duesouth

It let a few through, but now not working!

Forgot to add the link where I found the info: Knowledge Article View - Customer Support

I went into Tools | Housekeeping | Document Management Services | Next Gen Document Management Server - I didn't do anything in that screen, but our Asst Head just tried a few and they uploaded - and I've done the same. Not sure if it was that screen or SIMS doing something at their end...

Yes, we're having the same problem. We applied the summer release yesterday and today I can only get one pupil's report to upload at a time, but even then it tells me "Unable to upload the report. Please check DMS settings" some of the time (2 year groups to do - I might be at it for a while!!). Our Network Manager has re-started the document manager server, but still no joy...

I had to make an immediate change to a timetable for a pupil this morning. I'm not sure who long it takes to get from SIMS7 to SNG, but longer than 15 minutes. I got around it via the Reports menu -> timetables - but that change has to be quicker. I've given it a go - now turned it off - but want to turn it off permanently. SIMS7 for everything for me. SNG not finished and what is there isn't fit for purpose.

Hi @RootsSchImp - worked a treat. Can't thank you enough!

We have Reading Ages in SIMS - in the format 11/2. I'm trying to get them into Power BI so I can then have an average and then various slicers on the page that change the average. I've managed to convert to years/months by converting to months in Power Query and then this formula: Reading Age = var year1= INT('Reading Ages'[RA in Months]/12) var month1='Reading Ages'[RA in Months]- year1*12 return SWITCH( TRUE(), 'Reading Ages'[RA in Months]<12,"0 Year "& 'Reading Ages'[RA in Months] & " Months", 'Reading Ages'[RA in Months]=12,"1 Year "& "0 Months", year1& " Years " & month1 & " Months") The trouble is, when I try to average this Reading Age formula, the card will just give me First, Last, Count and Count Distinct options. Has anyone had any success with Reading Ages in Power BI? If so, how did you go about converting the SIMS format to one that Power BI can average? Thanks in advance for any help.

Thank you so much. I would have never thought of merging in the mastery levels table like that!

A couple of months ago, we started playing with Power BI. I've downloaded the resources from ESS and have created something in Power BI for attendance and behaviour. I'm self-taught with Power BI - or at least with the help of YouTube! SLT love it - and now want to put assessment in there. At KS3, we have "Mastery Levels" - ranging from Emerging to Mastered. I've pulled out the Targets from SIMS (table has External ID, Result (i.e. the Target), Aspect and Subject) - and also the Mastery Levels from the end of Autumn term assessment (table has External ID, Result (i.e. the current level), Resultset, Aspect and Subject). In Power BI, I've been able to create a table with: Pupil Name, Mastery Level and Target - which links up to subject and class slicers perfectly. My problem is creating a "+/- Target". I've created a separate Mastery Levels table with a corresponding lookup value for each Mastery level: Mastery Level Value Emerging 1 Emerging+ 2 etc. etc. However, I am really struggling to create a measure (or column) that is KS3 Target Lookup Value - Autumn Term Assessment Lookup Value. E.g. if a pupil has a target of Emerging+ (2) and current level is Emerging (1), then they would be -1. Can this be done is Power BI? If so, does anyone have an example formula, or tell me if I need to change the structure of the model - i.e. Targets and End of Term Assessments in the same table. Or is it best to do the +/- Target calc in SIMS or a spreadsheet first, and bring that into Power BI? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the reply. I've heard good things about Bromcom as well - but it's the same here, no appetite for change unfortunately...

Has anyone had experience with SIMS Next Gen yet? If so, any feedback would be appreciated. We're a secondary school - looking to keep our locally hosted SIMS for now. Is the setup quick and easy - and how easy and useful have teaching staff found it to use? We would be reluctant to have to roll it out and train staff, only for it to be of little/any additional benefit to keep using SIMS main. Thanks in advance.

We've continued to have problems with the Parent App - particularly the SIMS ID users. Since we released our termly pupil reports on the app in the last week of the Autumn term, we've had over 90 parents coming to me with issues. The vast majority are SIMS ID users. We've got the "Forgot Password?" functionality engaged, so this then means parents have to change their passwords every 90 days. For many app users (doesn't seem to be browser version users), when their password expires the app doesn't prompt them for a new password. I've been back and forward with ESS and the last call in December they pushed up to the product team - but not a word from them (although to be fair, ESS did say that might be the case). So, for me, the product is not fit for purpose (reviews on the app stores are terrible) - but good luck getting ESS to 1) acknowledge the app is poor and 2) doing something about it.

Thanks for the reply - we'll take a look at it. Slightly different problems to ours I guess in that we've got pupils booked in for each term's options and our issues are more around that than registers, which are working OK as long as I keep up with all the kid's change of minds!!

Thanks for the reply. We've got the latter - our timetabler has used Derived Bands and we've got the timetable and registers sorted. The only issue is he's used one "Enrichment" subject, so pupils can't see exactly what they're doing (our timetabler didn't want to create 50 subject codes, can't say I blame him!). I've manually entered pupil choices via curriculum assignment - in a perfect world that would be an import, but it's not essential. Our Asst Head is finding an Excel spreadsheet to be painful in terms of allocating pupils to classes, checking class numbers etc. The SIMS option module solution editor would be perfect - as we use it for GCSE options and it's great. I'm not sure if the options module will cope with whole school and some enrichment options being available for certain year groups only though. It almost feels like the only way it could do it is with a separate plan for each year group, which might help slightly - but we'd still be struggling to figure out overall class numbers that way... I suspect we might need to buy in an external bit of software, but no idea what would fit the bill!

One afternoon per week, we have a double period of wellbeing/enrichment. This consists of 50 options to choose from, ranging from American Football to Crochet. Pupils pick three options - one for each term, plus a backup. For the autumn term and this term, our Assistant Head has used an Excel spreadsheet populated from a Google form that pupils completed. Choices were then manually entered into SIMS so registers could be taken. This has proven to be unworkable. My question is, can we use the SIMS Options module for something like this? It's whole school, rather than our Year 10 GCSE options which are just for the one year group. When I look at an existing plan, there's a target year taught in field on the Plan Details screen - and it doesn't seem like you can multi select year groups - would this be a show stopper for a whole school thing like this? I'm not sure how many other schools are doing something like this - but anyone who is, I'd love to hear how you are administering it - from getting the choices from pupils, to allocating to classes, to getting those into SIMS for registers. I'm hoping there's a better way that can save us a lot of time! Many thanks in advance.