matt40k

I was recently at a Microsoft SQL user group which got me thing about schools and how we tackle training. We often are driven by the suppliers when it comes to training, especially when it comes SIMS and MS-SQL server. This in general is ok, but when we look at secondary schools we find we aren't getting good value for money - we buy a Microsoft SQL Server standard license simply to remove the memory and cpu limit but it is very rare we look at what else we have as part of that license. The main two reasons this happens is supportability, if you leave, can the school realistic recruit someone to replace you, will it make it difficult or even impossible for your third party support team or even the supplier to support you. The other is the lack of resources to specialize in a particular area - there aren't enough hours in day to learn everything! Yet you still have to worry about being a DBA, a network engineer, a helpdesk analysis, a desktop engineer, a server engineer, a web designer and a million other things. What I am looking at doing is getting one those lovely DBA to put together a crash course session in setting up SQL 2014 and doing a bit of DBA work - this won't be MIS specific, it'll be MS-SQL specific so IF you decide to become a DBA you have some actual knowledge of how things work in the real world rather then some tool a vendor made that only one small area of a wider community uses. With that said everything discussed won't result in your MIS system becoming unsupported. From your employers point of view, this will be away of getting the full potential of your investment, ie SIMS will go faster if you give me the day off to go. So... interested? Shall I being nagging?

I total agree with your image John... ...but to quote the GDS, the GOV.UK golden boys and girls who everyone is trying to be more like... http://blog.matt40k.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/design.png

Does sound like a Visa advert I must say. Cost of getting some help upgrading to Nova-T6 - £ Cost of actually doing the upgrading to Nova-T6 - £ Cost of going to Africa to get support for Nova-T4 - priceless

Contact your LA \ Support Team \ Capita. Wait, what? Nova-T4?! That's unsupported and dead. Only places using that is in Africa - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/61199-if-you-want-use-nova-t-4-then-move-africa.html

Yup, otherwise you'll have the auditors all over you.

A script wouldn't exist in the public domain. It'll be a paid for one-time patch by Capita if it does. Even then are you sure all the users\groups are called the same? Not sure it'll be worth the effort using the Business Objects for that few.

Was tempted to post this in the RPI section asking for people to replicate

I think your missing a trick really. SSIS package > commandreporter > csv > import into staging db > then generates ad user rather then export to CSV only to import using another .exe. Still, why do you need a staging db? Why write the PersonID to EmployeeID in AD and the AD username to SIMS? Still Salamander is the way to go!

To be honest, whatever gets electric into my house is what I'll back and that looks like another nuclear powerstation - Sizewell B | Power stations | EDF Energy

Yer, why I fitted a 65w i5 rather then 77w+ Still didn't stop me putting a massive graphic card in tho LED are actually pretty cheap if your buying new vs 2nd hand - £200 for a 32" in Sainsbury a while ago, full hd too! I think I'd prefer wind turbines to nuclear powerstations @ICTDirect_Dave. I figure my abilities of dodging failing wind turbines is better then my radation dodging skillz. Just playing the odds tho

Next we'll hear how using a black theme over white savings electric.

Have you actually watched the Lego Movie? The Lego Movie message is about pro free speech. The bad guy doesn't like people "messing with my stuff". Seriously, did you not get that?

First up, not watched or read anything beyond this first paragraph. But... the evil bad guy is Lord Business - who runs octan, an evil oil company - who rigged elections to become president - who's use of robots is almost to the point it could be a lego\terminator movie, who's general goal trying to stop free speech so the world is the way he wants it. Damm Lego for promoting free speech to children!! Damm you!! Anyway, I'll watch it again and try to look out for those pro-oil hidden messages, maybe if I play in reverse?

So you'll be removing the marksheet export routine in 4 years then

I can see both sides of the argument. One one side you've got @GrumbleDook saying don't be pushed by new technology, if it doesn't help. Question why your doing it. IE don't replace all your new Windows PC with new Apple Mac just because they are "better". On the other hand you've got @scholarpack and @Bromcom-PR saying, don't do the same thing, just because that's the way you've always done it, if there is a better way of doing it, do it that way. It's like user account creation, you might have manually created user accounts in the past, but why wouldn't you use powershell to script it nowadays.

ROFL!! Sure that's easy for them to do!!! If (($nationality == "British") and ($baseThread < 100)) Then sarcasm = true You can post my cheque when you crawl this NSA

You'll make me mega rich... if I could ever get my sarcasm detector service to stop exploding

Is that because you didn't have a sarcastic content license for EduGeek?

So technically, anyone who purchased a Sony MiniDisc (for example) back in the day then ripped their CD collection using Sony's own software to copy the music onto their Sony MiniDisc was in fact breaking the law? The same law that is meant to protect Sony? I guess that's why it never took off, because they could sue you for copyright infrigement by using their product

Using torrent to download, in general, is fine. It's a great way for open-source software to be distributed without a large bill for the developer. It does have it's problem however and shouldn't be used in the education sector. Bypassing the DRM on media where the license has expired is illegal. How you do it doesn't matter how you do it, it's still breaking the law. In a totally unrelated statement, don't you miss the days when you just set the tv quick code and set the VCR to record it for later viewing.

Tools > Validate Memberships

Was under the impression attendance codes where legal DfE codes and are locked. Wouldn't this be a behaviour mark rather then attendance?

Cost should be easy - if everyone buys via the G-Cloud the cost is just a spreadsheet away, assuming the "50 fold memory saving" translate into cheaper. Ease of management - not quite sure this would apply. Agility - in terms of development? Well I suppose 1,200 outstanding user CRs is rather a lot, but not sure how to compare that to other systems. Suppose you could compare it to government requirements, but I've never heard Capita failing to meet them - well apart from the PRU census (I think?), that was a bit late and required a bit of hacking when it first came out. Again, not sure how the other suppliers have done - I know the PRU census in general was a bit of fudge when it first happened from what I can remember.

I tried to explain this to my missus, her reply was "so its more expensive" after which she walked off when I started to reply, "well, maybe, it d..e..p..." She got: - unmanaged, you do the work, ring support if it breaks - managed, someone else does the work, you just use it - cloud, same as managed, but the noise server isn't nearby Her response will pretty much the same as most primary schools based on previous experience - with App-V, they get an icon for SIMS .net, they don't know that it's running in the cloud, all they know is it works. Assuming that's how they are doing it. If they're having to have a fat client then logging on to another fat client desktop to run it, well that's another story.

SIMS .net is actually really cheap, the problem is everything is a bolt-on. You want to do assessments, that's extra, you want to do lesson registers, that's extra, you want a finance package, that's extra, timetabling, extra, dinner money, extra, send texts, extra, accept online payments, extra, it's all extra. If you look at the break down the core product is normally the cheapest thing on the quote!