Helplines Online

Preparation work for CPSN

2012-01-17T09:16:00.001Z

Purpose: Informing schools of core network works that could result in short downtime to Central Hosting, Email and Internet connectivity.

Audience: All school staff

Please note that CPSN/VirginMedia teams are working on core systems on the following dates and times:

Date: 30th January 2012
Time: 20:00 hours

Date: 31st January 2012
Time: 20:00 hours

VirginMedia have assured us there should be no service affecting downtime over these dates and times. This briefing item is being sent to you as a forewarning in case any issues arise.

Recording School Closure in SIMS.net

2011-11-30T09:22:00.000Z

As many schools will close or partially close on the 30th November 2011, this will need to be recorded as an exceptional circumstance in SIMS.net Attendance.

Notes on how to record a school closure can be found here.

Helplines October Edition

2011-10-28T14:26:00.002+01:00

The latest edition of the Helplines Newsletter is now available on the SIMS Home Page.

Click here to read this now.

In this month's edition - School Workforce Census, Support for Nova T4, IMPULSE conference, and much more.

Foundation Stage Profile - Autumn A Return

2011-10-20T09:58:00.002+01:00

The Autumn A return for Foundation Stage Profile data is due on the 4th of November 2011.

In preparation for this, notes are now available on the uploading data process, and you can read them here.

The notes are available in Word and PDF format. The notes also include guidance on downloading the eProfile software from the website, exporting your reception pupil data from SIMS.net, importing the pupils into eProfile and running reports.

These notes and other assessment related documents can be found on the SIMS Home Page.

School Autumn Census - Thursday 6th October 2011

2011-10-05T11:02:00.001+01:00

The latest notes for the School Autumn Census 2011 have been uploaded to the SIMS Home Page - click on the links below to read these now:

Helpline School Census Autumn 2011 Notes:
Word Document
PDF Document

DfE Census 2011 Prep Notes:
Primary - Secondary - Middle - Special - Nursery

CAPITA Preparing the Census Autumn 2011 Notes:Primary/Special/Nursery - Word PDF Secondary - Word PDF

CAPITA Producing the Census Autumn 2011 Notes:
Primary - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF
Special - Word PDF
Nursery - Word PDF

School Census Errors & Resolutions:
Errors & Resolutions - Version 4.0 (Autumn 2011)

These notes may be subject to change, so please check the School Census panel regularly.

FMS New look icons

2011-09-26T14:30:00.002+01:00

The latest version of FMS (version 6.140) has been released to Central Hosting schools.

The new release has a new look to it, so please read the document here which demonstrates the differences in the new and old versions.

These notes and other FMS related materials can be found on the SIMS Home Page.

School Autumn Census - Thursday 6th October 2011

2011-09-22T12:28:00.002+01:00

The latest notes for the School Autumn Census 2011 have been uploaded to the SIMS Home Page - click on the links below to read these now:

Helpline School Census Autumn 2011 Notes:

Word Document
PDF Document

DfE Census 2011 Prep Notes:

Primary - Secondary - Middle - Special - Nursery

CAPITA Preparing the Census Autumn 2011 Notes:

Primary/Special/Nursery - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF

CAPITA Producing the Census Autumn 2011 Notes:

Primary - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF
Special - Word PDF
Nursery - Word PDF

School Census Errors & Resolutions:

Errors & Resolutions - Version 4.0 (Autumn 2011)

These notes may be subject to change, so please check the School Census panel regularly.

School Workforce Census 2011

2011-09-22T10:06:00.001+01:00

Many thanks to those of you who have attended the School Workforce Census training courses for 2011.

The Powerpoint Presentation from the course is available to download here.

There are also useful Errors & Resolution notes to go with the Census to help you clean up your data before submission here.

These notes and other SWC related materials can be found on the School Workforce Census panel on the SIMS Home Page.

New look Helplines

2011-09-21T12:37:00.002+01:00

The latest edition of Helplines is now available on the SIMS Home Page.

The September edition features a brand new look, so click here for a preview!

If you have any comments about the new look, please email ict.helpline@cambridgeshire.gov.uk and let us know!

Results Day Survival Kit 2011

2011-07-21T15:37:00.000+01:00

The latest version of the Results Day Survival Kit has been sent out to exams officers today.

Click here to read this document now.

This and other exams organiser related materials can be found on the SIMS Home Page.

July Helplines out now!

2011-07-14T15:45:00.001+01:00

The latest edition of Helplines is now available to download!

Click here to read this now.

Notes and files mentioned in the latest edition can be found on the SIMS Home Page.

June Helplines available now!

