cheredenine

Hi Terry, I'm also a Norfolk chap having moved here to be Network manager about a year and a half ago. Our school had already decided they didn't like E1 and had signed a contract with Serco for Facility between me being interviewed and starting the job. Having come from a SIMS school, it meant learning a whole new MIS. First impressions were generally good. Facility Admin looks more imposing than SIMS and (i've heard) Phoenix Gold, but is quite powerful. We've got it set up from a short cut and some user specific config files in each user's home directory - means not having to install and update software at each PC ala SIMS; also means you can easily fix issues by replacing the config files. Security is a pain to set up - limiting access for staff members on Facility (we have users who need to see pupil data, but not change it, etc) is a complicated and lengthy task as there are great long lists of options for each of the many modules. Some options are obscure and counter-intuitive and require much testing. Report writing is quite powerful, but can be frustrating until you get enough practice - there are lots of functions and methods of doing things that just aren't documented. ePortal is a little quirky until you get the hang of it. You can adjust elements of appearance and operation through editting the XML files buried away in a Conf folder, but there are limits to what can be achieved. You also have to be careful to backup any changes you may make as ePortal upgrades sometime wipe these out. Backups of your data are recommended to be taken using the function within Facility Admin, rather than backing up the SQL database directly. This has to be done manually, so is not terribly userfriendly. The backup files can be used to restore data to a test system running off an Access database - i've had test systems running on my laptop and now an office PC and its frankly invaluable for learning your way round the system without risking your data. Timetable printouts from Facility were broken until most recent release; they now work fine with some jiggling. Overall... I quite like Facility. It has its quirks and odd issues, but there is generally not much (in our case, anyway) that can't be solved or gotten around. Any questions?

Thanks for your reply Nick; managed to get it sorted in the end by canabalising another Form report in the Serco Assessment folder and stealing its Embedded KS4 Target report. I was initially confusing myself by trying to copy the method used in a summary report which did odd things with default filters, etc - the SQL question was a result of trying to brainstorm a solution whilst sorting out a load of other issues. Never the best way to work! The end result is now a Form report that spits out three slips per A4 sheet that can be trimmed and laminated, that show pupil name, form group, photo, Fischer targets, KS4 targets and aspects of any vulnerable pupil status they may have, all against a coloured back drop where the colour is defined by gender and the vulnerable pupil status... Nothing too complicated, but it looks good and so i'm rather pleased with myself!

As per the title, i'm trying to find out if i can execute SQL queries from within a report - because of the curious way KS4 target data appears to be stored and accessed in Facility, this is the only method i can think might work to do what i want... Any ideas, if it is possible, how its done? Cheers...

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Looks like we're all of the same mind....

Just a quicky - we're heading towards allowing external access to our MIS for staff, so that they can access from offsite, enter assessment data ffrom the comfort of their own home, etc. The qustion has been raised of whether staff should be reimbursed for their costs in accessing from home - broadband, electricity, etc. I've never come across a school that does this, but i wonder if there are any out there. Could my fellow edugeeks advise?

Bumpity Bump on this one - Backup Exec is now cancelling jobs instead of doing them... Logged in to check how friday night's went and there is no sign of it ever existing!

Odd one this.... I'm using Backup Exec 11d and in recent days its started to behave rather strangely. To keep this brief, here is a timeline of events: 13/04 - Something happens to the backup job to make the tape set change; tapes used are set to not allow overwrites indefinately and are added to a no-overwrites media group accordingly. 16/04 - Backup jobs from this date report complete success, where previously they would be completed with exceptions as two Symantec AV files couldn't be read. This coincides with first installation of Symanted Endpoint (ver11) AV, upgraded from ver10 Various dates 21st to 27th - Backup jobs fail because the tapes being used had been set to no-overwrites. I notice this for a couple of tapes and move them back to the correct media set; but don't notice until much later that the job definition has changed 29/04 - a new server added to network, and remote access component pushed out to it. Job definition altered to include new server 01/05 - First backup including new server; attempts on 29th and 30th foiled by tape issue described above. Results of backup jobs now much different (completed with exceptions), with many files on all four servers missed. Amount of data missed trivial compared to overall size of backup, but selection appears to mainly consist of files held open by AV processes, webserver files and the occasional user file. 05/05 - Result of job similar to job of 01/05 06/05 - seeing the last two job logs, i go investigating. I alter the media set to the correct setting again and look through the other settings. Files missed seem to suggest a problem with accessing open files, though i've not changed any settings. We're note licensed for, and weren't using, the Advance File Open module thingy, so i'm presuming the builtin Microsoft technology (Volume Shadow Copy?) was originally being used to access files that were in use. Also, for some reason, job is somehow cancelled for the 6th and so no backup done. Any ideas what is going on? Doesn't seem like a straight-forward issue, rather a collection of oddities. I checked the event logs for back when the media set settings changed, but nothing unusual. Also, does anyone have a guide to how to properly set up a backup exec job so its ideal for disaster recovery? I'd like to double check my work, if you see what i mean..

