Installing the Schoolcomms licence key.

It is necessary to install the Licence key in order to be able to launch Schoolcomms from within SIMS. This installation only needs to be done once for the school.

NB: This process must be run by a member of the System Manager group in SIMS.Net.

• Launch the SIMS DBUpgrade tool from the 'SIMS Applications' folder on the start menu.

• Select the 'Run the following SIMS database upgrade file' radio button.
• Click the Browse button and locate the folder where the upgrade script is stored. By default this is stored at C:\Program Files\Schoolcomms\SIMSLicence on your workstation.
• Alternatively, if you do not already have a copy of the Schoolcomms licence upgrade script, click here to download it as a ZIP file and extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder on your workstation.
• Enter your server and database name. These can be identified from your SIMS connect.ini file which will be stored in your SIMS program directory. If the connect.ini file contains a 'ReDirect' statement, then open the connect.ini file stored in the folder that it specifies.
• Enter your SIMS user name and password.
• Click Login.
• Click Install.
  
• The SIMS Database Upgrade Tool requires that no other SIMS users are logged in whilst the database is being upgraded. If other users are logged into SIMS at the same time as a database upgrade is being carried out, the following screen will be displayed:
  
  

   

  • At this point, there are three options available to you:
  • Ask all currently logged in users to exit from SIMS and then Retry. A list of currently logged in users is displayed in the Users shown as using SIMS panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
  • Cancel the process and run this process again when you know that all SIMS users will be logged out.
  • Cary out the application of the licence regardless of how many SIMS users are logged in, by forcing other users out of the system and then applying the licence. To force an upgrade, you must enter the SA user name and SA password to ensure that you have the appropriate Permissions to do so.
  • IMPORTANT NOTE: Forcing an upgrade might lead to data loss if any user is actually using the system. If any third party applications that use the SIMS database are in use at your school, ensure that they are closed prior to forcing an upgrade. This option should be used with care, and only if it is not possible to log al users out of SIMS using conventional methods.
  • Once you have carried out any pre-upgrade procedure (i.e. asking users to log out, closing down any third party applications, etc.), click either the Cancel, Retry or Force Upgrade button.
  • A message should be displayed which says "Your database has been updated".
  • Open SIMS.NET and check that you can launch Schoolcomms from the Focus menu.