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Thank you - it may well be the container name; however, we discovered late on Friday afternoon that, with certain permissions (still not sure which!) it is possible to rename them using OneNote itself, rather than any of its web derivatives or Teams displays. Maybe this will help someone else one day! And once I've found out what particular permission you need to do it, I'll update with that information as well!

Hi We have a number of staff whose names have changed and we need to update them in the Staff Notebook in Teams/OneNote. We can't find a way! It seems to pick their display name at the time of creation, and then never allows any changes, which seems ... stupid. Anyone have any ideas, please?? Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions!

Could you please share how you've achieved this? My ideal scenario is as follows, but I accept I may be being too optimistic with this: (1) all student-use PCs can only be logged off or restarted; (2) all staff-use desktops can only be logged off or restarted; (3) staff laptops have ALL options available to staff; (4) administrators can perform any action. So far, my experiments have led to a group policy which has removed staff's abilities to reboot their computers, which is less than ideal. It seems I need to start looking at loopback processing if I want to get more specific, unless there is something I've overlooked... Thanks for any tips!

Hi all Posting this here in case anyone else struggles to resolve this one. A "number of schools" may be experiencing this issue (I'm told). When importing the latest QAN XML files (Tools --> Examinations --> Import Qualification Data), a SIMS Fault can occur relating to a System.IO.FileNotFoundException error. Delightful. The resolution, at least as far as we've proved, is to be found by downloading the entire ZIP file from the QAN website, and then extracting the various .xsd files and replacing the ones in C:\Program Files (x68)\SIMS\SIMS.net This has enabled the import of the latest QAN files without any issues. Hope this helps someone else! Stephen

Thanks for the suggestions. I've had a very helpful email response, and managed to line up a Teams meeting too. :-)

Hi Has anyone managed to get through to the sales line shown on the ESS SIMS website? I've rung multiple times and always given up after 20 minutes of music on endless loop; I've used the "contact us" form and had literally no response whatsoever, and now even tried calling other numbers listed on their website in the hope of getting to speak to someone - all to no avail! I have left voicemails asking for calls back, never to hear from anyone. Does anyone have any other contact details, please? We're interested in purchasing additional SIMS modules - you'd think they'd be keen to chase potential sales...? Many thanks!

Sorry to reopen an old thread, but does anyone know if it is possible to report the same thing for lesson attendance? Alternatively, is possible to pick up one of SIMS' Lesson Monitor reports and modify them to add a column?

Hi all! Having allocated teachers to classes in the Classes section of T6, I've now modified the balance of teaching in some split classes within the Blocks area. However, this change to the plan hasn't been reflected in Classes. Is there any routine to get T6 to update the Classes area to reflect reality, or is it purely considered a planning stage? Given the teachers' departmental allocation can be updated from the plan with a simple menu selection, I'm somewhat surprised that the classes don't get the same treatment! Any suggestions welcome; thanks in advance! Stephen

If you want to target individual users, we have written a script which runs at logon, checks the user's "address" field in AD, and displays any text that's there in a dialog box which the user has to OK. Once the message is no longer needed, it is deleted from the address field in AD. Combine this with WiseSoft's Bulk AD users and you can deploy a message to multiple users quickly and easily (and sort AD by those who have/do not have messages to display!). If anyone wants a copy of the script, please let me know!

Hi all We have an open change request filed with Capita for adding functionality enabling the option blocks to be either renamed to things other than individual letters, or at least allowing descriptors to be added and displayed. If you think this would be beneficial - or even just fancy helping out by supporting our request! - we'd be much obliged. Link is: https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/changerequests/changerequest/2c5a739c-042a-e911-a887-000d3ab17300 Cheers Stephen

Hi all We have noticed that some SIMS workstations are performing poorly at times. To carry out a test, we have run identical reports on two workstations next to each other, connected to the same switch: the specs are as follows: 1. High-spec workstation: Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz with 8 GB RAM and SSD hard drives 2. Lower-spec workstation: Intel Core i3 2.9 GHz with 4 GB RAM and standard spinning disk The high-spec computer performs multiples of times SLOWER than the lower-spec workstation, to the point where at times we're just having to terminate the SIMS process on that workstation. Rebuilding the PC and reinstalling the OS etc has made no difference. The hardware all checks out OK. Server is virtualised 2012 R2, 10 cores and 20GB RAM. As the issue is currently presenting itself, the server is running at only 17% CPU demand. Rebooting the server or the workstations makes no difference. The server is nowhere near short of disk space. Starting to run out of ideas... Any suggestions appreciated!! Many thanks in advance :-)

I'd be interested to hear if you fixed this problem, please.

