The SIMS Discover application is a new generation of software that provides a flexible, easy-to-use, drag and drop tool which is used to analyse school’s SIMS data. SIMS Discover enables you to access the majority of pupil/student data on one screen including Pupil, Attendance, Behaviour, Exclusions and Assessment data, as well as SEN, Pre-Admissions and Achievement data.

Some pre-defined graphs have been provided and these can be accessed via a series of Category buttons on the Discover Application Bar. The pre-defined graphs include options such as Student Totals by Gender, Behaviour Points by Year Groups and Achievement by Type.

The powerful user interface enables the data to be presented in a variety of graphical outputs, e.g. Venn diagrams, bar charts, pie charts and line graphs. The ability to further interrogate the data is also available by drilling down into a data item to reveal the underlying pupil/student data. Graphs can be created to your own specifications and once created, a new graph can be saved for future use in Discover. It is also possible to publish and export graphs to other school users, Governors and members of the Senior Management Team.

Another use for the graphs in Discover is the ability to build a Dynamic Group based on data items in one or more graphs. For example, you can create a Venn diagram of pupil/students whose Attendance is less than 85%, those with below average Assessment results and those who have more than 10 Behaviour points. Once compiled, the central intersection of the Venn diagram contains a set of pupil/students who require careful monitoring. A Dynamic Group containing these pupil/students can be created and the group can be synchronised with the data in SIMS to ensure a consistent approach for monitoring this group of pupil/students.

Discover is an upgrade to SIMS Analysis and is provided under your annual entitlement payments, so no further payment is required.

Yes, however the performance of Discover in a hosted environment is largely reliant on the specific conditions/bandwidth and configuration of the hosted environment. We would encourage customers using a hosted environment to trial Discover in their own environment before rolling it out to all schools. Please refer to the Discover Technical Guide for detailed information about installing Discover in advanced mode.

Discover shows pupil/student data from various areas of SIMS, including Pupil, Attendance, Behaviour, Achievement, SEN, Exclusions, Pre-Admissions, Exams and Assessment, etc. There is also some preferred Staff data available in Discover.

Yes, the user interface has been designed to be used with the minimum of training.

You need to click the graph name, then drag and drop it onto the Discover canvas.

They are probably off screen. Click the Discover canvas (background) and drag the cursor upwards until the graphs are visible.

When you click a segment, a pop out displays the pupil/students’ details and photographs.

Yes, you can drag a data item from one graph and drop it into another..

Yes, graphs can be saved to any of the catalogues on the Discover Application Bar or to the designated Custom Graphs catalogue.

It is a SIMS group that you can create based on data points from Discover graph definitions. The pupil/student membership of the group can be updated regularly by running the Transfer routine.

You can request that alert messages be sent when you create the group. The alerts will notify you whenever a pupil/student joins or leaves a group that you supervise.

Yes, these settings can be adjusted by using the Modifying Graph Display Settings button in the Discover Administration Utility.

Yes, there is a pre-defined graph that shows pupil/student Absence by Subject. This is available from the Attendance catalogue.

Yes, if a SIMS user does not have the permissions to view a data item in SIMS, they cannot see this data in Discover.

Yes, a predefined graph definition called KS4 English Baccalaureate Venn is provided. This is available from the Exams catalogue.

Yes, the reverse side of each graph has a table showing the pupil/student details for each data item. This data can also be exported to a .CSV file for further analysis. You can view the reverse side of a graph by clicking the information button at the bottom left-hand side of the graph output.

You can export and copy the graphs and data tables to the clipboard. This enables you to copy the graphs into Word or Excel, from where they can be printed.

You can select to work with academic data for the Current Year, Last Year or 2 Years Ago.

Yes, you can create school specific Assessment graphs using the Managing Assessment Graphs button in the Discover Administration Utility.

Yes, there are a number of predefined graph definitions available that display preferred staff data.

No, the software requires a 2Gb PC with a separate graphics chip or a graphics card. Please refer to the Discover Technical Guide for details of the prerequisites for running Discover.

