SIMS Team Newsletter Vol 16 Dec 2011


Welcome!

Stephen Edgar has joined the SIMS Helpdesk Team and will be with us until April 2012.

 

Helpdesk Closures

13/12/11 – Closed from 12.30pm please continue to log calls online and we will respond to you the following day.

Christmas Holiday Closure-24/12/11- 02/01/12 Inclusive

 

SIMS Autumn Upgrade

The 7.142 upgrade will take place over the Christmas Holidays. Please ensure servers are left switched on. If any work is scheduled on your SIMS server during the Christmas period please inform the SIMS team.

 

SIMS Team Website

Discover ~ A new Page has been added to the website which will include all documentation relating to the new Discover module.

 

SIMS SLA 2012/2013

Schools should be receiving the 2012/2013 SLA in the new term.

 

Consultancies

If you have any consultancies left these need to be used before the 31 st March 2012. Some modules to consider when booking consultancies are Behaviour & Achievement, SEN/IEP, Assessment or Personnel.

 

 

SIMS Team Accreditation

The SIMS team will be seeking re-accreditation as an Accredited SIMS .net Support Organisation, as accreditation is only valid for two years. As part of this process schools are requested to complete an on-line questionnaire about the services the SIMS team supply to schools. We will update you when this needs to be completed.

Pupil Census Feedback

Figures as of 21/10/11

62% - uploaded by end of Friday 14 th (Census date Thursday 6 th October).

Known Issues:

  • COLLECT Hanging – This was the case if schools were using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
  • F9999 – Module is missing: This error is caused where a Leaver is devoid of a Pupil Characteristic module.  The absence of this module appears to confuse the DFE validation rules. The missing characteristic is Ethnicity. (It should also be noted that the problem could also relate to First Language/Mother Tongue)

Important Dates - Pupil Census Day Thursday Jan 19 th 2012

Overviews 9 th January 2012

Primary Schools 9-10:30am

High Schools 11-12:30am

 

School Workforce Feedback

Figures as of 8/12/11

100% of files have been authorised by the DFE!

 Known Issues:

  • Peripatetic teachers were required to be counted in the Occasional Teachers area not Third Party Staff Count even though they were available in the role chooser.

 

  • Contracts that started 27 days before Census Day 4/11/11 were not recognised.

 

Thank you- The SIMS Team would like to say a big thank you for all your hard work and patience with regards to the SAP Project the School Workforce Census and the Pupil Census.

SAP

 Well done to all of you. The first live transfer went through, and the majority of information worked brilliantly.

However, there have been a few areas which are consistently being recorded in SIMS incorrectly which is having a knock on effect in SAP. We will be emailing and publishing updated documentation on the website shortly to assist you with these anomalies.

 

 

Personnel

When using SIMS to see the list of staff due an annual increment, please be aware if there is an end date on their contract they will not appear in that list. You will need to manually add the increment on to those staff.

 

When adding new staff to your system you must record their title (ie Mr, Mrs Dr etc) to enable them to appear on the hard-coded personnel reports.

 

Make sure that you use the FTE salary calculator provided to put in the correct FTE being worked in school.

 

Staff addresses must be accurate – please make sure the town box is always completed e.g. Harrow.

 

Please be aware that if you record a member of staff using capital letters for any part of their name (i.e. surname, forename or both), this is the format used in correspondence from payroll to the member of staff. If possible, please change your staff names to title case by going into Tools | Housekeeping | General and then click on Staff and apply the change.

 

 

AVCO

As of Spring Term 2012 the payroll AVCO system will be the way for payroll to send information to schools and information from you back to payroll. All members of staff who deal with Personnel / Payroll should have the AVCO icon on their desktops. The payroll AVCO icon is used in exactly the same way as FMS downloads. Look out for further information from Jo Fitzgibbon.

The SIMS 2011 Autumn Release (7.142) new functionalities:

Admissions

Includes ATF version 8.1 and the functionality to mark an enquiry as Inactive and to record the reason why an enquiry is not being progressed further. You can also record whether an applicant is required to apply to the UK Border Agency for a CAS number. It is now possible to search for an application by House.

Dinner Money

New features include multiple-level debt letters and meal totals on the Dinner Register. Improvements have been made to the Manual Entry Dinner Register report.

STAR

Enhancements have been made to the Pupil Teacher View, including copying address information and sending/copying e-mails.

Editable refresh rates have been added to Behavior, Achievement and My Classes Summary panels.

You can now scroll the Timeline for ten days backwards and forwards to enable you to view other classes on the Home Page.

 

Cover

You can now choose a Tier to filter their members who are associated with a particular Tier. It is now possible to enter in a recurring (or repeating) absence in the Cover Diary. All Cover reports can now be exported to Microsoft Excel.