2011-06-10T11:41:00.002+01:00

The latest edition of Helplines is now available to download from the SIMS Home Page.

Click here to read this now.

Items covered in this edition: End of Key Stage, Year End Procedures, School Admin Forums, Monthly Tasks in SIMS.net and much more.

End of Key Stage Wizards 2011 - Central Hosting Schools

2011-06-06T14:26:00.002+01:00

Version 2 of the End of Key Stage notes have just been released.

The path to the Key Stage Wizards for Central Hosting Schools has been amended, so you will be able to find them here:

Central Share\SIMS Share\AMPA\England Primary\Assessement Manager

The amended notes can be downloaded from the Assessment Planet of the SIMS Home Page. Click here to read the new notes now.

End of Key Stage Data Collection 2011

2011-05-25T10:26:00.002+01:00

The latest End of Key Stage notes are now available to download from the SIMS Home Page.

Click on the links below to read these notes now:

End of Key Stage One - PDF

End of Key Stage Two - PDF

The deadline for data collection for both key stages is Friday 8th July 2011.

These and other assessment notes can be found on the Assessment Planet on the SIMS Home Page.

SIMS End of Year Procedures 2011

2011-05-23T14:26:00.005+01:00

New notes have been created to guide office staff through the end of year procedures in SIMS.net.

Click the links below to read these notes now, two versions available:

SIMS End of Year Procedures - Word

SIMS End of Year Procedures - PDF

These notes may be subject to change, so please check back on the End of Year Panel on the SIMS Home Page.

There are also notes available for Secondary schools, please click on the links below:

Secondary End of Year Procedures - PDF

Starting Next Year's Curriculum Early - Word

(Starting Next Year's Curriculum Early - This document assumes that you wish to send next year’s completed plan and timetable from Nova to SIMS for dates within this academic year, in addition to the next academic year. This means that you can start next year’s timetable early, but that the actual end of year and pastoral promotion remain unchanged and takes place in September as usual.)

Any updates can be found on the Secondary End of Year Panel on the SIMS Home Page.

School Summer Census - Thursday 19th May 2011

2011-05-18T09:10:00.004+01:00

Don't forget the School Census tomorrow!

Summer Census - Thursday 19th May

New notes have been produced to guide SIMS users through the Census process:

Helpline School Census Notes Summer 2011:

All School Types - Word PDF

Department of Education Census Guidance:

Primary - PDF

Secondary - PDF

Middle - PDF

Nursery - PDF

Special - PDF

CAPITA Census Preparation Notes:

Primary/Special/Nursery - Word PDF

Secondary - Word PDF

CAPITA Producing the Census Notes:

Primary - Word PDF

Secondary - Word PDF

Special - Word PDF

Nursery - Word PDF

Errors & Resolutions:

Version 3.0 - PDF

All of these notes can be found on the Census panel of the SIMS.net planet.

Don't forget to import your latest census fileset as well - In SIMS.net, click on Tools, Setups, Import Fileset, then click on the yellow folder to open the dialog box, type "f:\sims" in the filename box, click Open to see the Manifestfiles folder, find the file beginning with "0070" and import this file.

School Summer Census 2011

2011-04-26T11:33:00.004+01:00

This year's Summer Census will happen on Thursday 19th May 2011.

New notes have been produced to guide SIMS users through the Census process:

Helpline School Census Notes Summer 2011:
All School Types - Word PDF

Department of Education Census Guidance:
Primary - PDF
Secondary - PDF
Middle - PDF
Nursery - PDF
Special - PDF

CAPITA Census Preparation Notes:
Primary/Special/Nursery - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF

CAPITA Producing the Census Notes:
Primary - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF
Special - Word PDF
Nursery - Word PDF

Errors & Resolutions:
Version 3.0 - PDF

Any updates to the above can be found on the Census panel of the SIMS.net planet, please check back regularly.

Service Level Agreements for 2011-12

2011-01-28T10:41:00.008Z

Thank you to all schools who signed up for support by the Education ICT Service last year. We hope you have been happy with the support we have provided and will continue to use our service next year.

This year we shall be asking all schools to sign up using the online form which we piloted successfully last year. This will help us to keep costs down and can save you a significant amount of time in completing the SLA form.

If you would like more advice or guidance on which services your school requires or how to complete the online form, please contact our Customer Service Team on 01480 376655.

Fire Safety Guidance for Schools

2011-01-28T10:37:00.003Z

With the universal use of electronic registration systems, we have been following up the question of the use of registers when schools have to evacuate the premises as the result of a fire alarm.