There are a number of suggestions that will help to rectify this issue:

• Locate and open the SIMS.ini file in Notepad. Ensure that the following line is present and is pointing to the correct location for the Discover client:
• SIMSDiscoverDirectory=C:\Program Files\ SIMS\ Discover Client
• Run the Discover Installation wizard and select the Install Discover Client option. Click the Repair button to fix the Discover Client installation on the affected workstation(s). Alternatively, click the Install button to apply the client installation again.
• Ensure that there are no logon scripts being applied to the workstation that might affect the content of the SIMS.ini file and the path to SIMSDiscoverDirectory=C:\Program Files\ SIMS\ Discover Client.
• If you have tried these suggestions and the issue has not been resolved, there may be a second copy of the SIMS.ini file on the affected PC. Once you have located this duplicate file, rename it to SIMS.ini_OLD and move it to another location so that it is not accessible from the C:\Program Files\ SIMS\ Discover Client folder.

Log out of SIMS and then log back in. The Discover icon and shortcuts should now be visible in SIMS.

Please contact your Local Support Unit and ask for further assistance.

Every time the Transfer routine is run, a log file entry is recorded in Discover.Warehouse.Service.log. This log file details any issues identified in the data during the Transfer routine and also acts as an audit log for any usage or error messages that may occur while using Discover.

This log file is located in the local application directory of the service that you are running. For example, when running the service as MYCOMPUTER\DiscoverTransfer, the log file is located in the C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Discover folder on the machine on which the service is running. The log file can be viewed and opened using Microsoft Notepad or an XML editing programme. Scroll down to the bottom of the log file to locate the most recent entry.

It is possible to protect your school from the loss of Discover data, in the event of hardware failure or disc corruption. Due to the nature of the Discover database and given that it is an extract of the SIMS database, the majority of its data can be recreated automatically from the SIMS database. However, graphs and groups that have been created by users in the school cannot be recreated from the SIMS database.

To enable the backup of user defined data and to restore it in the event of a hardware failure or disc corruption, the Discover Backup Utility can be used. For more information, please refer to the Discover Backing Up and Restoring handbook.

1. A generic patch is available to rectify this issue. Please contact your Local Support Unit and ask for further assistance.
2. Apply this patch to the SIMS database using dbUpgrade.
3. Take a full backup of your SIMS and Discover data using your usual backup routines for SIMS and the Discover Backup Utility for the Discover database.
4. Uninstall the SIMS Discover Services from via Control Panel | Programs and Features.
5. Detach the original Discover database manually using SQL Server Management Studio and move the database to a different location.
6. Run the Discover installation wizard and re-install the Discover Server components by selecting the appropriate method of Typical or Advanced Installation, depending on the nature of your original Discover installation. As long as you re-install using the same database names, SQL Server Instance name, account details, etc. there is no need to re-install the SIMS Discover clients.
7. When the SIMS Discover Services have been re-installed, log into the Discover Administration Utility and initiate a Transfer routine for the current year.
8. Once the Transfer routine has completed successfully, use the Discover Backup Utility to restore the backup of the Discover data that you took before re-installing the SIMS Discover Services.
9. Run another Transfer routine in the Discover Administration Utility to ensure that the Discover data has been updated.

The pre-defined Assessment graphs should now be available from within Discover and the Discover Aspects should be visible in SIMS.

A generic patch is available to rectify this issue. Please contact your Local Support Unit and ask for further assistance.

NOTE: It is strongly recommended that patches are applied to the SIMS database only when no other users are logged into the system. Please also ensure that you have a recent full backup of your SIMS system before applying a patch.

A generic patch is available to rectify this issue. Please contact your Local Support Unit and ask for further assistance.

NOTE: It is strongly recommended that patches are applied to the SIMS database only when no other users are logged into the system. Please also ensure that you have a recent full backup of your SIMS system before applying a patch.

This message indicates that some of the Discover components have not been upgraded successfully. This discrepancy causes a mismatch and results in random and unforeseen errors.

To determine which component of Discover is out of step with the other components, click the information button on the Discover Welcome banner to display the Transfer Information details panel. You must run the most recent upgrade again to bring all the Discover components into line before continuing to use Discover.

Alert messages are sent when the Group Synchronisation Service process is triggered. However, message alerts are not sent for Discover Dynamic groups that have been saved with either a < or > character in their name. Rename any affected groups and run the Transfer routine again. Alert messages will be sent when the pupil/student membership of these groups subsequently changes.

Navigate to the location of the Discover Services folder and locate the Discover.SqlUserManager.Console.exe file. Right-click this file, select Properties and click the Details tab.

The Product version and File version numbers are displayed.