Wednesday, 22 September 2010

MUSAC's latest Classic release

A new release has been mailed (Financial Manager customers) and posted on our website. Primarily this covers off GST changes, however, there are a heap of new features we've added in. Highlights:
  • National Standards. Good luck to NZPF and NZEI with the battle they have with the Ministry regarding National Standards. As a back stop, MUSAC software is ready to capture and report National Standards data and has  the thumbs up from the Ministry. Note: Nothing in the software to send any information about National Standards to the Ministry.
  • GST in MUSAC Accounts and Student Manager. Accounts and Student Manager were capable of handling the GST change. We've added a few extra peices to make it a little easier. Still recommend applying the update prior to 1 October.
  • Automated Compact and Repair. As a preventative measure you can now set up a service to automatically do the housekeeping for your databases.
  • NZSSSC updates.
  • e-asTTle v5 approved by the MoE. Has been working for ages, but we've now got the official thumbs up.
  • SMS-LMS v2.0 interoperability. This is in limited release with Dataview contacting new and current schools to organise migrations. Have discovered that our MyDataOnline 1.4 version had major issues with automated uploads - we had thought it was isolated. SMS-LMS v2.0 implementation has rewritten this and that issue has gone away.
  • Automated error reporting. Should your system encounter an error, you can configure MUSAC to automatically let us know. We keep track of these and priortise the software faults and contact you if it is configurtation or environmental. Easy!
  • Fixed a search error. Sometimes search pulled up seamlingly random students. Bizarre - but fixed.
  • STOP PRESS: Quirky one with markbook speed in a few schools. Developers are on to it now.
Any problems getting the update installed, let us know.

Working on expanding the SMS-LMS interoperability beyond what any other vendor has done, course endorsements for NCEA (although NZQA have not finalised requirements, so it's touch and go), the changes for Roll Returns for 2011, further National Standards related updates (actually additional general assessment features) and a few more out-of-the-box features around NCEA.