The advice we have received is as follows: ‘A school must have an evacuation procedure but it does not have to check pupils against a register unless the risk assessment identifies this as a necessary action’.

Guidance on CCC policy and guidance for a school model fire policy can be found via the Portal. http://cye.e2bn.net/e2bn/leas/c99/schools/cye/Health_and_Safety/homepage/home/

There are two links to follow up. The overall policy document is accessible from the right hand (Latest News) panel:
http://tinyurl.com/32hz7zt

and the model policy is in “H&S in schools” item 15
http://tinyurl.com/5v4ga7n

FMS6 - Preparing for Year End

2011-01-28T10:35:00.002Z

The End of the Financial year end is fast approaching. Now is the time to start Spring Cleaning.

Begin by investigating Outstanding Purchase Orders and Invoices. Investigate any Aged Debtors in Accounts Receivable and check Non-Invoiced income for un-posted receipts.

Think about giving all staff a Purchase Order cut off date of Half Term, making sure that the school has sufficient Copy Paper, Toilet Rolls, Soap and ink cartridges etc. to last into the next financial year.

Guidance notes on Preparing for the Year End in FMS6 and how to edit your structure in preparation for the nextfinancial year have now been posted on the FMS planet from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal. Resource ID: 6831

Central Hosting Scheduled Downtimes

2011-01-28T10:34:00.002Z

Centrally Hosted systems will be down for essential maintenance on the following dates:

29th January
26th February
26th March

Dealing with Adopted Students in SIMS .net

2011-01-28T10:30:00.001Z

A plea to all schools to contact the Helpline as soon as you are notified that a Student is to be/has just been adopted. There are specific guidelines that need to be followed with the SIMS .net Student Record to ensure continuity.

Any delay in making the necessary amendments can cause major problems unpicking attendance, dinner money and assessment records etc.

Address Validator

2011-01-28T10:28:00.001Z

There was an issue that affected Address Validator for some schools at the end of last year.

This problem should now have been resolved and Address Validator should be working again. If you encounter any further problems, please contact the Helpline.

Scam E-mails

2011-01-28T10:24:00.002Z

Several schools have reported receiving an e-mail purporting to be from Barclays and asking them to use the link in the e-mail to fill in identity information. This is yet another scam! Do not respond and definitely do not click on the link or complete the form. Delete the e-mail at the first opportunity.

The Basic rules are:

1. If you do not have an account with the firm then it is a scam

2. If you have a personal account with the firm how did they get the school's details? It is a scam

3. If it is a government body claiming to want to pay back money, why would they contact the school? It is a scam

4. If it is a large prize in a lottery or similar in another country it is probably a scam

5. If it is a really sad story told in broken English purporting to come from accountants, lawyers or other professionals then it is probably a scam

6. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is a scam

In all cases - delete immediately and NEVER, EVER click on any links.

Delete Unlinked Contacts

2011-01-28T10:20:00.001Z

The Autumn SIMS upgrade has fixed the Delete Unlinked Contacts Routine in SIMS .net.

As this has not been working for a while we would recommend all schools run this routine to clear out any contacts in SIMS that are not attached to a current student record.

Use route Tools Housekeeping Delete Unlinked Contacts.

Monthly Tasks in SIMS .net

2011-01-28T10:18:00.000Z

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.

This Month’s Checks Tick sheet

[] Start preparations for Year End in FMS6
[] Renew SLA online
[] Delete Unlinked Contacts in SIMS .net

Data Quality in SIMS .net

2011-01-28T10:13:00.003Z

Why not spring clean your SIMS data?

Use Update Parental Salutation/Addressee in SIMS to check parental responsibility is correctly assigned.

Routines Student Update Parental Salutation/Addressee. Students not living with parents can be removed from the list such that manually assigned addressees are not overwritten.

Check all the boxes to overwrite existing information then generate new addressees and salutation. A list of students and Parental Addressees can then be printed, where students have
no Addressee or only one where both parents live at the same address as the student, the contacts on the student record need investigating.

Parental responsibility may not be ticked.

Student and Parents attached to duplicate addresses.

Parent record may not have a title (eg Mr, Mrs).

Run a report showing Student names and family links. Where siblings do not show as having family links, duplicate contacts may have been entered into SIMS, with each studentattached to a different version of the contact.

