BFCIT

Thanks for that LosOjos, I Will get back to you with some further info as soon as I get chance, probably tomorrow.

LosOjos we are using the Reports > Run Report option. I would be interested to learn more about these 'gotchas' if it will help speed things up. Thanks for your reply. Phil - Thanks for your comment - we have had reports in the past take up to one hour or more, but recently some can take two hours and access by other staff is being affected during times when reports are being run. Can I provide you or support with further details so this can get looked into?

Hi all, I have a couple of questions regarding SIMS reports, the nature of how they are run and what we can do to speed them up. We currently upgraded from SQL 2012 Express to SQL 2012 standard - in the hope that this would allow SQL Server to utilise all processing power and RAM that the server had to offer and speed up things. It appears to have made no difference. Server Spec: Window Server 2012 64bit, 16GB RAM, Intel Xeon E5-2609 2.4GHz When we run a SIMS report is all the data processing performed on the Server or is some of it carried out on the host machine? We have reports that can take up to two hours, has anybody else experienced such slow report running times if so what steps have you taken to speed up things? Please advise, I look forward to hearing your responses.

Hope they are suitable for you, they have always provided a great service to us and take anything vaguely IT related, iwb, projectors, servers, cabling, old laptop trolleys etc.

Thanks for the advice pcstru

Thanks guys, they would have network access from these machines, we do currently have it installed in computer suites and we have had no problems but they are always being overlooked by our IT staff who are all relatively competent with Python and they would stop the students doing anything they shouldn't be.

Not sure where you are based, but we use LCWS, free collections, free data wiping to military standard.

Hi all, We are considering putting Python on the Library computers for student use at lunch and breaks. My python knowledge is extremely basic so I am wondering whether the risks could outweigh the benefits here. The member of staff that overlooks the library is not technical and would have no clue if they were misusing Python, ie trying to escalate privileges etc. The computers are locked down with Group Policy, students are unable to access the C drive and do not have the ability to run executable files. Is this something you would consider on your network? Thank you,

Thanks Matt40k, any idea on how long this process should take? I know that its a bit of difficult question to answer but just trying to get it scheduled in.

Hi, We currently use Microsoft SQL 2012 Express to host our SIMS in school. We have recently paid for SQL standard 2012 and I have been tasked with performing the upgrade. The SQL 2012 standard edition is being installed on the same server that is currently running SQL 2012 express. Can anyone guide me on best practice on performing this upgrade and how to minimise any damage. Is this a difficult task or is it as simple as putting the disk in and pressing upgrade? Thanks in advance,

I think that you would benefit from laptop trolleys - maybe split the 50 laptops into workable sizes. The decision regarding how these would split would be a senior decision, maybe your Headteacher's decision. The laptops can then distributed accordingly and kept in mobile trolleys that have the potential to provide a charging source too. A booking system such as MRBS could then be used to manage the booking of resources. I would recommended laptop trolleys with physical security mechanisms ie locks. You could keep ownership of the keys, when teachers require use of a laptop trolley they could perhaps visit you to get the relevant key. I think toptec do some half decent laptop trolleys - they aren't that cheap though: TOP-TEC - Market Leader in Lecterns, Workspace Furniture, Device Storage and AV Integration Products We have something very similar to the above setup and although they key management could be improved we do not have any issues whatsoever - we are a relatively small site with only 800 pupils so this is worth noting.

Thank you for your responses, I think we are using RAID1 on 3 x 300GB SAS drives. We are a secondary school with approx 780 students on roll. Which version of SQL are you using 3s-gtech? I was wondering about the locking out aspect of the database too, in this instance the 'person table' - no matter what version of SQL we run, or how much CPU and RAM power we have - the lock out problems may still persist?

Hi All, When running SIMS reports other SIMS users appear to face some difficulties. Some of these reports are using quite a large amount of assessment data. When a report is being run, some users complain about not being able to log in to SIMS due to time out errors and other users are unable to modify data within SIMS. Some of our reports can take over an hour to complete and it is getting to the point in which running a report at any time during the school day is rendering SIMS useless for our office team. Is this something that is quite common when a SIMS report is being run? If a report is using particular data, is that data locked so that it cannot be manipulated by any other user? Currently our only solution appears to be to run these reports out of school hours, as not to affect the office and teaching staff's SIMS experience. We are using SQL Server 2012 Express and have been advised that moving towards SQL Enterprise or Business Edition would be beneficial to utilise all of our Server hardware - but I am not 100% convinced whether doing this will solve our problems or whether these flaws make up how the SIMS database actually operates. SIMS Server Spec: Physical Server, 16GB RAM, 2.4GHz E5-2609 (8 cores) 64 bit, SQL Server 2012 Express 11 I look forward to any information/advice on this, Thank you,

have you still got access to the build disks? I've known this to happen when we had too many drivers on the build disk. Try creating a new build disk with just the drivers you need.

I would try to avoid the express versions of SQL Server. The express versions are limited and cannot utilise your full CPU or RAM power.

We had something similar, IE 11 not loading when students login but loading when I login as local admin on a select number of machines. A reset of the problem students profiles seemed to fix the issues for us.

Brilliant answer Sephiroth! thanks :-)

with any iphone I have had and still have I am able to drill into the DCIM folder and copy and paste videos, same applies to iPads?

The easiest way in my opinion would be for her to bring in her iphone usb lead and copy and paste the video file onto your storage?

Hi, We use MRBS in school for our booking system. We do not have it linked with Active Directory - I have manually created user accounts. I would like one email address, eg 'booking-notifications@' to receive an email whenever a booking is made but cannot get it working. We use OWA for our email access. Has anybody got experience setting this up and getting it working? Thank you,

Hi, Just a quick one really - I was looking for a bit of advice from those that use SIMS finance (FMS) or RM Finance. We are currently using RM Finance but are evaluating options at the end of this financial year. What do other schools use? I want to get an idea what academies and cheque book schools use as as their financial software as this move looks inevitable in the future. Thanks,

I know Symantec backup exec 2012 had lots of issues but we have been using backup exec 2014 on our server 2012 platorm with no issues to date. This is capable of backing up to tapes lto4/5 tapes.

I never managed to get devizes booking system working after our migration from server 2003 to 2012. We use another free booking system now called 'mrbs' it takes a little bit of configuring but is great for us and I think a lot of schools use it.

Thanks for all your responses. We have already got it setup to share from one pc to another and we have frequent issues with the pc not picking up the printer. Reinstalling every time we login etc - not sure if there is something else causing this though. Thanks for the recommended devices. I will take a look. Cheers

Thank you. Have you got any recommendations?