What problems were you having with WDS? I had problems setting it up last summer, but got it working in the end - since then i've had various issues to overcome. Sounds like i'm being a bit smug, but hopeuflly it might mean that i've encountered similar problems to you and can help. My experience of WDS is, once the teething problems are solved, it works very well. I use it in conjunction with a sysprep script that names and adds the PC to the domain, which takes a lot of work out of it. I've used Ghost previously, but for various reasons found that to be quirky and often unreliable. Pkus Ghost isn't free to use like WDS..

Now that external access in technically possible for us with ePortal, we're thinking on the data protection side of things. For those who've use ePortal externally at their school (though i'd imagine the issues are the same for all MIS'), how have you dealt with the data protection issues? Have you a policy or best practice document you could share, or maybe just some advice on the issues? I did find a handy looking page on the Becta website here that i've yet to go through in detail - i'm interested in the real world experiences of how this actually works, though. Cheers!

Cheers for that. To subsequent replies... This is a situation where the requirements of all involved and the kit we've already got here make it difficult to make a decision; i.e. we're on a budget where we need to buy maximum equipment within a given amount, but have committed to buy a camcorder or two with the money, not just something with video capability. Also we don't have firewire capability, nor the inclination to spend any money on getting it.. Plus I'm limited to where i can get stuff from quickly - a couple of online e-tailers that have had governer approval or the county service which might take into next week to reply or another supplier i might need to get approved prior to ordering. To sum it up: fun! So the canon in question is a good compromise, especially when having a widget to conver the files for us... Edit: Just got to find the Head of ICT to agree it - she keeps vanishing off somewhere...

Bit over our budget, unfortunatley. Thanks to everyone for their opinions. I quite likeed DHicks' idea of using Canon A470 cameras (or their replacement, the A480), but our Head of ICT wasn't keen. Consequently we'll give a couple of Canon FS100s a try - if staff have to fiddle with file names a little to get them working in Movie Maker, they'll just have to make do until i come up with a way to automate the process! Thanks again.

I keep coming back to this issue, getting stumped, getting distracted and doing nothing about it. Only now the funds we have to buy a camcorder will be whisked away on Friday, so its use it or loose it time. I'm looking for a reasonable good quality and simple camcorder to pupils to use (secondary school). The idea is that they can then edit the footage in Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere depending on ability. A lot of the camcorders about seem to record to H.264/Mpeg4, which doesn't seem to be very helpful as i'm told Movie Maker wont touch it. I'm also aware that i'm almost certainly going to need to install a codec or two whatever happens. So - any tips from people who have camcorders in school and use them in the way i mentioned? I'm also pretty much limited to what i can order today or tomorrow from Dabs.com and Aria.co.uk..

Left it a bit late to reply to this, but installing .net 2 does the trick, it seems. Stuck the msi on a gpo to all PCs and it seems to go swimmingly!

Planet Rock, by any chance? I'm the same - been a long week, so now all i can think about is a relaxing evening and tasty steak dinner... Doesn't help that i'm also trying to fathom the mysterious depths of why Solidworks wont install properly and whats up with our new MIS to VLE link - jobs for a monday, i'm starting to think!

