This project aimed at  upgrading the Scientia Exam Scheduler (ES) product from ES v3.5.11 to ES v3.6.

This update will move the Exam Scheduler product to the latest release to ensure the product stays fully supported by Scientia, and to deliver small enhancements to the product.

The upgrade will be applied to DEV and TEST , then regression testing will be done by business users in the Exams team before applying the upgrade to LIVE.

The upgrade technical tasks will be done remotely by the supplier tech consultancy team (Scientia).

An ISG Project manager will co-ordinate the upgrade tasks and testing.

The testing will include testing of the upgraded product plus feeds to downstream systems - Calsync for Exams , BI Reporting and Exam web timetables.

The project activity has to fall into the Exams business cycle between the end of the Exam Scheduling for the August 2020 resits , and before the start of scheduling for the main Dec 2020 exam diet in early Sept 2020 however these dates are subject to change with the impact of COVID19. But this will be co-ordinated with the exams team. Previous projects were started in July, due to availability of Exams team - best if future projects are started earlier in June , after the April / May main exam diet

The upgrade will require extensive testing by business users in the Exams Office in TEST , ahead of deploying changes to LIVE

This work will also look to document a process for an annual cleardown of data the maximise the performance of the software. In previous years the performance has been negatively impacted by the amount of historical data that is retained. By defining a clear process for clearing this down it should make the regular (annual) management of this much simpler. 

This year the project will also include the upgrade to the Calsync product that is used to push personalised exam timetables to students Office 365 calendar. The new release from Calsync is expected to be released by April 2020, and must be applied to LIVE by Oct 2020, before the previous web service becomes end of life.

There has also been an element of work that has transferred from Project TTU019 to now sit within this project as it sits better with the work that has to be carried out under this project code.  This will be to  Deliver enhancements to Connect workflows for the connector from Student Systems to Exam Scheduler.