Results Day Survival Kit 2010

The latest Results Day Survival Kit for SIMS Exams Organiser users is now available to download from the SIMS Home Page.

This short manual is packed with useful information for exams officers, as well as a list of the top twenty SIMS helpsheets for further guidance.

Click here to download the notes now.

These and other Secondary related helpsheets can be found on the Secondary Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

SIMS SQL 2008 Migration notes - Version 5 now available

Version 5 of the SIMS SQL 2008 Migration notes for primary schools have been uploaded to the SIMS Home Page.

Click here to read these notes now.

Please refer to these notes if you are attempting the migration for yourselves.

These and other migration notes can be found on the SQL 2008 panel.

Year End Procedures in SIMS .net

A reminder to Schools that it is essential that the Year End Procedures in SIMS .net are carried out before 31st August.

• 2010/2011 Academic Year dates must have been added in SIMS .net
• The Promotion Routine must have been run so that on the first day of the next Academic Year all students will automatically be moved into their new year groups
• Students assigned to their Registration Groups and Classes for next year
• Leaving information recorded for students
• Pre-admission student details entered
• Staff arrivals and departures recorded in SIMS
• SIMS .net permissions assigned for new staff and removed from leavers
• All Dinner Money credits and debts should be cleared for students who are leaving

Guidance Notes for Year End Procedures are available for download from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal - http://www.ccceducation.net/ - search for SIMS.

ICT Service Helpline

The Helpline will be available throughout the summer with our usual opening hours of:

• 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday
  
• 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Friday

However, we do use the holidays for team inset. If you are unable to reach us by phone please leave a voicemail message, we will return your call as soon as our inset is complete.

The Helpline will be closed between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday 23rd July for staff training.

This being the last edition of Helplines before the summer holidays, please could we remind schools to advise the ICT Service in advance if your school will be having works carried out that will involve power being disrupted and/or your file server or communications cabinets being switched off. This can help prevent time being wasted investigating schools spuriously
appearing as having lost internet service.

B2B Personnel

A project to re-activate B2B Personnel with Centrally Hosted Schools will be carried out over the Summer break.

An e-mail has been sent to schools explaining this project—if you do not wish to import EPM data, preferring to maintain your school’s contracts and generating your own School Workforce, please advise the Helpline before you break up for the Summer.

Dinner Money Year End

Now that Dinner Money operates within SIMS .net there are NO year end procedures for Dinner Money.

Just ensure debts or credits have been cleared for all students and staff that are leaving. CCS have reported that meal charges are not changing in September, therefore schools using their service will not have to make any adjustments to meal charges in SIMS .net.

Any schools that supply their own meals and will be changing meal charges will have to make the necessary adjustments.

SIMS .net - In Touch

Coming soon to a SIMS near you! In the Autumn it should be possible to send e-mails and text messages from within SIMS .net to parents, students, staff and external agents.

A licence fee will be required to activate this facility and there is a charge for text messages, but the new software with its links to attendance, SEN, behaviour and student details will allow predefined or individual messages to be sent to any of these groups and a copy attached to student details where required.

A new attendance panel facilitates messages being sent to all students with unexplained reasons for absence and to record the responses when received.. Note however that there are still some technical snags we are working on with Capita and we will advise schools when these have been resolved.

Exams Organiser Results Survival Kit 2010

The Exams Organiser Results Survival Kit 2010 is now available for download from the Portal.

The document has been produced by Capita to provide Exams Officers with all the most up-to-date information to help them achieve successful Results.

Download Days on the 18th and 23rd August 2010.

Diploma Management in Exams Organiser

A new functionality in Exams Organiser will be available in the Sims .net Summer 2010 Release which is designed to support the increasing demand on schools to implement the new Diplomas for 14-19 year olds.

The handbook is available for download from the Portal.

Weekly and Monthly Tasks in SIMS .net

Below is a suggested list of tasks that need carrying out on a weekly/monthly or a periodical task we are suggesting is carried out during the coming month that over time will lead to improvements in your school’s data quality.

Helpline guidance notes for these tasks can be found on the SIMS Home Page of the Portal - the index offers an easy way of identifying the guidance you are looking for. Alternatively why not use the Documentation Link from the Home Page in SIMS .net.

Weekly Checks Tick sheet

[] Personnel - Record Staff Absence

[] Personnel - Review Changes - Send All

[] Attendance - Deal with Missing Marks

[] Attendance - Deal with ‘N’ Codes

[] Dinner Money - Print Debtors & Creditors

This Month’s Checks Tick sheet
[] Ensure Next Academic Year has been added
[] Ensure the Promotion Routine has been run
[] Assign students to their classes for next year
[] Enter Student data for September admissions
[] Remove Local Network, SIMS, Central Hosting and E-mail access from staff and student leavers
[] Ensure all Debts or Credits are cleared in Dinner Money for all Leavers
[] Schools with Foundation Stage Pupils should import the FSP results CTF into SIMS .net
[] KS2 SATs Results can be downloaded from the Key2Success Website as a CTF and imported into SIMS.

Centrally Hosted Systems - Scheduled Works

The County Data Centre, in which the schools Centrally Hosted systems sit, is having major upgrade work carried out over thenext few months.

Systems affected include centrally hosted MIS/SIMS, email and remote access. At present we expect thefollowing planned outages:

• 24th to 25th July - Systems will be available but users may experience temporary failures.


• 28th to 30th August - Systems unavailable.


• 11th and 12th September - Systems unavailable.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause users of the systems.

FMS Error Messages

Error “Unable to fix budget, cost centre/ledger code links not defined” - If Ledger Codes are all linked to Cost Centres.

Go to Cost Centre Allocation - View the details of one line where an expense limit is present - this action should clear the error.

Unsynchronised database Error “Commandpulsar.exe not found in f:\program files”

Go to Tools Star 7 Settings and remove the tick from the ‘Use Star 7’ box.

Key Dates Sept - Oct 2010

• FMS6 for New Users - 9th & 16th Sept, 5th & 13th Oct , 14th & 19th Oct, 2nd & 10th Nov (WB)
• ToPP - 15th, 21st Sept (WB)
• eProfile getting started - 22nd (WB), 30th Sept
• FMS6 the Next Step - 29th Sept
• SIMS .net for New Users - 4th & 11th Oct (WB)
• Attendance 7 - 6th Oct

All courses based at Godmanchester unless otherwise stated. Other venues: (OC) = Oliver Cromwell, March; (ML) = March Library; (CPDC) = Cambridge Professional Development Centre; (WB) = ICT Service Waterbeach; (BMC) = Buckden Millennium Centre; (OV) = Over Community Centre.

To book on a course listed in Key Dates, telephone 01480 376670

Primary SIMS SQL Migration - new notes

Version 4 of the SIMS SQL 2008 migration for Primary Schools have now been uploaded to the SIMS.net and Primary planets of the SIMS Home Page.

Click here to read these notes now.

All information relevant to the migration process can be found on the SQL Migration panel. Secondary schools will be able to find their own notes on this panel.