Key Dates Jan - Mar 2011

2011-01-28T10:02:00.002Z

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

SIMS .net for New Users - 31st Jan & 7th Feb
SIMS .net Reporting for Primary Schools - 2nd Feb
TOPP Reporting - 8th Feb (WB), 17th Feb
Advanced Dinner Money - 9th Feb
Attendance & Dinner Money - 10th Feb
RaiseOnline for Senior Leaders - 15th Feb
FMS6 Year End - 16th Feb (WB), 7th Mar
FMS6 Refresher - 17th Feb
FMS6 Advanced (The Next Step) - 1st Mar
FMS6 Reporting - 8th Mar
Fischer Family Trust - 8th Mar (WB)
SENCO - 9th Mar
Primary User Group (PUGs) - 23rd (ML), 29th (CPDC), 31st Mar
Secondary User Group - 31st Mar

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.

Preparing FMS6 For Year End and Editing Your Structure 2011

2011-01-21T11:30:00.002Z

The Process of Year End actually covers almost half the year from the start of preparation to Final Close. It usually starts shortly after Christmas and continues until around Mid-June. It is not continuous and can be done in small segments throughout this period.

These notes have been extracted from the Main FMS6 Year End Manual. They will guide you through the preparation procedures leading up to Year End.

Click here to read these new notes now.

These and other finance helpsheets can be found on the Finance Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

Census Spring - 20th January 2011

2011-01-19T08:07:00.002Z

Tomorrow is Census day! To guide you through this process, please read the documents below. If you have any queries or errors that you are unable to resolve, please contact the Helpline on 0845 045 0973 or email ict.helpline@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.

HELPLINE School Census Spring 2011 Notes:
Word Document

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Census Spring 2011 Prep Notes:
Primary - Secondary - Special - Nursery - PRU
CAPITA Preparing the Census Spring 2011 Notes:
Primary/Special/Nursery - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF
Pupil Referral Unit - Word PDF
CAPITA Producing the Census Spring 2011 Notes:
Primary - Word PDF
Secondary - Word PDF
Special - Word PDF
Nursery - Word PDF
Pupil Referral Unit - Word PDF
Errors & Resolutions - Version 1.0 (Nov 2010) PDF Document

FMS - Changes in VAT Rates 2011

2010-12-13T11:23:00.002Z

With the upcoming change in VAT rates in 2011, new notes have been produced to guide FMS users through the process of making changes in their finance system.

Click the links below to read these notes now, two formats available:

These and other finance manuals can be found on the Finance Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

School Census Spring - 20th January 2011

2010-12-06T15:46:00.003Z

The latest Helpline and Department of Education Census notes have been uploaded for the forthcoming Spring Census.

Click on the links below to read these notes now:

Helpline School Census Guidance Spring 2011

Department of Education Preparation and Guidance Spring 2011 notes:

These notes may be subject to change, so keep checking the SIMS Home Page regularly for any updates.

New DfE Education Website

2010-12-03T09:48:00.000Z

N.B. The website to use for DfE guidance has changed. The Teachernet website no longer supplies the most up-to-date guidance. The new web address is:-

www.education.gov.uk/schools

The Preparation and Guidance Notes for School Census 2011 can be downloaded from this website.

School Spring Census 2011

2010-12-03T09:46:00.001Z

School Spring Census - Thursday 20th January 2011 - 12 noon onwards

The next School Spring Census will be considerably less detailed than in recent years. The Teacher and Support Staff panels have now been removed, this data is no longer collected as a part of this Census, being collected instead by the School Workforce Census.

The Student contacts data is also no longer being collected, as ContactPoint has been shelved the data is no longer required. Extended Services, ICT, In-Care Indicator, Sources of Ethnicity and Service Children have also been dropped.

As always, if student data in SIMS .net is kept up to date and accurate, producing the Spring Census should be straight forward. This Census does collect additional information such as Modes of Travel, Service Families, class activities. Helpline notes are available for download from the Portal, as are DfE Guidance Notes and Capita notes.

Half day courses are available for new users who would like hands on experience of producing the Census. The SIMS .net Autumn Upgrade must have been applied for the Spring Census to become available.

Don’t leave it until Census day to start working on your Census. The Collect Familiarisation website is available for the upload of Dummy Censuses.

Check modes of travel by issuing tick lists to class teachers. Print out Detailed Reports from within the Census and get the relevant members of staff to check details such as SEN, Attendance, FSM, Gifted and Talented.

The Census can be completed in advance, apart from the number of Free School Meals taken on the day. It is then only necessary to authorise and upload the Census on the 20th January.

The web address for Collect is:-
https://data.education.gov.uk/COLLECTPortalLive/login.aspx

N.B. this web address is different from last year.

Also please note Cambridgeshire schools can only upload their files from 12 midday onwards on 20th January.

“Y” Code in Attendance

2010-12-03T09:45:00.002Z

Schools have recently received communications from Sue Stubbings advising you to add Y code if not present in SIMS .net.

