evince blog

A big thank you to all those who attended one of our recent evince Usability Forums.  There were five in all – Cambridge, London, Exeter and two in Leeds, with a total of 51 evince customers form around the country working in partnership with myself and members of the Opportunity Links development team; Giles from the PKHD support team also made a guest appearance at our London event.

There were countless excellent suggestions both large and small for improvements to the evince system.  Encouragingly, we were able to take ideas generated early on, refine them, and build upon them over subsequent days.  I now have the task of working through many colourful sheets of flip-chart paper and writing up the ideas ready for publication on ‘Get Satisfaction’ by Tuesday 29th September.  All evince users will then be able to express their emotions in relation to some of the new ideas, or you can add comments and ideas of your own.  Full instructions on how to log on and participate will be emailed shortly.

Once again, thank you – we can’t do it without you.

Simon Farley

The ISPP Testing Strategy and Plan is split into four different phases.  The Testing Plan is currently in the Phase 2 testing with the DCSF, and as of 2nd March it moves into Phase 3 which is the ‘Interoperability Testing’ of the aggregator with integrating systems (evince and all other systems vendors).  This phase lasts until 29th May. 

The Interoperability testing is the process by which each of the systems that are required to integrate with the ISPP service are verified as compliant against a set of specific accreditation as defined by DCSF in collaboration with Tribal.

During this phase the test objectives are:

- to prove that system vendors (evince - Opp Links) is interoperable with the Aggregator interface and Search and Discovery interface

- Directgov proving their system is interoperable with Search and Discovery interface

- Verify functionality and performance reliability across interfaces

- Interoperable systems are ready for launch

PHASES

Phase 1 - Internal testing of Aggregator (Tribal)

Phase 2 - Customer Acceptance Testing of Aggregator and NFSD Solution (DCSF)

Phase 3 - Interoperability Testing - (system Vendors) - during this time Opp Links will also be running the Ofsted to Vendor Connectivity tests

Phase 4 - Local Authority Readiness Testing of evince (other systems) against the Aggreagator (Local Authorities) - starts in June 09

In summary - Interoperability Testing is immediately preceded by Customer Acceptance Testing of the Aggregator and NFSD Portal and is immediately followed by the Local Authority Readiness testing where each of the systems accredited as interoperable during Interoperability Testing is deployed to each individual authority for testing against the ISPP.

As we work through the Interoperability Testing and find out more about the Local Authority Readiness Testing further communications will come out.

We have released a new and improved mapping system for our web-based information management system, evince. Following feedback from our existing users, we have implemented the following:

- nudge buttons to increase/decrease the radius by ‘.1′ of a mile

- editable radius field to type the radius in manually

- view providers outside the radius set, using a button to toggle off and on

- a home and work point can now be added manually to the map, allowing users to plot search results and add home/work points as required - and drag and drop the location of these points

- increase of provider numbers you can plot at any time to 3000

If you do not have access to evince, please check out the enhanced mapping by going to

http://demo.evince-online.com/mapping/

For further details about evince and what it can do for you, please go to www.evince-online.com or contact us on 01223 566522 or at enquiries@opp-links.org.uk

The Aggregator Functional Design document gives a very good overview of how you will interact with the Aggregator.  Opp Links has summarised the document in the link below so that you can clearly see where evince and each Local Authority play key roles.

http://blog.evince-online.com/?page_id=60

The way that you receive and manage your Ofsted data will change when you start to work with the National Aggregator.  Click on the following link to take you through to a useful summary of how you will interact with Ofsted data in the coming months.

http://blog.evince-online.com/?page_id=65

evince Training Course are now planned up to the end of the financial year.   

Full, Wednesday 10th February 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level One), Central Newcastle

Spaces, Thursday 11th February 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level One), London Kings Cross

Spaces, Thursday 18th February 2010, evince Pathways to Registration, Opportunity Links Leeds

Cancelled, Tuesday 23rd February 2010, evince Training Module Training, London Kings Cross

Cancelled, Wednesday 24th Febrauary 2010, evince Pathways to Registration, London Kings Cross

Spaces, Thursday 25th February 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level One), London Kings Cross

Limited Spaces, Friday 26th February 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level Two), London Kings Cross

Spaces, Wednesday 3rd March 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level One), Opportunity Links Leeds

Spaces, Tuesday 9th March 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level Two), Central Newcastle

Cancelled, Wednesday 24^th March 2010, evince Training for New FIS Staff, Central London

Cancelled, Thursday 25^th March 2010, evince Training for New FIS Staff, Opportunity Links Leeds

Spaces, Tuesday 30th March 2010, evince Queries and Reports (Level Two), London Kings Cross

The cost is £295 + vat per delegate, per day. All courses will run from 9:30 until 4pm.  A brief outline for each course is given below or for further details and an agenda please contact Simon at simon.farley@opp-links.org.uk or 01223 566522.

