Damon

This is a really good point. I think it also demonstrates due diligence when looking to procure an MIS. Did they dangle the SIMS 8 carrot though?

I can't recall the exact mechanics of Xporter but it might be that this is essentially the client log and there may be a service log within the installation directory. Might be worth searching to see if the service itself is reporting an error.

Ah bummer! I've got Xporter in a few hundred schools and I don't recall having to do anything other than restart the service. Do you have anything else running on port 6000? Guide on doing that here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48198/how-can-you-find-out-which-process-is-listening-on-a-port-on-windows

Have you called Groupcall? Probably worth going direct to them if there's any issues as they're a friendly bunch.

At what point are you getting this message? You can run a single document server for multiple SQL databases as it just structures the directories based on server\instance\database. I haven't tried on a cluster though as I seem to remember it's not officially supported by CAPITA. Does the document server host have visibility of the SQL cluster, i.e. is there a firewall issue for example. Is SQL Server Browser Service running on every node? One thing that may crop up once you get this running is that the docstorage saves to a directory based on the current node name. If this changes, the docstorage may create a new directory. If it does, I'd create a master directory for node1 and then create directory junctions for the other node names and link them back to node1 directory.

Via the local authority if it's a maintained school but not if it's independent. The LA won't have a record of the UPN at this stage as it's details from the parent. It could be a move to a different authority, etc..

That assumes the government has an accurate, up to date database of all pupils in the country. When pupils are entered onto new schools, they don't necessarily have the UPN immediately so matching would be a nightmare. Having a human confirm the child is now the responsibility of another establishment is not the worst use of time.

Regardless of how ridiculous it seems from a school perspective, you shouldn't be off-rolling students until you've received confirmation. I'm sure if it worked in your favour, i.e. the student still being on roll during a census then your process would be slightly different. I can appreciate you're wanting to streamline the process but if you were doing this during an audit or Ofsted visit, I doubt they would look upon it favourably.

From what I understand, S3 clients connect and register their IP with the Server. They receive an online status if they are sending a heartbeat to the server at the designated intervals. However, when it comes to the S3 server sending any commands/data to the client, it queries DNS and doesn't use the registered IP from the client. This is something I complained about from the very beginning of the product, there should be a configurable hierarchy of attempts which begins with the registered IP, then DNS and so on. This is why Mark's suggestion works, because the client is registered with DNS. You'll need to ensure that DNS is well managed, with regular scavenging, etc..

Just posted on the other thread: From memory this is to do with the Crystal Report DLLs. I've had this a few times in the past and I think the DLLs may have been copied to C:\users\%installers-username%\windows so it's not accessible by other users. Though if you installed via Solus, it should have put them in the windows directory. If you google this error in relation to Crystal as opposed to SIMS, you should get an answer. I think one time I had to move it to the 32bit directory, etc..

From memory this is to do with the Crystal Report DLLs. I've had this a few times in the past and I think the DLLs may have been copied to C:\users\%installers-username%\windows so it's not accessible by other users. Though if you installed via Solus, it should have put them in the windows directory. If you google this error in relation to Crystal as opposed to SIMS, you should get an answer. I think one time I had to move it to the 32bit directory, etc..

It's worth setting up an SQL maintenance task to re-index the DB on a regular basis. There's a thread on here from a few years back. Will try and dig it up but it had a very similar title to yours! Liking the car analogies!

It depends on who will have access to these computers but I tend to lean on the side of caution when creating a script so I don't have to remember to change it at a later date (i.e. if used on machines that pupils have access to). Having a SIMS user group on AD can certainly ease management though.

I think this is to do with the File block settings in the trust centre. This can be changed on the workstation or at GPO level. Look for the setting for Word 97 Binary Documents and ensure it's not set to being opened in protected view.

I haven't used SIMSPerm in while and I have a feeling it was slightly flawed. If you are relying on SIMSLoad to do the upgrades, give your SIMS User group (from your Domain) modify access to the install directory and SIMS ini. There used to be a few more ini files but they were for OMR readers, FMS and so on. You can just use ICACLS (https://ss64.com/nt/icacls.html) on the command line to set your permissions after the install.

With the first one, I'd check all your region/date/time settings and ensure there's no customisation in place. Historically, SIMS has a habit of struggling with customised date/time formats.

Just to add more detail to the above, the path it uses is based on a User specific reg key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders I've had some issues in the past with this not pointing to the right place so it's worth checking.

Don't forget to set the relevant permissions when automating the install. That includes things like SIMS ini and any files the client will need to write to.

Yeah a smaller number of students usually works but as Blueday mentioned, it's worth checking your server/database performance too. Reindex patch is handy but you can also set up an SQL maintenance plan to do this on a regular basis.

We found that a few of the major cloud MIS suppliers were interested in working with us as they had realised customers generally wanted more than a basic support offering. It's a model that's worked well for CAPITA over the years and they continue to reap the benefits of our hard work. I believe the key difference with support teams is their knowledge of school/education environment and processes, not just the product expertise. The latter can be provided by the MIS supplier but it's arguably not enough for schools. Staff can retrain on a new product, but the understanding of the school environment and processes takes experience. I appreciate it's no easy task, but it may prove to be prudent in the long run.

Exactly. Schools will explore the market and make their own decisions if you don't give them choice. At least if you're steering the ship, you can create partnerships with the MIS suppliers and retain your clients.

This! So much! For the last 5 years or so. I dipped out of the Beta a long while ago and it's not exactly moved on. At the time I remember asking if they could enable access to Assessment and Reporting modules. "Oh yeah they haven't been deployed to the Beta platform yet but they're coming..." They never came.

I echo the sentiment of this thread. When we received word that CAPITA were producing a new product from the ground up, I breathed a sigh of relief. However, I should have recalled the pain of SOLUS 3, InTouch, Agora and so on. It's become quite apparent that they are unable to develop high quality software, despite having a significant amount of resources. I remember that even in the early days of Solus 3, £1.5M had been spent on development. Considering how terrible that piece of software is, I don't have much hope for SIMS 8. SIMS.Net is showing it's age, the replacement has no official release date and is already several years behind schedule. If you haven't been looking at other options, it's time to take that leap. A lot of support teams are wary of change or still think the competition is miles behind. I would have thought most MIS suppliers will happily work with support teams (like the case of ours with Bromcom). Let's not forget that teams have to pay CAPITA circa £20k a year to support SIMS! All of this gets charged back to the schools at the end of the day. That's not even taking into account the accreditation charge of an additional ~£6k every two years.

Further to what's already been said, our schools have their old SIMS databases running for the time being but these won't be maintained/updated from the end of their license period. Access is limited to those who need it and in the long run, we may export the old data in report form with only the info required for statutory purposes. This file would be encrypted and access limited accordingly.

I'm not sure where you heard this but it's not the case. ParentPay integration is now working and we're getting a regular feed for attendance. There's no service to install or manage, it's all done from Bromcom's end. The ParentPay admin user doesn't have to do anything differently either.