Nova T6

Includes a new feature (Combing Chart) enabling you to calculate whether a proposed structure will fit into the number of periods available. Individual or groups of subjects can be selected to comb. The Combing Chart is available from the Tools menu.

It is now possible to create data files for export to third party software suppliers. This functionality is available from the Data menu.

 

Academies-Don’t forget upgrades are no longer provided by the SIMS Team. You will need to contact Capita for the upgrade.

 

Code D

The statistical meaning of the session registration code D (Dual Registered) in England has been changed from Approved Educational Activity to Attendance not required.

Each school only marks the register, present or absent, for the sessions that the student is due to attend their school. The remaining session(s), when the student is attending another school, should be recorded using code D.

Therefore Code 'D' is not collected as part of School Census or recorded as 'possible sessions'.

 

Code Y

The data collection system has been amended so that the national attendance code Y (Unable to Attend due to Exceptional Circumstances) will be collected in the School Census for statistical purposes. Schools will use code Y to record the sessions where a pupil is unable to attend because:

  • the school site, or part of it, is closed due to an unavoidable cause;
  • the transport provided by the school or a local authority is not available, and their home is not within walking distance; or
  • A local or national emergency has resulted in widespread disruption to travel which has prevented the pupil from attending school.

 

Code #

Please note that the # Code will not be collected as part of the School Census.

 

CTF Matching Screen

The Match and Import panel on the Import CTF routine, enables you to examine thedata stored in SIMS against the information in the CTF and decide whichinformation should be imported.

The routine enables you to define how a record in a CTF is imported into SIMS. It also enables you to select a record in the CTF that matches a record in your SIMS database then update the SIMS database with any missing details.

The method used to match a record in the CTF with a record in the SIMS

database can be changed, enabling you to be as strict or as flexible as necessary

Group Analysis by Vulnerability Report

This report produces an analysis of session attendance based on the chosen vulnerability STAR field for the selected pupil/students and date range. Some of the areas that can be reported on are EAL, Ethnicity, FSM, SEN Status, Summer Born & Traveller Status .

Select Reports | Attendance | Group Reports | Group Analysis by Vulnerability Report to display the Group Analysis by Vulnerability browser.


G roup Analysis by STAR Field Report

This report shows for each selected group within a particular group type, pupil/students’ attendance by category according to the values in a chosen field in STAR. Some of the areas that can be reported on are Registration Group, First language, Class, Special Needs & Gender.

Select Reports | Attendance | Group Reports | Group Analysis by STAR Field Report to display the Group Analysis by STAR Field browser.

 

Linked Documents

Did you know that when attaching linked documents to pupils you can set the

status as Public, Private or Confidential?

 

Public means that anyone with access to this panel can see it.

 

Private means that documents are available/visible only to the user that

created them.

 

Confidential documents are visible to the person adding them plus anyone

who has been assigned to the groups SEN Co-ordinator, School Administrator

or Senior Management Team.

 

Useful Hints & Tips

 

  • Personnel-unable to save changes made in a contract or absence

Make sure all end dates have been added in the role, pay scale and allowances fields in closed contracts.

 

  • Attendance-School Closure for Snow days

Enter the Y code through Focus/Attendance/Exceptional Circumstances

 

  • Quick Letter How to edit the template

Got to your SIMS drive usually M\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net opens up

quick letter template.doc or if you are on Office 2010 open QuickLetterTemplate-Office2010.doc edit as required then save and close; copy the newly edited file and paste onto C/Program files/SIMs/Sims.net on each PC the template is required.

 

  • Cannot import CTF Due to a Duplicate UPN

Issues of this nature can occur when the name in the CTF does not match that within Sims.net. In cases where names do not match, Sims will attempt to make a new record. However if the UPN is already in the system, it cannot, as may be the case here. It will be necessary to ensure that the Name is spelt and displayed correctly in both  SIMS and the CTF, in order to resolve this issue.

 

  • Leavers showing in Assessment marksheets

Please Follow the route Focus | Admission | Application and delete the student from in there. Make sure the status is set to any otherwise they will not show.

Please also check to make sure the pupil is not a member of any user defined groups. If they are they will need to be deleted from it.

Please make sure the marksheet is recreated in the system by deleting it from the template and recreating it.

Please Validate memberships via Tools/Validate membership

Training courses

09/01/12 Pupil Census overview Primary Schools

 

09/01/12 Pupil Census overview High Schools

 

21/02/12 SIMS Options/Year End High Schools

 

07/03/12 SIMS Assessment Advanced (2 half Days)

 

Go to www.emisteam.co.uk to book a place

  

Please Note : confirmations will only be sent for Hands on Training courses not for overviews

 

 

 Courses from April 2012 to March 2013 will be advertised in the New Year!

 

 

The SIMS Team would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

From

Gar-on, Marion, Carolyn, Richard, Stephen, Dannie, Gill, Anne, Lisa, Kate & Pete