Speaking on behalf of a school that has had major problems with the 6.0.x line of releases I'm happy to say that after some testing (not a lot, but we are in emergency mode) all issues we've been having seem to be resolved in the 6.0.1.3 release that came out on October 10th.
If you're on PowerSchool 6.0.0.1, 6.0.0.2 or 6.0.1 and using a Windows server then I would consider upgrading to 6.0.1.3. I'm very interested in hearing any comments (positive or negative) on this release as I have only had a few hours to test it and now basically have to update so my server can stay working tomorrow when the teachers come back.
**Update: After installing 6.0.1.3 on 4 different servers I noticed that in all cases I didn't need to copy custom wildcards (new wildcards that don't normally exist) to the system/web_root folder. One less thing on upgrades if this sticks.
Jason Treadwell
Comments
Screwed Up Custom Fields
I just posted this on PSUG and wanted to post it here as well:
Has anyone else had problems with custom fields not working correctly? We've had a case open with PS since 08/03/2009 (reported to dev as a product defect) where data in custom fields showed garbage. It appeared to be other fields appended to the correct data in the field. Since the 6.0.1.3 update, those fields now show nothing!
The Friday, October 09, 2009 Tech Note announcing PowerSchool 6.0.1.3 says that it addresses "issues regarding custom fields displaying erroneous values", but I guess they addressed it by showing nothing in those fields instead of the garbage that was there.
It appears that this problem started when we upgraded to 6 in the summer, but wasn't noticed until the start of school when users started working with the data. The data shows correctly if I use SQL Developer, but not in DDE or if exported.
This has been a major problem for us and does not bode well for PS. If you're having similar problems, please open a case with PowerSchool.
Bob Cassidy, Somerton School District, Arizona, K-8, 2700 students
PS 6.0, Mac OS X Server 10.5.8, 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Xserve, 12 GB RAM
re: Screwed Up Custom Fields
Bob,
When you say not in DDE, what do you mean exactly? As in the blob in the students table or in the customVarChar and/or customText tables? Also, did you go to 6.0.0.0 initially or wait until 6.0.0.1? I waited for 6.0.0.1 and I wonder if your issue is a remnant of 6.0.0.0 since at least one of the other problems with the 6.x line was from a previous version that carried into the fixed version.
Jason Treadwell
Custom Solutions Specialist
jason@powerdatasolutions.org
www.powerdatasolutions.org
re: Screwed Up Custom Fields
When you go into DDE and select a student, nothing is appearing in the Custom Field Area if I understood Bob's e-mails to me. If he uses the Custom API he get's data which means the data is still in the databases CLOB.
Brian Andle
re: Screwed Up Custom Fields
That doesn't sound like a version problem, that sounds like a carry over problem from before. What about syncing custom data, just for kicks.
Jason Treadwell
Custom Solutions Specialist
jason@powerdatasolutions.org
www.powerdatasolutions.org