The Y code is already present and can only be applied using the Focus Attendance Exceptional Circumstances route in SIMS.

VAT Changes and Dinner Money 7

2010-12-03T09:43:00.003Z

Please ensure the new VAT rate and adult meal charges have been entered into SIMS .net before the new 20% VAT rate comes into effect on 4th January.

These changes can be made now - notes were emailed out to schools on 24th November.

Try to ensure that all payments received for adult meals are banked on or before the last day of the Autumn Term. Any payments banked after 4th January will incur the increased VAT rate.

New Features in SIMS .net

2010-12-03T09:43:00.001Z

Communications Log
This feature was introduced to work with InTouch and/or the Admission Process, but schools may find it useful for recording communications between home and school. Access using Focus Communication. It may be necessary for users to have SIMS Admission Officer Rights to access this feature.

Emergency Alert
Once a recipient has been selected to receive all Emergency Alerts, a new icon will appear at the top of SIMS .net which when clicked by users will send a message that Emergency Assistance is required giving the user and, in secondary schools with timetables, the location.

Monthly Tasks in SIMS .net

2010-12-03T09:40:00.002Z

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 Check Sheet
[] Record Staff absences
[] Check and clear B2B Suspense Processing
[] Check and clear B2B Review Changes
[] Send out Dinner Money Debtor Letters

This Month's Checks Tick Sheet
[] Dinner Money Edit VAT and Meal Charges for new 20% rate
[] Ensure SIMS .net Autumn Upgrade carried out
[] Start preparing for Spring Census
[] Download DfE Preparation and Guidance Notes for 2011
[] Update Modes of Travel Data

FMS - VAT Changes - 4th January 2011

2010-12-03T09:38:00.001Z

CAPITA may make a patch available to carry out this change with no user involvement. We are currently in discussion and hope to have concrete information shortly.

Failing that notes will be made available for a manual solution to the issue.

Only invoices raised after 4th January will incur the increased VAT so the rate may not be required until the middle of January at the earliest.

Options in SIMS .net - Preparing for 2011-12

2010-12-03T09:36:00.001Z

Notes are now available on the Portal for schools wishing to start their Options process for 2011-12.

Preparing for 2011-12 (Using Nova-T6 and Options to Prepare the Timetable)

Click here to read these notes now.

Progress with Version 2 of Central Hosting

2010-12-03T09:35:00.001Z

Earlier in the term, schools were advised to sign up for the upgraded Central Hosting service with the intention tomigrate schools by the end of this term.

Unfortunately, due to the impact of other projects, in particular the transfer of management of central infrastructure to Dell, we have been unable to make the progress we had hoped. However,we do expect to re-start the programme in the New Year after the January Census, at which point we will be in touch withschools as planned originally.

SIMS .net Autumn Upgrade - Version 7.136

2010-12-03T09:33:00.001Z

We are currently releasing the Autumn upgrade to schools. All schools will need to have performed this upgrade before the School Spring Census 2011 can be generated.

Schools that are piloting Schools Learning Gateway will have to wait for the next upgrade to SIMS Learning Gateway before the Autumn Upgrade can be applied. This is currently expected to be on 18th December. Centrally Hosted schools will be upgraded on the next scheduled downtime - also 18th December 2010.

This upgrade will include an upgrade to the CTF version to Version 10. Any school attempting to import a Version 10 CTF before the autumn upgrade has been performed will receive a warning message. Capita have recommended that schools SHOULD NOT import these CTFs until after the upgrade.

Key Dates 2011

2010-12-03T09:25:00.003Z

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

School Census Training - 10th, 17th Jan (WB)
School Spring Census - 20th Jan
SIMS .net for New Users - 31st Jan & 7th Feb
SIMS .net Reporting - 2nd Feb
TOPP Reporting - 8th Feb (WB)
RaiseOnline for Senior Leaders - 15th Feb
TOPP - 17th Feb
Fischer Family Trust - 8th Mar (WB)

If your school is closed due to snow...

2010-11-24T15:52:00.003Z

With bad weather on the way, school closures may occur and this can be recorded in your SIMS.net Attendance module.

Click here to find out how to do this.

If you need any assistance, please contact the helpline.

Secondary School Workforce Census - Summary Report

2010-11-09T12:06:00.002Z

Note issued by Capita:

Summary Report Enquiries (Update 05/11 15:40)

Our developers have had a look at the DfE coding for the Summary report and they suggest that the following could explain many of the enquiries from schools. Item 5, 6 and 7 below are issue we have found today and have not yet been confirmed by the DfE.