Firstly - our current setup: * Serco Facility and ePortal setup on our shiney admin server. * Facility Connect API installed so that Fronter, our up-coming VLE, can link in to gather pupil data * SSL certificate that came with the API installed to allow access over https * ISP has sorted out reverse proxy so eportal.schoolname.norfolk.sch.uk redirects to the IP address of a NIC on our admin server - this is to allow external access by Fronter to gather data, but also by teachers and parents from off site. The problem: * I can set things up so that SSL is mandatory, but this shows a security warning everytime a user loads up the site. You can install the certificate, but as the name stored in the certificate doesn't match the site the warning can't be got rid of permanetly. Now, i've considered just leaving it and not worrying - but it looks untidy; i want redirect to SSL automatically and not have alarming warnings on screen. I'm having trouble thinking of a solution that works without being a complete cludge, or potentially expensive. I imagine i would have trouble altering the security certificate as, because of how our system works, the URL to access ePortal is different onsite and off. Presumably one or the other would still give the warning about site names not matching. I had also thought of using a separate server for external ePortal access only with SSL set on, and ePortal on our admin server for onsite access only without SSL. I could accomplish this quite easily (i have a server i can repurpose and then its just assiging it the IP our external access URL points to), obtaining an SSL certificate thats relevant for the external URL only. The problem with this is that this would then be the server Fronter would access to gather data and i've no idea how significant the SSL certificate that was supplied with the API is to this process... Any advice from people with the same setup, or who are otherwise well informed? Cheers!

Just went back to it, took another look, required SSL on the default website, switched the SSL requirement off for the redirect page and BAM! it works. But, but, but... This is what i did before, i'm positive! I think it was just being difficult and playing hard to get until i was forced to ask questions about it online. Bloomin' thing. Thanks for your help!

Right, from the IIS logs relevant to today and my test machine, i get a 403 error under the cs(User-Agent) heading, then a 4 under sc-status and a 5 under sc-substatus. Not sure if the latter two headings are linked to the first, but can't see anywhere else where a more detailed list of the error exists.

My mistake its a 403 error - but i can't work out quite which one as it doesn't seem to match any of the template error pages on the server. All the template 403 errors on the server have the .xx number to specify the specific reason and theres one generic 403 page, but none seem to match what i'm getting..

Right. We have Serco Facility and ePortal. I've got external accss up and running, using a reverse proxy sorted out by county. I've got IIS set up so that requests to http://school.LEA.org.uk go straight to the ePortal folder. What I'm trying to do now is set things up so that, not only is SSL required, but users are redirected to an SSL version of sPortal automatically. Can i get this to work? No i can't. I've tried creating a custom asp or html pages containing either redirection code gleened from various sources, set these as the error page for the http 403.4 error as advised, and set SSL access only on the relevant websites. At best I get a 401 (page not found error); at worst I see actual asp code displayed on screen and not parsed correctly. Currently I'm trying a htm page with javascript to redirect. Accessing eportal with http://servername gets me the 401 page (doing this without the SSL/redirection set up gets me to http://servername/eportal fine). Any clues? Obviously i want SSL setup and working before we start letting anyone access from offsite..

BUMP! I know there are some owners out there! Any help?

Shutdownertron seems to work fine on some PCs, but fails to install on others. When it fails to install it complains in the event log about the Shutdownertron service not being able to start, and to verify 'i' have sufficient privileges to start system services. Error code is 1920 or 11920 depend which bit you look at, and the source is MSIinstaller. I've got it set to push this software out by GPO. Any ideas?

...according to the Toshiba documentation, this thing records to .avi format, but needs the Xvid codec to be installed. This is fine, but can anyone tell me whether its then possible to use the recorded files with Windows Movie Maker and/or Adobe Premiere Elements? Cheers!

Its different to the MMS icon, even though it is near the message notification area. Its different tot he normal profile icons, too. Might be a divert icon, but bit wierd if so as i've never set on up and the phone was reset completely... Plus it worked normally for calls and voicemail when t'other half and i tried it last night...

So, my Sony Ericsson crashed big time yesterday morning, and the usual tricks of popping the battery out failed to work. So i tried updating the phone with the software tool, which involves doing a hard reset. Luckily there was also a firmware update just out to fix some of the issues with the phone. Great. Only now i've a strange icon on the display - and can find no clues what its about. Its up at the top left, next tot the signal bar and the 3G icon; it looks like a picture frame with a head-shot of a person in the middle (red clothes, yellow face, no features, blue background), but also has a red arrow on the right hand side with a bend in it, as if its pointing towards the picture frame, then away. Any ideas what it is?

Nipped back to stick some extra screen grab software on there, and tweaked a couple of security settings and its not playing ball now. Either i've inadvertently fixed it, or its a sneaky one and will raise its head again another day! Oh well...