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.

This term, we've been finding a number of our parents have been struggling with the SIMS Parent App - the app not the browser version. Registered users get this screenshot - and go around in a loop. I've been in touch with ESS and my County support team - but I got this from ESS (and less from my County support team) with the latest user with the problem: "After doing some testing with the Mr X's account unfortunately we can not replicate the error properly on both the website or the app when logged in as this user. The app did seem to loop initially when I first logged in on iOS but once I closed the app (i.e. stopped it running completely) and then logged back in it was fine. We have tried on both iOS and Android OS. The website however was no issue at all. This is usually an indication of device or local network issues. Personally, I would (as good mobile device practice in general) minimise the number of coherently running apps. Cookies on browsers will help functionality but I would recommend periodically clearing them. Make sure the mobile device OS is up to date as well. Unfortunately, there is not much else I can advise." Is this just our parents or have you been having similar issues? I also find with SIMS ID when the password expires, it doesn't always ask the user to reset and they can't get in - even the forgotten password link doesn't work. Then it falls to me to reset, which when you get a lot of them takes up time I don't have. Fair to say I feel un-supported with this and not happy with the app at all. I did mention to ESS that generally I am a SIMS fan, but if there's a reason why we would move to another system (discussions have already happened), the app would be a large reason as parents are really frustrated with it - but ESS feel they've allocated more resources to the app and believe it's working well...

@ABR82 @bobsmith Thanks for the replies. Out of the box, no, it doesn't fit our KS3 assessment strategy. I've been looking at creating something for our KS3 assessment strategy, and seems like way too much work. It certainly felt rather clunky and I'm not sure our teaching staff would like it that much. Thanks again.

I've been asked to look at SIMS Programme of Study with a view to using it for KS3. I thought I'd post here to get feedback from anyone who has used this. What do you think of this area of the system? How easy is it to set up from a SIMS Manager point of view? How easy do teaching staff find to use it (worth mentioning that IT literacy is pretty poor here)? Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

It seems that once you've created a plan in options, then changes to subject names don't come through. The solution was to create a new plan and the changes in SIMS were reflected.

I'm trying to tidy a few of our subject names ready for our Y9 parents/students to make their option choices. I added a new subject in SIMS main (Tools -> Setups -> Subjects) and this came through to the Options module perfectly - but when I make changes to the name of a subject, this doesn't seem to come through to the Options module. Do I need to do something involving NOVA to get this to work (I'm not the timetabler, so not sure how NOVA really works)? Thanks in advance for any help.

@David44 I raised a help call with my County Council's SIMS Support Team and I've got this answer, which isn't the one we wanted: "I am really sorry there is no way of ordering parents or students in year group order. I have raised a change request https://sims7.ideas.aha.io/ideas/SIMS7-I-6 and have asked my colleagues to vote as the more votes the more hope we have to get them to change this, I am really sorry its not going to help you this time." Happy Clicking!

I'm going through setting this up for the first time for our Year 9 parents and have exactly the same question. I'd like to invite our Year 9 parents only, but can't see a way to do it other than going down the list and clicking individual boxes, which would take ages... So, if anyone knows the answer to the above, it would be very gratefully received!

That's exactly what I need - I'll pass this on to our timetabler! Many thanks.

Thanks, both - I will wait more patiently this year!

I have a question for timetablers, please. I'd like to know at what point you first import the timetable for the new academic year into SIMS from NOVA-T6, so as to populate the Curriculum Assignment by Scheme screen in SIMS. I'm asking as our timetabler doesn't do this until June and makes things quite difficult in terms of getting the new classes entered into SIMS before the end of term. The previous timetablers I worked with all did this far earlier, so I'm just wondering when others do this in terms of where in the NOVA process. Thank you in advance.