SIMS Discover Upgrade

Transcription

1 SIMS Discover Upgrade For use with SIMS Autumn 2014 (version 7.160) School IT Systems Support Herts for Learning Ltd SROB220, Robertson House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, Herts, SG1 2FQ Doc Ref Error! Unknown document property name.1497 Published December 2014 School IT Systems Support (SITSS) Herts for Learning Ltd, 2014 Technical Support Centre Accredited by the Learning and Performance Institute (formerly, the Institute of IT Training) RM Approved Support Partner Fully accredited by Capita SIMS for proven quality of SIMS support

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3 CONTENTS HOW TO UPGRADE DISCOVER AN OVERVIEW... 1 Downloading the Discover Autumn 2014 files... 1 How to upgrade the Discover Server... 2 How to upgrade the Discover client At Server and Workstations... 5 Data Transfer from SIMS to Discover... 7 Potential Transfer Progress Messages and what they Mean TROUBLESHOOTING DISCOVER TRANSFERS Checking the Discover Transfer Service is running Reviewing the Discover Warehouse Service Log File Timeout Period for Transfer Doc Ref S1497

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5 These notes assume that you have already upgraded your SIMS installation to SIMS Autumn 2014 Release (version 7.160) and that the Discover database is installed onto the same SQL Server instance as the SIMS database. Once your SIMS has been upgraded, you should upgrade Discover as soon as possible, as no data can be transferred between SIMS and Discover until both databases are on the same version. How to upgrade Discover an overview Download the password-protected archive containing the upgrade files from the grid website and unzip its contents to a folder accessible to all stations that need to be upgraded. In many schools this will be most conveniently located on the database server S: drive, so create a folder S:\DiscoverInstalls, if this does not already exist. Any other, older folders that may contain installers for older versions of Discover should be removed. Logged on as administrator at the database server, browse to the location of the unzipped archive and double-click the AutoRun.exe application and use the Install Discover Server option to upgrade Discover at the database server. See page 2. Logged on as administrator at the database server, browse to the location of the unzipped archive and double-click the AutoRun.exe application and use the Install Discover Client option to upgrade the Discover client at the database server. See page 5. At each station where the Discover client is installed, log on as administrator and browse to the location of the unzipped archive and double- click the AutoRun.exe application. Use the Install Discover Client option to upgrade Discover at the station See page 5. Downloading the Discover Autumn 2014 files It is not possible to run the Discover upgrade using SOLUS 2 so we have made the installation files available on the SITSS website at the following location: At the SIMS database server, logged in as Administrator, navigate to the location above and scroll down to the Documents for Download heading. The Discover installation files have been zipped and are password protected. Note: If you are using 7-zip, please see the downloading & using 7zip.pdf document on the same webpage. Right click on the Discover_Autumn_2014_v7.160files.zip and click Save As and save the file to S:\DiscoverInstalls. Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 1 of 12

6 Open your Zip File Software Package to Extract the file to a location of your choice. We would recommend that you extract the file to the S:\DiscoverInstalls folder that you created earlier, as you need to be able to access the files from the workstations when running the Client upgrade. How to upgrade the Discover Server As you are upgrading Discover from files already stored on the server s hard disk in the previous step, browse to the location holding the installation files and double-click the AutoRun.exe application through Windows Explorer. If one or more Opening File Security Warning messages appear, click Run to continue and display the SIMS Discover Autumn 2014 release welcome screen: Click the Install Discover Server button - if an Opening File Security Warning message appears, click Run to continue and display the initial page of the Discover Server Setup wizard. At the Discover Server Setup screen, after reading the advice, click the Next button to display the Installation Mode page. 2 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497

7 Select the Upgrade Installation option to upgrade your SIMS Discover installation. The Discover Server Setup screen appears and will prompt you for details relating to the Discover database. Select the SQL Server authentication radio button. Enter the user name sa here. Enter the schools sa user password here. Enter the SQL Server instance name, in this example: SITSSDB2\SIMS2012 and the Database name, Discover. Then click Next. Provided that you have already upgraded your SIMS to SIMS Autumn 2014 (7.160), you will see this message announcing that the discover installation will be upgraded. Click OK. Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 3 of 12

8 You will be asked to confirm that you are ready to continue with the upgrade. Click Install. The Installing page is displayed. When the installation process has finished, the Discover Server Setup Completed page is displayed. Click the Finish button to close the Discover Server Setup wizard. 4 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497

9 How to upgrade the Discover client At Server and Workstations Note: this work needs to be carried out at the database server as well as at all other stations running Discover. Browse to the location holding the installation files and double-click the AutoRun.exe application through Windows Explorer. If one or more Opening File Security Warning messages appear, click Run to continue and display the SIMS Discover Autumn 2014 release welcome screen: Click the Install Discover Client button to display the initial page of the SIMS Discover Client setup wizard. If you receive one or more Opening file Security Warnings click Run to continue with the installation. Click the Next button to display the Discover Client Setup page Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 5 of 12

