Difference between revisions of "Preparing for September"

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===I can see a message about the Automation module not running===
 
===I can see a message about the Automation module not running===
  
You may see this message in the workstation version of PARS:
+
A message will appear at the top left of PARS is automation has stopped running. Automation is an important process that performs various housekeeping jobs for PARS as well as sending automated reports. See the [[automation]] page for more information is your automation has stopped running. <br> <br>
 
 
[[Image:AutomationError.GIF]]
 
 
 
This may not be a problem if the Automation module has not been running due to the summer holidays, if you encounter a problem when restarting it then click [[automation|here]] for more information. For instructions on how to install the Automation module click [[Category:Automation|here]]. <br> <br>
 
  
 
===I can see pupils with no name on menus/registers etc or the following replaces a pupils name: person:xxxx, person:ID, ", (-)"===
 
===I can see pupils with no name on menus/registers etc or the following replaces a pupils name: person:xxxx, person:ID, ", (-)"===

Revision as of 14:49, 6 July 2016

Things to do once the academic year has advanced

Recording a mark in a lesson register does not update the associated session mark (e.g. Period 4 = PM register)

Schools often do not have a morning or afternoon tutor period and instead take session registers during a lesson period. The mapped periods page explains how to configure this in SIMS.

How to set the Academic year to 2016-2017

This needs to be done for each user account. In SIMS .net go to:
Tools > Academic Management > Set academic year

How to apply the new timetable to the calendar year

If no timetable is showing in PARS or the wrong week is set to the current week (in the case of a two week timetable) then follow the instructions given on Applying the academic timetable.

How do I reset all behaviour points back to zero?

Behaviour incidents do not need to be deleted. The reports in PARS will only look at one year's worth of data at a time so the previous year's behaviour incidents will not be seen in behaviour reports, behaviour screens, etc. The pupil information is capable of displaying behaviour incidents from previous years. This can be prevented by going to:
PARS main menu > System management > Preferences > Pupil info > Only show this year's behaviour on Pupil information screen.

If previous incidents were entered for testing purposes only then these can be deleted by following the instructions on the edit behaviour incidents page.

Reschedule your detention/removal timeslots

Detentions and/or removals will need to be rescheduled for the academic year. This is performed via:
PARS main menu > Detentions > Configure > Configure time types

Select a timeslot and click the Calenderise button to create a new schedule. See the configure time types page for further details.

Reschedule On report grade elements

The elements for PARS On Report will need to be rescheduled for the new academic year. This is performed via:
PARS main menu > On report > Configure > Elements

Further information can be found on the Edit PARS grade element page.

Setup heads of subjects

PARS cannot determine which staff members are the heads of subjects or faculties from SIMS. Therefore this information must be manually entered into PARS. The page used to do this is:
PARS main menu > System management > Subject leaders

New staff permissions

If you have any new staff members, they will need to have their PARS permissions configured after their SIMS account has been created. The easiest way to do this is by adding them to an existing permissions template.

It is worthwhile reviewing the list of permissions periodically as service packs frequently contain new permissions that give access to useful new features.

Troubleshooting

PARS is running slowly

See the performance issues page if users are reporting that PARS is running slowly.

How do I run reports or view data from last year?

On the homepage, near the top left of the calendar click the "Academic year" dropdown option and choose the year you wish to view. There is a permission required to see and use this feature so if the dropdown is not visible you may need to review your permissions.

The permission is called "Allows user to change current attendance year" and is found in the PARS section.

Some (not all) classes missing from timetables in PARS

The staff member should log in to SIMS. On the homepage, there is a My Timeline section which displays the staff member's timetable. If the class is also missing on this section in SIMS then the problem is not with PARS and must be fixed in SIMS. We cannot assist with this issue.

All lessons are missing from timetables in PARS

This means that the timetable has not been applied in SIMS. Apply the timetable in SIMS then log out of PARS and back in again. Warning reapplying the timetable in SIMS can cause attendance data to be lost. Contact your SIMS customer support if you require any further information about this.

Classes are missing from a subject

If the classes are missing from their subjects in PARS, log in to SIMS and go to:
Tools > Academic Management > Course Manager > Maintain Course

Search for the course that the class should belong to. Open the course and check section 6, classes. The class must be listed in this section.

Some/all students are missing from some/all user defined groups

Students have a start and end date for their membership to a user defined group. The membership for some or all of the pupils may have expired. To check this, use the Academic Year dropdown option on the PARS homepage to change back to the previous academic year (If you do not see the Academic Year dropdown, you may need to edit your permissions. See the How do I run reports or view data from last year section, above).

Next go to:
PARS main menu > Group management > Group manager

Select the user defined group that is missing students. The list of students will be shown on the right of the page, and their membership dates will be displayed. Select all of the students whose dates need to be changed then click the Edit button. Set the End date forward, or delete the end date if you do not want the students' memberships to expire.

I can see a message about the Automation module not running

A message will appear at the top left of PARS is automation has stopped running. Automation is an important process that performs various housekeeping jobs for PARS as well as sending automated reports. See the automation page for more information is your automation has stopped running.

I can see pupils with no name on menus/registers etc or the following replaces a pupils name: person:xxxx, person:ID, ", (-)"

These are pupils who were expected to attend the school this year and had timetables etc configured. They subsequently have not been admitted but have group memberships left in the database.

Make sure your SIMS.net database has been backed up prior to the following steps!

The first thing to try is within SIMS.net... go to Tools -> Validate memberships and this should remove the unwanted pupil information

If this fails a Repair console statement is required and you will also require a password from support - 01902 824281. (We do not list passwords for statements as if incorrectly used, this could affect/delete some of your data)

System Management > Repair console

There are two statements you need to enter:

the first is TOOL DELETE BAD MEMBERSHIPS REPORT you will need your password before selecting execute

the second is TOOL DELETE BAD MEMBERSHIPS again you will need the password before selecting execute

Repair console1.jpg

Student reviews show unusual characters such as Á

This is due to the encoding on the final report being incorrect. To fix this, find the first two lines of your review design. They will look similar to this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:my="http://whatever" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" >	

Delete these and replace them with these three lines:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:my="http://whatever" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" > 
<xsl:output method='html'  encoding='UTF-8' indent='yes'  doctype-system="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd" doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" />