Upgrading an Older Version to RISC v10
Over 1,200 schools in several states of Australia purchased RISC between 1995 and December 2011. In February 2012, RISC version 10.0 was released and it is both recommended and expected that these 1,200-odd schools upgrade their version of RISC to v10 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 or emailing an order through for the upgrade, it can be made ready for download almost immediately. The Download method is efficient and can be completed easily by following this step-by-step guide.
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 v10, here are some important notes for upgrading:
- Perform the upgrade from a workstation, not at the fileserver where RISC has been installed.
- Make sure ALL users of RISC have closed the program - this is essential in existing network installations.
- It is STRONGLY recommended that you make a backup of the entire RISC folder (including sub-folders) to another computer or to a USB stick. Just Edit...Copy the RISC folder and Edit...Paste it to another backup location before continuing.
- 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 RISC Preferences option from the Configure menu. When the form is displayed, take careful note of the RISC Program Path shown. It's a good idea to COPY the RISC Program Path to the Windows Clipboard (highlight it then Ctrl-C).
- 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 5 above. If you copied it to the clipboard, Paste (Ctrl-V) the path into the box instead of browsing for it. 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.
- For existing versions up to v8, you must UPDATE your existing RISC Contact Databases (both current and archived - if you have any) to the v10 format using the Update RISC Data Structure option in the Utilities menu in RISC Admin. A few schools have reported that this update function did 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
report - do NOT use the one from the previous release of RISC. You can create
a new OASIS+ERN export report folder for RISC using the option in the Utilities Menu in
RISC Admin. The 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 v10 RISC Admin program. The process is detailed in the installation manual or at the Import section of the RISC Help System. - RISC v7 introduced 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 in the RISC Help System. If you already had v7 or later, you can skip this.
- RISC v9 introduces a new lookup table called the Type 2 Lookup. By default, this lookup is called Motivation 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.
- RISC v9 introduced Levels Values on the Incident Type Lookup table. You are now able to add a Levels Value to each incident type - positive or negative and these are all accumulated to calculate an overall Levels score for each student as data is entered into RISC. You should take some time to go through the Levels Values for each incident type and set your own appropriate values for your needs. More information about this is on the Lookup Tables page and the Student Levels page.
- RISC v9 introduces passworded security groups for RISC. There are now four different security levels - Admin, Executive, Editor and Viewer. You should now Configure the RISC Preferences to set those passwords which will be used to first open the RISC program.
- If you have upgraded from RISC v5 or earlier straight to v10, 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. If your previous version
of RISC was working correctly with the ERN displayed, you do not need to
run this step.
Full details are available on the Extras
page:
If you follow these hints, your RISC v10 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.
Copyright © 1995-2012 Marillion Designs. All rights reserved.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
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