The SIMS Helpdesk operates every weekday (excluding public holidays). between the hours of 9.00 a.m. – 4.30 p.m. Monday - Thursday and 9.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. on Friday. There is no helpdesk service between Christmas and New Year.
The SIMS online Helpdesk is available at all times, to enable Schools to log their own calls by completing the Helpdesk reporting form. The completed form will be automatically entered into the SIMS teams HelpDesk database. Please ensure you complete all the fields with details of your fault, so that we can quickly diagnose your problem. You will receive a confirmation page with your position in the queue and fault ticket number.




School can telephone the Helpdesk where the call is held in a queue and answered in rotation. If all Support Officers are engaged you will be asked if you wish to leave a voicemail message. The voicemail system is constantly monitored and your enquiry will be entered into the database when a Support Officer becomes available. When you log a call, you will be given a fault ticket number – please quote this in any contact you have with the Helpdesk as this helps the Support Officer find the relevant details quickly and effectively. To help provide a good quality service, the Helpdesk will need some basic information;

  1. Your School details
  2. Your Name and Telephone number
  3. Times and days you are available
  4. Nature of the Fault - error codes or messages

We try to deal with all cases as quickly as possible but the volume of calls makes it impossible to deal with every case immediately. We therefore have to prioritise calls, taking various criteria into account. For instance, cases will be given priority if the problem affects the whole school or a significant number of users. If a smaller number of users are affected but it prevents a customer from performing a function completely (such as finance applications, attendance tracking etc) your case will be escalated accordingly. For SQL problems, the data may need to be sent to Capita for fixing. The SIMS team will keep the customer informed of the progress of such external “data fixing” and will endeavour to expedite the matter as speedily as possible.

Complaints or Compliments
If a School has any comment to make about the level of service provided by the SIMS helpdesk, then these will be referred to Pauline Davis, who will then liaise with other colleagues as appropriate. To make a complaint or compliment then please select Improvements and complete the online form.

Helpdesk Monitoring
The Helpdesk monitors the SIMS team's performance and each month the Total amount of calls, Calls logged by Schools, Calls Closed in 2 days and Calls acknowledged in 1 day are updated on the helpdesk performance web page.