The Systems Team (SIMS support) are attending a SIMS LA Software Update Seminar at the De Vere Whites Hotel (Reebok Stadium) in Horwich today.

Not only is this an important training day but it gives us the opportunity to get together as a team - something that rarely happens during the rest of the year!

For your information, please find below the agenda:

09:45 Assessment / Curriculum

• Assessment Update
• Profiles Checking Screen
• Exams Update
• Extended Services
• Alternative Curriculum

10:15 Technical

• Deployment Update
• Technical Update
• Hosting SIMS
• SIF
• Becta Guidance

11:30 Primary Review

• Dinner Money 7
• Primary Assessment

12:00 Partnership Exchange

• Review
• New Features
• FE and Work Based Learning Access

13:30 Statutory / Resources

• FMS
• Personnel 7
• Statutory Returns - Spring 2009

14:15 Core, Attendance and eLearning

• Homepage/Dashboard
• Alerts
• Attendance

15:00 Road Ahead 2009-2010

We”re keen to disseminate what we learn to schools, so please check back here for related posts over the coming weeks. Alternatively, subscribe to the RSS feed.

I am in the process of contacting secondary schools to discuss the latest SIMS .net upgrade. While many colleagues who attended the Cover 7 training courses last week will be keen to get their hands the new module, there are a few things to consider before upgrading to 7.106.

.net Framework 2

Microsoft .net Framework 2 must be installed on SIMS clients prior to upgrading to the SIMS June 2008 Update Release. If .net Framework 2 is not installed, it will not be possible to log into SIMS .net.

Personnel 7

Personnel 7 is activated as part of this release as it is required for Cover 7 to operate normally. Please note that the additional functionality provided by Personnel 7 is not currently supported by Bolton Council.

Nova-T6

A link for Nova-T6 has been added to the shortcut panel in SIMS .net.

The problem is that anyone with access to Nova-T4 gets FULL access to Nova-T6 via the new link. Access to Nova-T6 via Nova-T4 is unaffected.

This isn’t expected to be resolved until the August 2008 Main Release (7.108).

Full details of this update and the previous release (which wasn’t installed by most schools due to stability issues) can be found in the Release Notes, available at the following internet links:

• SIMS .net 7.106 (June 2008) Release Notes
• SIMS .net 7.104 (May 2008) Release Notes

If you have any suggestions on how your school might get around the Nova-T6 access issue, please leave a comment below.

As always, please don”t hesitate to get in touch if you wish to discuss this further.