cathycolless

I have some SIMS reports that I run from command reporter batch jobs. Some of the the sims reports have an effective date hard coded. Is it possible to change the reports to prompt for the effective date and pass the effective date as a command line argument in the batch files ? Thank you Cathy

Truthfully I have never heard sims make any sounds, however I have a teacher asking how she can disable the sounds for SIMS which are apparently related to un-read important messages. Could anyone point me at the criteria for those sound or know whether it can be disabled ? TIA Cathy

Would you choose AD / Domain user provisioning via SIMS ID or Salamander ?We currently provision of AD with the old SIMS tool running on our local SIMS server.We have been advised that if we moved to a hosted service for our SIMS server we won't be able to stay with this so I am looking at other options.The 2 options we are currently looking at are the SIMS ID AD / Domain user provisioning tool from ESS or Salamandersoft. For those who have made the move from SIMS AD provisioning to either of these or have found another option, I would love to hear about your experience. TIA Cathy

I have a demo scheduled next week with the ESS to see SIMS Connected and the existing NG functionality (just registers and basic student record I think). I haven't heard much good here about the SIMS connected hosted option or any of the RD hosting options, but I do like the idea of having the option to use the web based registers, particularly for our junior schools. Is anyone using the NG register functionality while keeping the DB and client hosted locally ? Can it write back to our locally database the way the teacher app does ? Or is the NG functionality only available to clients who have the DB hosted on an ESS server ? I think ESS want to sell us both products as a bundle but I wonder if anyone has bought one without the other. TIA Cathy

This coming summer we plan to move our 2 SIMS servers (client and database) from Windows 2012 machines to new Win 2019 servers. In the past when we did this we had assistance from a consultant from SIMS to help us move all the SIMS config across to the new servers. This went well and was a very helpful consultancy. Are there any good alternatives to asking ESS/SIMS for consultancy support ? Is there another company that offers this type of Sever Migration Tech support for operating system changes on the servers ? Or should I ask SIMS again as we did last time ? Thank you in advance for any advice Cathy

I need to change the name of a Tier in the 2019/20 pastoral structure in SIMS. But I don't want to change it historically. When I created the new year I tried to change the name of the Tier and a warning popped up saying that this change would change history. So I stopped. I now think I need create a new Tier and delete the old one in the 2019/20 structure. iI I do this can I move the Year Groups from the old Tier onto the New Tier before I delete it or will that also change history ? Do I need to completely rebuild the Tier/Year/Group completely from scratch and delete the old Tier/Years/Groups ? I hope that question makes sense. Grateful for any advice. Cathy

I am looking for a service provider that can provide a OneRoster API to SIMS.The reason I am searching for this is that we use the VLE Canvas from Instructure.They have invited us to pilot SIMS/Canvas integration which they have recently developed.We have agreed to participate in the pilot.As a first sep they have asked us to provide the following information to allow them to access our SIMS data.• OneRoster API URL• OneRoster API Key/Username/ID• OneRoster API Secret/PasswordWe already run GroupCall, Woonde and SIMS Services for the Teacher App and I have offered those.However Canvas has confirmed that they require a OneRoster API.Would you be aware of any companies that we could contact who offer a SIMS/OneRoster API service. I am imagining a company similar to Groupcall but with a OneRoster API.I have been advised by Instructure that Park High School already has an OneRoster SIMS API setup so I assume this service must be available somewhere.I hope that question makes sense. Grateful for any advice or recommendations

Thank you both for the replies. I have just asked for clarification from the help desk and unfortunately they have replied confirming From the release of the SSM updates, the old version of the app will cease to work. The new version of the App will be released on the sane day 28 Feb. I was hoping for a transition window. Cathy

I just received a notice regarding updates to the SIMS Teacher App. It seems to be saying that a new versions of Teacher App and SSM packages will be released simultaneously on the 28th of February. Why would they not release the new App a couple of weeks before the server change ?A version compatible with both old and new SSM services to avoid the cliff edge ?If I read this correctly on Friday morning 1 March all the Teacher Apps on the devices are going to stop working and need updating on mass..I hope I am wrong and that someone will correct my understanding of the scheduling of these releases !

