During 2012 we will be sending regular newsletters to all clients to keep you up to date with happenings at SMSS. This newsletter will provide you with a brief summary of current activities. Please feel free to pass it on to your colleagues or those you think may be interested. It is also available on our website at www.smss.org.nz.

Our aim is to keep you informed of all the things we are doing at SMSS to improve the value you get from our products and services. In order to help us improve, we welcome your feedback and ideas. Being recognised for providing excellent customer service is a key objective for SMSS, and from our perspective that means providing you with great software products and great after-sales service for a fair price.

It's great to see the level of goodwill towards SMSS that exists within the client base. Our focus and priority for 2012 and the future is to continue to build on our relationships with you, our clients and to develop Artena so it is a flexible and sophisticated strategic information management tool that provides TEOs with all the relevant information they need in a timely manner.

Thank you for your business and ongoing commitment to SMSS products and services.

Cheryl Horo
Client Relationship Manager

In January this year we achieved re-certification of Artena with the Ministry of Education. The Ministry’s certification programme involves a rigorous testing process to ensure that certified student management systems meet the Ministry’s 2012 NSI and SDR requirements.

General Description

Artena 9.4.0 contains a mixture of new functionality and fixes to known issues (which are detailed in the Release Notes). The Release Notes can be viewed on the Online Community.

New Functionality includes:

Electronic Receipting System

The ERS interface to TEC allows TEOs to submit programme, enrolment, withdrawal, and outcome status information, for Training Opportunities and Gateway.

Public Trust

The Public trust interface allows you to send data from your system to Fee Protect then upload the results received from Fee Protect.

Moodle v2.x Interface

SMSS has updated the Moodle v1.x interface to work with Moodle v2.x. This is the culmination of a project with Whitireia.

Academic Results

The core components to allow Artena to handle Academic Results at the course level.

Library Changes

Changes to the libraries used by the developers have resulted in faster processing. Areas where the new library has been introduced include Finance, Client Search, Person and Reporting.

At the request of the Artena Society Board, a delegation from SMSS and the Artena board will visit all client sites around the country during February, March and April.

SMSS Deputy Chairperson, Lawrence Arps, says: “The Artena road show is our opportunity to address some of the issues our clients face on a day-to-day basis. We’re looking for some frank discussions which will give us a greater understanding of client needs and wishes.

“It’s also an opportunity for us to help our users get the most out of their Artena software. Together, we can figure out if there are some under-utilised features that you might benefit from.”

Lawrence adds: “We’re going to involve our users in all decisions that we make about Artena so every change, every release, every upgrade, is client-centered.”

At the time of this newsletter going to print, the SMSS team has completed several road show visits and have been delighted with the open dialogue and client participation. We look forward to working together with you as we develop solutions.

Once all road shows have been completed we’ll provide feedback to our Artena Owners Forum and together prioritise our focus for 2012 and forward.

SMSS has created the Artena Owners' Forum (AOF). This group of people will guide the future direction of Artena, ensuring clients have the chance to input and steer our thinking.

Each site has identified a senior representative as their ‘Artena Owner’ and central point of communication with SMSS. The first face-to-face meeting of Artena Owners will be held on Thursday 19 April in Wellington and will be facilitated by Cheryl Horo, SMSS Client Relationship Manager and Harvey Buchman, SMSS Product Manager.

The objective of the Artena Owners' Forum is to work with our clients. The Forum will hold regular audio conferences and two face-to-face meetings a year.

What did you do before joining SMSS?

What do you like about working at SMSS?

When you’re not at work, where will we find you?

To help you get the most out of your Artena software, we’ll be providing some hints and tips in our newsletters.

1. Download your change notifications from the NSI website and process these to minimise NSN SDR errors.
2. Did you know that you don't have to test fixes in the release they were included in?
   The latest version of Artena includes all previous fixes.
3. Did you know that you can send emails and text messages directly from Artena to students? The standard communications engine can be found in the latest release.