Upgrading an Older Version to RISC v8

Upgrading an Older Version to RISC v8

Over 900 schools in New South Wales the ACT and Victoria purchased RISC between 1995 and December 2007. In February 2008, RISC version 8.0 was released and it is both recommended and expected that these 900-odd schools upgrade their version of RISC to v8 to take advantage of the many new features it offers together with maintaining their on-going free support for RISC.

The RISC upgrade is only available as a download from the RISC website. By simply faxing an order through for the upgrade, it can be made ready for download almost immediately. With the previous upgrade to v8, about 70% of all upgrade orders were supplied via this download method.

The upgrading of software packages is a common practice these days, but it can also be a painful experience when users have become comfortable with a product only to find things have changed and it doesn't work the way it used to. What's worse is when the upgrade goes terribly wrong and large amounts of time and/or data are lost in the process.

To avoid this happening when you upgrade your existing version of RISC to v8, here are some important notes for upgrading:

Make sure ALL users of RISC have closed the program - this is essential in existing network installations.
It shouldn't be necessary, but you may want to turn off any active-scanning anti-Virus program you may be running on the PC where the upgrade will be performed from.
Before starting the upgrade, find out EXACTLY where your older version of RISC is installed on your system. Run the RISC Admin program from your current version and choose the Preferences option from the Configure menu. When the form is displayed, take careful note of the RISC Program Path shown.
It is STRONGLY recommended that you make a backup of the entire RISC folder (including sub-folders) to another computer or another folder. Just Edit...Copy the RISC folder and Edit...Paste it to another backup location before continuing.
Start the upgrade by running the downloaded program called RISCINSTALL. Follow the screen prompts, accept the Licence Agreement and choose the appropriate option for where to install RISC - Standalone or Fileserver. On the subsequent screen choose the upgrade option at the top, then you MUST select the exact path where the old version of RISC is installed - this is the path you found in step 3 above. The process will then upgrade the old programs but retain your existing data including archived data, lookup tables and form letters. When complete, there will be a new set of shortcuts on the Desktop.
If you upgraded from RISC v7 to v8, skip to step 7. For earlier versions, you must UPDATE your existing RISC Contact Databases (both current and archived - if you have any) to the v8 format using the Update RISC Data Structure option in the Utilities menu in RISC Admin. A few schools have reported that this update function does not work the first time with their data. If when you run this function you quickly get a message that the conversion was completed without errors, but you saw no numbers counting up, then the update probably wasn't performed. Run the Update option immediately again. If you see the numbers, the conversion will be successful.
The next step in the upgrade process is exporting a fresh copy of your student data from your school's Administration system. If you use OASIS at your school, you need a new OASIS export disk - do NOT use the one from the previous release of RISC. You can create a new OASIS export disk for RISC v8 using the option in the Utilities Menu in RISC Admin. The new steps for exporting from OASIS/CASES21/MAZE or any other school administration system can be found at the Export section of the RISC Help System.
Once you have exported a fresh set of student data, you must import it using the new v8 RISC Admin program. The process is only slightly different, detailed in the manual or at the Import section of the RISC Help System.
If you upgraded from RISC v7 to v8, skip to step 10. For earlier versions, RISC v8 introduces a new lookup table called the Category 2 Lookup. By default, this lookup is called Action Type and has some lookup items already listed. While you don't have to setup this lookup table right away, you'll probably want to because it could be very handy in the future. Read about it first on the Lookup Tables page.
If running on a network, all workstations that are to access RISC MUST run the SETUP.EXE program which can be found in the RISC folder on the server. You must be logged on as an Administrator in order to run SETUP.exe. This program will place the RISC icons on the desktop and register the appropriate support files in Windows, making RISC v8.0 ready for use. It is possible to run this program using a logon script if you wish to automate the setup for other PCs. By running [server's RISC path]\SETUP.EXE /Q from a logon script, the shortcuts can be placed on each user's desktop quietly when they logon to your server. This automatic step is really only recommended for network administrators. Manual running of the Setup.exe at each workstation maybe easier for many schools. If you do not run this step, you will receive Error Code 339 messages on all those PCs where Setup.exe has not been run. This is an important step.
This should not normally occur, but some schools have reported that their Lookup Tables in RISC have reverted to the original settings, losing the settings entered by the school. If this is the case, you simply need to copy over all files with an extension of .DAT (EXCEPT Studbase.dat and RISC.dat) from the DATA folder where you backed up RISC in step 4. Copy them into the DATA folder inside RISC, overwriting the files that are there.
If you have upgraded from RISC v5 or earlier straight to v8, the biggest change is the TOTAL REPLACEMENT of the RISC Form Letters Module. Previously, this module used an integrated word processor designed specifically for RISC. While this word processor was able to produce good quality form letters, it lacked the ability to produce letters with tables and/or columns. As more schools were starting to request this, a decision was made to cease development of the RISC word processor and integrate RISC directly with Microsoft Word. All schools have MS Word, and RISC will work with any version from Word 97 upwards. Unfortunately, MS Word will NOT read in your old RISC Form Letters, and there is no automatic process to convert the RISC .HED files to .DOC (MS Word) format. Because of this, if you wish to keep your old form letters rather than start from scratch, it is necessary to open each one individually using RISC v5, copy the contents to the clipboard and then paste it into MS-Word. The exact procedure for doing this is detailed on the Convert Form Letters page.

SPECIAL NOTE for OASIS Users in NSW:

From late 2007, The NSW Education Department commenced a rollout of a new Student ID/Enrolment number, referred to as ERN. A new, unique 9-digit enrolment number is being allocated centrally to every student in the state and that number replaces the old OASIS Student ID.

This will affect any school that used RISC v7 or v8 BEFORE the school changed over to the new ERN ID numbers. To correct the data discrepancy that will occur when the school changes over to ERN, a new tool has been produced to update all old Student IDs stored with previous contact records to the new ERN. The tool needs only be run once to update all RISC data created prior to ERN.

Full details are available on the Extras page:

If you follow these hints, your RISC v8 upgrade will be completed smoothly and your school can start to enjoy the benefits of the latest release of RISC. If you have any problems that haven't been addressed in the user manual or on these Help Desk pages, please contact the RISC e-mail Support Line md@marilliondesigns.com providing full details of the problem.

The Register of Individual Student Contact (RISC) is developed & distributed
by Marillion Designs.

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