The SWC summary report calculation is based on Contracts/Service agreements. It does not count staff where contracts/SAs are not included in the Return.

Table B excludes workforce members with posts of AVT, SUP and TAS (Advisory Teachers, Support staff, and Teaching Assistants)

Tables D, E and F do NOT exclude workforce members with the post of AVT, SUP and TAS (Advisory Teachers, Support staff and Teaching Assistants), so in many cases we would expect table D, E and F to include staff that are excluded from table B.

The Ethnicity staff count in table E does not include staff that have not been assigned an Ethnicity code, so it is possible for table A to include more staff than table E.

Table C seems to have a bug when looking at contract end dates which means that all contracts with an end date (even if it is in the future) will be excluded.

Table D seems to have a bug when dealing with workforce members with more than one contract. There is no particular order for contracts in the XML file but the report always uses the first contract it meets for deciding if the member of staff should be included in the calculations for the table. So if the first contract that it checks for the workforce member has an end date before the Census day that workforce member will be ignored even if they have another contract that has no end date or has an end date after the Census day.

Table E seems to have the same bug as described for Table D above.

Foundation Stage Profile - Autumn Return

2010-10-25T12:05:00.001+01:00

The deadline for the submission of the Autumn return of Foundation Stage Profiles is:

5th November 2010

In eProfile the file is created from the Manage Your Work tab, Create an Assessment csv.

The file should be renamed in the format:

873nnnn_873LLLL_AutA.csv

(where nnnn is your school number)

The file should then be uploaded to the Generic File Upload area of S2S.

Migration to SQL 2008

2010-10-25T12:04:00.001+01:00

Attention all non Centrally Hosted schools. Have you migrated your SIMS to SQL 2008? If not and you are NOT Centrally Hosted, please can you contact the Helpline urgently.

This migration MUST be carried out before the next SIMS .net upgrade which is due for release in November and is required to enable schools to generate next January’s School Census.

School Workforce Census

2010-10-25T11:57:00.003+01:00

B2B Personnel
All schools that are continuing to import EPM staff contract information will have had a file released to them which will bring in contracts as at the end of April. It will be necessary to Import All Employee Data to bring in these contracts.

The September data is currently being processed and will be released to schools at the beginning of November. Please check and clear B2B Suspense and Review Changes regularly. If these are not clear absence data from your school will not be sent by B2B and this is required for the School Workforce Census.

Staff Absences
Please check that the Working Days Lost box has been completed for all staff absences
Vacancy and Headcount Spreadsheet Your school will receive a spreadsheet from ONEVision requesting Headcount and vacancies as at Census Day, 4th November. Schools MUST submit a return, it may be a nil return but a reply is required.

Secondary Schools
Secondary Schools are responsible for their own School Workforce Return. If this return is being performed by a different user than the School Census, the Validation File 0053 will need to be imported into SIMS .net by that user.

NOVA T4

2010-10-25T11:56:00.002+01:00

Capita have very recently softened their stance on when this ceases to be supported as a whole.

We will keep schools informed as this develops. Meanwhile, this will mean that in order to continue to enable schools to use this product we will make Version 1 Central Hosting available to T4 users until such time as Capita cease support or we can find other ways of supporting T4 on Version 2 Central Hosting.

Blank Marksheets in Exams Organiser

2010-10-25T11:55:00.002+01:00

The Sims .net Summer release has caused problems with marksheets appearing blank in the September season.

To rectify this, change the effective date to a date after the marksheet was created and or when the students were assigned to the season.

Importing Last Year’s FSP Results into SIMS .net

2010-10-25T11:54:00.002+01:00

Importing last year’s Foundation Stage Profile Results into SIMS .net should be a very simple process.

Ensure the FSP Summary Wizard has been imported into SIMS. Create a results file for your MIS from within eProfile, this will create a CTF file which can be imported into SIMS using the normal CTF import routine (this process also generates a csv file but it is the CTF that should be used to bring the results into SIMS).

Fund 25 in FMS for Dinner Money

2010-10-25T11:52:00.001+01:00

Many schools will be utilising the new instructions for recording Dinner Money in FMS.

Around three years ago we advised all schools to exclude Fund 25 from the CFR and this may now cause problems. If you do encounter problems use Tools General Ledger Setup, locate FUND 25 and highlight it then click on the pencil to edit it.

If there is a tick in the box entitled 'exclude from CFR' remove it then Save. This should allow you to complete the Dinner Money setup.

