saying Discover will be supported on SQL 2012 from Summer. I guess this implies it might work at any rate.... ....bit of testing against the Waters Edge Database anyone? Capita Documentation 21036 The left hand and the right hand...

That's how I read it.

I know, but a few of the posts since your OP had started to move the goalposts.

From the Spring Release note: SIMS 2013 Spring Release This release sees the commencement of support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. SQL2012 is supported for SIMS and FMS releases only. Discover, SLG and SOLUS3 will be supported on SQL2012 from the Sims 2013 Summer release. A Migration utility will be provided alongside the SIMS 2013 Summer release to assist with the migrations.

In case you haven't already - try the sysman user account which you already said with passwords in CAPS - have a feeling it's either ********, ******** or ********. It's annoying that FMS only gives you three chances to log in before it forgets the connect.ini details. Since you have a multiple database setup make sure it is still trying to log into the new (blank) database each time an not the old (non blank) one, where the password will obviously be different.

We have the same problem. Although it wouldn't help with the MS / AV licensing type issues could a dual boot (one primary and one secondary) be a better bet? The machine shouldn't take a performance hit from running a VM that way - useful since Discover is a demanding application.