10 On the Discover Client Setup screen, click Upgrade to continue. The Installing Discover Client screen appears and the upgrade begins. When the installation is complete, click the Finish button to close the SIMS Discover Client Setup wizard Once the Discover Client has been upgraded at the Server you will need to visit any workstations that have Discover Installed and manually run the Install Discover Client at each of these. 6 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497

11 Data Transfer from SIMS to Discover It is important to check that the transfer from SIMS to Discover is running successfully after the upgrade. To do this it is worth triggering it manually from within the Discover SIMS Administration utility. To run the Discover SIMS Administration Utility, click the Start button and select All Programs SIMS Applications Discover Administration Utility. Login as a user who has SIMS System Manager rights and click the Log in button The Administration Utility will open maximised on your screen as shown below. Click on the Start a data transfer option. Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 7 of 12

12 Click on Current Year to highlight it and then click Next. NOTE: After upgrading, Discover continues to work with the current academic year s data. The data transfer routine MUST be run on the Current Year first. If data for a previous year is required, the manual data transfer process can be repeated, selecting Last Year and 2 Years Ago from the Administration utility. 8 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497

13 Check that the displayed details are correct for the instance/database you want to transfer and click on the Confirm button. NOTE: If this screen does not display correctly, you may need to adjust the size of the window. The Administration Utility automatically opens as full screen, but by clicking on the restore down icon in the top right hand corner of the window and changing the window to a different size, the text will display correctly with a scroll bar along the bottom. The Administration Utility will initiate the transfer of data and display the Managing Data Transfers screen. To view the progress of a transfer, click on View Transfers. Details of the most recent transfer for each academic year will be displayed, as shown on the next page. You will need to click on the Refresh Status button to update this display. The Progress column will show the current status of a transfer initially Transfer requested - waiting for service, changing to Transfer started while a transfer of data is in progress and Transfer succeeded when complete. Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 9 of 12

14 If data from previous years is required, repeat the transfer process as described, selecting Last Year and/or 2 Years Ago. These can either be transferred in turn, or selected together. If both are selected together, the data transfers will be carried out one after the other. However, the transfer for the current year should be manually triggered first, as previously described. Potential Transfer Progress Messages and what they Mean Troubleshooting Discover Transfers Message Displayed Occurrence Message Meaning Transfer requested, waiting for service After a scheduled task or you request a Transfer manually. The SIMS Discover Data Transfer service is pending. Transfer started After the SIMS Discover Data Transfer service actually picks up The Transfer process is underway. the request and has started a Transfer. Transfer succeeded After a Transfer has completed The Transfer process was Transfer failed, will try again in N seconds Transfer failed, see log file for details successfully. After a Transfer has completed with an error (typically N is 60 seconds for default settings). After final attempt (usually 5), the transfer has completed with an error. successful. The Transfer process tries to run on five consecutive attempts. Please see the Reviewing the Discover Warehouse Log File section below 10 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497

15 Checking the Discover Transfer Service is running If the Transfer process fails to initiate after several minutes, you can check that the SIMS Discover Data Transfer service is running. This needs to be done on the Server: From the Control Panel on the server that is running the SIMS Discover Data Transfer service, select the Administrative Tools icon and click on Services to display the Services (Local) page. Scroll down the page until you locate the details of the SIMS Discover Data Transfer service. The Status of this service should be shown as Started. If this is not the case, highlight the name of the service and click on Start the service in the left-hand column of the Services (Local) page. The selected service should now be started. The Transfer process will initiate when the service is running and no further action is required. Reviewing the Discover Warehouse Service Log File The transfer process creates a log file called Discover.Warehouse.Service.log. This log file details any issues identified in the data during the transfer process and also acts as an audit log for any usage or error messages that may occur whilst using Discover. There is a utility that allows you to view this logfile this can be found in the folder where the Discover client is installed. At stations this will generally be C:\Program Files\SIMS\Discover Client; the utility is called Discover.log.Viewer.exe. However this utility does not automatically determine for itself where the log file is located you must use the File button to browse for and locate the log file for yourself: Doc Ref S1497 Upgrading SIMS Discover 11 of 12

16 The location of this file varies depending on which version of the Windows operating system you are running: On computers running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, it can be found in: C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\LocalSettings\Application Data\Discover On computers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 or 2012, it can be found in: C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Discover Note: when browsing to one of these paths in Windows, you may find that a part of the path is not visible to you (for example the NetworkService or AppData folder may not be visible). In that case you will need to click into the address bar and type the name of the invisible folder directly at the end of the address, followed by <return> to display the folder s contents: Note: the Discover.Warehouse.Service.log file is only written to if there is a problem with the transfer a successful transfer is not explicitly recorded in the log file. Timeout Period for Transfer If a transfer fails due to a timeout, Discover initiates the transfer again but increases the original timeout settings by 50%. If the subsequent transfer is successful, the new timeout values are saved to use again next time the Transfer process is run. 12 of 12 Upgrading SIMS Discover Doc Ref S1497