Monthly Tasks in SIMS .net

2010-10-25T11:45:00.003+01:00

Weekly Check Sheet
[] Record Staff absences
[] Check and clear B2B Suspense Processing
[] Check and clear B2B Review Changes
[] Send out Dinner Money Debtor Letters

This Month’s Checks Tick sheet
[] Return Headcount and Vacancy Spreadsheet for SWC
[] Consider running address tidy & merge in SIMS .net
[] Work on returned Data Collection Sheets to update Student data
[] Schools with Foundation Stage Import last year’s FSP into SIMS
[] Start collecting Modes of Travel data for the Spring Census

Recording Nursery Pupils Hours and Attendance

2010-10-25T11:43:00.001+01:00

The Autumn SIMS .net upgrade will bring new functionality into SIMS .net for schools with Nursery age children.

This should make it much easier for schools to record the hours and attendance of Nursery pupils. It will be possible to define the times of sessions as appropriate to your school and therefore make administration of these pupils much easier.

IMPULSE Conference 2010

2010-10-25T11:42:00.000+01:00

Cambridgeshire IMPULSE Conference For Heads and Senior Leaders
Dates and Venues 09.30 – 12.30

16th November - CPDC (Cambridge Professional Development Centre)
18th November - Oliver Cromwell Hotel, March
23rd November - Education ICT Service, Godmanchester
25th November - Eastern Leadership Centre, Pampisford

Demonstration of Discover including APP (Assessing Pupil Progress) and EYFSP by Natasha Marsh of Capita SIMS.

Other topics covered - Reporting to Parents: Achievements and Behaviour; Adopting the SIMS Learning Gateway.

Two Free Places Per School. Please do reserve your places, as places are limited. Please book your places by: telephone 01480 376670 or by e-mail ict.courses@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Centrally Hosted MIS Version 2

2010-10-25T11:40:00.001+01:00

Following enquiries from schools, we are able to offer the following options to schools:

Office licensing. Schools will only require Office 2007 licenses to cover staff that use Microsoft Office on central hosting. This is particularly helpful for staff whose only use of central hosting is to access a particular SIMS module, e.g. attendance or lesson monitor. So if staff do not use Office to access documents (e.g. on the office share) nor to run reports from SIMS that
require Office, then they do not need an Office licence and the menu items will not be made available to them.

Please contact the Helpline if you believe this applies to your school.

Key Dates Nov 2010 - Jan 2011

2010-10-25T11:34:00.002+01:00

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

FMS Accounts Receiveable - 9th Nov (WB)
FMS Equipment Register - 3rd Nov (WB)
IMPULSE Conference - 16th, 18th, 23rd, 25th Nov
Budget Adjustments in FMS - 4th Nov
Reporting in SIMS .net for Primary Schools - 1st Dec (WB)
Fees Billing in SIMS .net - 18th Nov, 2nd Dec
School Census Training - 15th Dec, 10th Jan

eProfile - Getting Started

2010-10-15T08:16:00.003+01:00

New notes have been created to guide users through the many processes involved in recording Foundation Stage Profile data.

The notes include chapters on:

Downloading and installing eProfile
Importing pupil details
Entering assessments
Creating graphs and charts
Uploading results files for Autumn and EOKS

Click here to read these notes now. The notes are also available in PDF format.

These and other Assessment related notes can be found on the Assessment Planet on the SIMS Home Page.

Census Autumn 2010 - Thursday 6th October

2010-10-06T09:18:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow is the big day for the School Autumn Census 2010 - all the notes you need to run this census can be found here:

HELPLINE School Census Autumn 2010 Notes:

CAPITA School Census Autumn 2010 Preparation Notes:

CAPITA Producing the School Census Autumn 2010 Notes:

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Census Autumn 2010 Prep Notes:

Census Errors & Resolutions:

Errors & Resolutions - Version 5.0 2010

COLLECT Website:

Link to COLLECT website

COLLECT Website Notes

Good luck!

Managing Diplomas in Exams Organiser

2010-09-24T15:33:00.002+01:00

New notes have been published to guide Exams Officers through the process of importing the latest exams basedata and managing the diploma courses.

Click here to read these notes now.

The EDEXEL, OCR and AQA basedata files can be found on the Secondary Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

School Census Autumn 2010 - New Helpline Notes

2010-09-10T11:25:00.005+01:00

New Helpline notes have been created and uploaded to the SIMS Home Page to support the School Census process for Autumn 2010.

Click the links below to read these notes now:

Helpline Census - Word Document

Helpline Census - PDF Document

Department of Education Preparation notes have also been uploaded to the Portal - click here to view these notes now.

Scheduled Weekend ICT Service Break 11 - 12 Sept 2010

2010-09-08T15:11:00.001+01:00

There will be major disruption to all CCC IT services over this weekend due to major electrical works taking place in CCC's main IT machine room.