Will SIMS work happily with 64-bit Office ? We have just been notified that Microsoft will be shipping our teachers device with 64 bit Office from this year. Thanks Cathy

Apologies this isn't really a SIMS question. So I hope it is ok to ask this here. I am looking for software to prepare the Single Central Record (SCR) list for inspections. Because we are a very large school I am looking for something that would allow us to dynamically synch data from our HR system and maybe also SIMS. We have 700+ staff and we keep the information of their safeguarding checks in our HR System (HR2Day). We also have some information about volunteers and contractors in SIMS. Ideally we would like to find a product that produces the SCR for us but will synch via an API when changes are made to the staff records in our HR system. We’ve seen some demo’s of SCR system that have a one-off upload facility to copy from a spreadsheet but I am looking for something with a regular update facility to keep the basic person records in synch. Grateful for any suggestions. Cathy

The handy little Home Page widget that shows missing registers has always worked like a charm for us. But this new year we are only see the timetable registers appearing and not the missing registers for the Reg Groups. Anyway know what criteria this widget uses to identify a missing register that we perhaps are not meeting ? Grateful for any suggestions. Cathy

When the timetable is loaded into SIMS the new timetable is mapped to the school calendar as the timetable is applied. Tools > Academic Management > Apply Timetable The Apply Timetable process provides a screen to map each day in the calendar to a specific Timetable day. I would like to report of these mapping of calendar days to Timetable days some Is there somewhere in the reporting tool or database where I can find these mappings ? Grateful for any suggestions.

At this level our parent portal infrastructure is already built and operational. Our portal has a big communications component and contain more than just SIMS information. We want to add the School Report documents into our existing portal as an alternative to using the Parent App.

My goal is to put the documents into our intranet for parents to access.

That's what I expected but unfortunately when you access them directly from the file share they are in an encrypted format. Word/Excel cannot read them directly..

The various XML documents (eg reports and bills) on the files system of our doc server are in a binary format. The files have an .xml file extension but they have some kind of binary compression or encryption (I asssume). Is there a tool I can use to convert these files back into XML ? Anyone know what the binary format is ?

How do I create a new linked document type ? I want to set one up for admission contracts. TIA

Our teaching staff have recently had their Desktop PC's replaced with an MS Surface Tablets running Win10. We've installed the SIMS Teacher App on these devices. When they walk between classrooms they close the lid on the device and the wifi connection goes away temporarily. The teachers are reporting the app does not cleanly recover after the wifi absence and using the app again requires a lengthy re-authentication process. I am wondering if I should try enabling Offline working on the App. I notice that this is off by default. I would be grateful for any advice on what would be needed to get this mode working and any experiences good or bad. TIA

We have installed SIMS on a RDP server and deployed SIMS as a Remote App. Running SIMS on the server directly I can choose the Nova-T6 option in SIMS and it starts. However from the deployed RDP App I get the error "SNOVA directory not found" when I choose the Nova T6 option. I've seen advice to put the NOVA.DIR file, in C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net I am not sure where I can find or create a NOVA.DIR file. What would this file typically contain and where would I find it ? Grateful for any advice

For situations where we can't install SIMS locally we are setting up an RDP version of the SIMS client. I have an installation of SIMS that we have made available as an RDP application. It is kinda working. But I notice that when I run reports that Output to Excel/Word or the browser that SIMS launches those applications also as RDP applications running on the server (not locally). Is it possible for me to configure the RDP installation so that it will launch Office/Browser export with local applications ? So for example a Student List export report run from the RDP client would output to the browser on the local machine ? Can I configure this somewhere in the config files on the SIMS installation on the RDP server? I am also curious to know how Hosted SIMS works in this regard. Does anyone know if the reports run from Hosted SIMS go to Office/Browser running local or are hosted applications also used for the report outputs ? Hope that question makes sense.

For the 2017/18 year I need to change the Full Name of the Tier for our Senior School to include a location in the name. The Short Name does not need to change as it is already sufficiently unique. I am not sure whether I can just change the Full Name or whether I have to create a completely new Tier and delete the one that was created when I setup the new year. The reason I need to do this is that next year we are opening a second Senior School. So in our 2016/17 Pastoral Structure we had only 1 Senior School Tier setup as: SSV Senior School However for the 2017/18 we need 2 Tiers: SSV SSV-Voorschoten SSL SSL-Leidschenveen Naturally I've created the new tier for the new School. However I am less sure what to do with the Tier setup for the pre-existing School. I am not sure whether I should just change the Full Name on the Tier that has been copied from last last year or delete that Tier and create a fresh one. Grateful for any thoughts on the pro's and cons or even better killer reasons to do one over the other. cathy

Is there a place in SIMS to flag admission applications where an application fee/deposit was paid when the application was received ?

I have a SIMS report which lists those students I need to make a small change to in the Pupil Details screen. When I click on the pupil from the report preview list, the Student History Screen launches. Is there anyway to change this so the Basic Pupil Details screen launches instead of the History screen ? TIA

I have not used Schoolcomms myself but our Operations team use it to send bulk SMS text messages. They would like to have groups setup to allow them to send messages based on students Mode of Travel and Route. The idea is to target communications to students on a particular bus service route. For students who use our Bus Service this is recorded in the Mode of Travel and the bus service number is stored in the Route field on Additional Information. Will I be able to create groups that Schoolcomms can used based on this data ? TIA for any advice.