Here's a picture of these PCs, in case you've not come across them before... https://shop.cxcomputerexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/lenovo-tiny-desktop-thinkcentre-m83-back-12.jpg They're a little limiting for this sort of thing, but great otherwise.

Agreed; the tiny PCs don't open up in that fashion at all, anyway, sadly. Ultimately it will be down to the music department - pay for a solution, or keep paying for replacement dongles..!

I'm surprised there's no event log entry generated (in Windows 10) as far as I can see for a USB device removal - it would then simply be a matter of using Task Scheduler to initiate an email upon the relevant event ID being logged... frustratingly this simple option doesn't seem to be available!

Some are Lenovo M58 machines, others are M83 tiny.

This is precisely what we've done (and for Cubase as well!) - but they're still going missing... :-(

Hi everyone! We have a number of computers that have dongle-protected software. Whilst we have previously installed the dongles inside the computer cases to avoid fiddling/loss, this is currently not an option. Is there any way that anyone has come across for alerting (email would be great) staff once a particular USB device is unplugged? Thanks for any suggestions...!

Hi We have made good use of the excellent Salamander software to push timetables for staff into their Exchange/Outlook calendars. There is, however, one area which eludes us. Meetings between staff (which can be arranged in T6 as NCC codes with the relevant staff and room) do not carry all the relevant information over into SIMS, and hence therefore into Outlook calendars. For example, if I meet with Mr X on a Tuesday period 3, all that my calendar shows is "MTG" at the appropriate time, both for me and for Mr X. It would be great it it could state "MTG with Mr X". Salamander, quite rightly, can't help with this, as this additional data isn't pulled through into SIMS from T6. However, I was wondering if anyone had any clever ways of making this information appear correctly in SIMS (via T6 or by manipulating the data within SIMS itself afterwards) so that the Salamander scripts could pull this into calendars. Any thoughts? Or am I just being far too fanciful and optimistic....?! Thanks!

I found that the most reliable method was to copy all of the necessary files to the local machine via GPO at the computer level, and then running everything locally via batch files called at the user level. I also found that UNC paths including spaces were very unreliable. Hope that helps!

Thanks. Following some rigorous testing (aka fooling around until it eventually worked), I discovered that due to some quirk of group policy application, the script wasn't always running at the right time. Anyway, now BGInfo is set to save the generated wallpaper in a folder (ironically created by another group policy!) to which authenticated users have write permissions. Many thanks for all the help - much appreciated!

Hi, it's the last thing that happens during the login process as far as we are able to control via group policy. The script is called from User > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts > Logon which, I assume, is the best place for it to reside?

Ooh; that's an interesting point. I don't know, to be honest. I take it that it won't create it, then, if it isn't? The setting is to the user's temp folder, which I would have thought would exist - wouldn't Windows create it as part of the logon process?

Hi all We're using BGInfo to create the appropriate wallpaper for users; however, it only seems to work from the second time a user logs on to a PC. The first time they simply get the default Windows wallpaper. We've checked all the settings within BGinfo, and applied the registry key needed, but still to no avail. It does not appear to be permissions-based (running the batch file that calls BGInfo with the relevant arguments will work just fine once the user is logged in). It's a minor niggle, but annoying all the same. Having migrated to Windows 10 across the campus over the summer, it would be great to have the new desktop working too!! Thanks for any suggestions!

Hi I know it's possible to search AD for a user based on their username. I would ideally like to find a tool (or means) of searching AD via a different field - specifically, the pager field. This field holds our student ID card numbers, and it would be handy to be able to scan the card and pull up the relevant user account within AD. Any suggestions appreciated! :-)