• evince Training for New FIS Staff:  (This course has been cancelled for March, but if you do have a need for this course please let us know) A chance to work through the most common evince scenarios encountered within an FIS without the pressure of a caller at the end of the phone line!  We will cover Childcare Enquiries, Provider Searches, Service and Organisation Searches, Maps, Running Reports and PKHD. 
• evince Queries and Reports Level One: Editing existing reports (editing text, adding pictures, adding new fields), creating queries from scratch and working with query data in Excel.  Best suited to those with some experience of query or report design (perhaps on iChIS another database).
• evince Queries and Reports Level Two: Function queries, case statements, parameters and advanced report design including sub reports.  Delegates will usually need to have completed Level One.
• evince Training Module Training: (This course has been cancelled for February, but if you do have a need for this course please let us know) The entire training life cycle on evince - ways of improving and speeding up your processes.  Training reports, confirmation letters, registers, statistical reports - can yours be improved or expanded upon?  This course is intended for users with some experience of training functionality within evince.
• evince Pathways to Registration: What is evince?  How to search for and understand evince childcare records.  The pathways process on evince - how to set local milestones for registration and monitor an application from beginning to end.  Suitable for those with little or no experience of evince.

Can’t see the date or the course you are looking for?  We are happy to create a bespoke agenda and run the training at a site of your choice.  The cost is £1500 + vat per day for a maximum of ten delegates (seven on queries and reports courses).

In certain circumstances we may agree to schedule another course bookable on a delegate rate; this will generally be in London or Leeds.  Once again, for further details please contact Simon on simon.farley@opp-links.org.uk or 01223 566522.

We are increasing the ways that you can log bugs, change requests, ideas and feedback on any of our products and services.  From 12th January 2009 we are asking you to use the GetSatisfaction website (http://getsatisfaction.com/opportunitylinks), which is a dedicated website for managing these types of requests. Please note – all existing bugs and change requests submitted by users are stored.

Steps to take to use GetSatisfaction:

• Add the link above to your favourites in Internet Explorer
• You will then have the choice to either:
  • Ask a question?
  • Share an idea – to be used for submitting change requests
  • Report a problem – to be used for submitting bugs
  • Give praise – to be used for submitting feedback, quotes, testimonials
• Then submit your post
• Here you can change the title of your submission and add in any more detail in the description box if necessary (Please prefix the title of your question with your FIS name) i.e. Cambridge - How do i use GetSatisfaction)
• Once you have added all the necessary details on your first posting you will be asked to set up an account, see below.
• You will be automatically informed of replies to your posting(s) once they are submitted via email.
• At anytime you should be able to click on Opportunity Links name at the top of the page to return to a full list of postings
• All change requests and bugs posted by our users will feed into our release cycles for our different products and services

We are going to be trialling this service for 3 months, and would appreciate any feedback you have on it. If you are unsure how to proceed with the website please give our helpdesk a call (0845 257 2180).

Dear Colleagues,

evince version 1.0.87 has now gone live, the following bugs have now been fixed.

4161 – Can now run reports on selected records in the provider quick search (This currently only works with reports run from evince rather than report manager)

4402 - Admin history in registration now orders by most recent at the top

4401 – Can now create new course unit bookings from contact the contact relations tab

4374 -  A number of issues with ‘Childcare information’ view only permissions have now been corrected

4370 - ‘Total number of vacancies’ field now added back into Careschemes (However we have noticed a layout issue in IE7 that will be fixed next week)

4372 – Can now run reports with an ‘&’ or a ‘+’ in the title from the reports manager

4412 - All Course Units associated with Staff are now returned

4414 – Can now add new Local Mngt Info entries

4419 – You can now sort the submitted search results of the GIS maps

4421 – You can no longer add/new Staff through the registration (as in iChIS)

4426 – When saving a contact it only filters person information if contact complete and no open actions against contact

4293 – Once you save a record for the first time it will not ask you again to save until you move away from the contact and go back to it

We have found one problem with the new release, the “no- consent to hold details” pop-up is not working when creating a new person record. This will be fixed in next weeks release, the workaround in the mean time is to tick the consent to hold details box before entering any other details.

Apologies for any inconvenience this will cause,

Regards,

Alex Pardy

IT Service Desk Manager

Last night we performed a release of the evince DB upgrading it to version 1.0.77. Within this release was the following :-

– changes to query now appear on the report viewer – report viewer now refreshes

– childcare tab in a childcare enquiry form – now more compact for less scrolling

– you can now edit the hyperlink in the html editor in Bulletin Board and Organisations

– Advanced Search now only brings back the fields selected in the ‘Display Fields’ tab

– ‘No consent to hold details’ now works as it did in ChIS – it removes the name

– Setting/Organisation name has now been added to the Vacancy pop-up box in Recruitment Candidate, so that jobs can be told apart

– Autofill of address is no longer missing in related proposed provider

– Course filter working correctly in Contact – relations tab

– People – Resolve Duplicates – you only get the option to resolve duplicates if they are 2 distinct people.  If id is the same then you do not get the option.

– Advanced Search – ‘Drop off at or collect from Schools List’ – when selected along with a particular school this no longer returns an Oops Message.

– Advanced Provider search button from the childcare tab in a childcare enquiry now links through correctly

– ‘Non-secure Message’ in IE6, no longer appearing when you click on the ‘+’ symbols in evince

– Export to Excel in Advanced Search working

– Advanced Search – sped up

We are hoping that the speed issues experienced through earlier releases are getting better, but if you are experiencing problems then please do let us know so that we can investigate these individual issues.  We prioritise a new list of bugs/fixes for our Development team each week (usually on a Thursday), so if you have a particular bug that is stopping you from performing a day-to-day task please let us know and we can re-prioritise our list accordingly.