IT services will be unavailable from 6pm on Saturday 11 September and will not return until late evening Sunday 12 September. Further details of the nature of the work taking place and the impact it will have can be found here.

Should you have any queries regarding the availability of services, please contact the Business Support Helpdesk on 01223 717333.

WebCat Catering Returns using Dinner Money 7

2010-09-03T16:10:00.002+01:00

WebCat now allows catering returns from Dinner Money 7 to be imported directly into the system as an xml file as opposed to typing the data in manually.

New notes have been produced to support this new function, click the links below:

WebCat Catering Returns - Word

WebCat Catering Returns - PDF

These and other Dinner Money notes can be found on the Dinner Money planet of the SIMS Home Page.

School Census - COLLECT Website Changes

2010-08-31T13:04:00.002+01:00

In order to make essential changes to the COLLECT system, including updating of the Security Certificates, the site will be unavailable on the weekend of the 11th and 12th September. The system will be available first thing on Monday 13th September.

As a result of this work the URL for COLLECT will be updated to match the new Department of Education website and will be:
https://data.education.gov.uk/COLLECTPortalLive/MainPage.aspx

instead of https://data.dcsf.gov.uk/COLLECTPortalLive/login.aspx.

The 'Old' URL for COLLECT (dcsf version) will no longer have a valid Security Certificate from 13th September and if used, will generate a warning screen to that effect.

SIMS Accreditation

2010-08-27T09:57:00.004+01:00

The Cambridgeshire Education ICT Service is pleased to announce that it has been Accredited by Capita to continue supporting SIMS software for the next two years.

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to complete the Capita online survey during the last weeks of the summer term, which we know is such a busy time for everyone. The Helpline would particularly like to thank those who added many kind and complimentary comments on the service the Helpline provide. We look forward to continue working with you all over the next two years.

The Accreditation Presentation will take place on 16th September at Godmanchester. All Schools completing the Capita Online Survey were entered for a prize draw. Cherry Hinton Juniors were the lucky winners of the digital camera.

School Autumn Census 2010

2010-08-27T09:54:00.002+01:00

The date for the School Autumn Census year is:

Thursday 7th October 2010

Guidance Notes are available to download from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal. The DfE - School Census Preparation and Guidance notes for 2010 are still applicable for this census.

Secondary Schools with Sixth Forms
Please note that Learning Aims are collected as a part of this Census.

A new DfE Validation Fileset will need to be imported, this is not yet available. We will make it available to schools as soon as we receive it. This file is imported from Tools \ Import Fileset, don’t forget it is necessary to close out of SIMS to make the new Validation File active.

Don’t leave it until Census Day to run your Census, start work as soon as possible so that there is time to check numbers (eg. SEN, part-time pupils, learning aims) and clear any queries or errors.

Create a dummy file and upload to the familiarisation website. Then come Census Day it will only be necessary to authorise the return and upload it.

Central Hosting Version 2

2010-08-27T09:51:00.001+01:00

The central hosting system has been in use since 2007 and some aspects are in need of an upgrade. Over the last weeks of last term a few schools tested out this upgrade and we are now ready to roll this out to schools generally, with the aim of moving all schools to the new version by the end of term.

The most significant change is that version 2 includes Office 2007 and as now, schools have to ensure they have enough Office licences to cover the ones used on Central Hosting. Schools that have purchased licences through the ICT Service can call to check how many they have. There are a number of other changes including “right clicks” that will make searching and copying easier. More details will be sent to schools in due course and are published on the Helpline Blog.

B2B Personnel

2010-08-27T09:49:00.003+01:00

Over the summer, schools’ B2B Personnel has been reactivated, and allows schools to receive updated contract information. There may be a few items sitting in Suspense that will require clearing.

The Summer term update from EPM will be released to schools around the middle of September that will provide a significant number of further updates. The EPM Autumn term changes will be released later in the term – watch for details in Helplines and the Blog.

Junk and Scam E-mails

2010-08-27T09:47:00.001+01:00

Scam/Phishing e-mails, Banks, Card companies or the Tax Office would not contact you/your school by e-mail and ask you to visit their website and provide data - all such e-mails should be deleted NEVER, EVER open an attachment or link. You may wish to forward a copy to Trading Standards.

Advertising e-mails, usually for embarrassing or offensive commodities or services. Although all attempts are made to stop these, some will always leak through. By all means forward the most offensive ones to the Helpline and we will attempt to block them globally but some will simply have to be deleted.

Changes in FMS

2010-08-27T09:44:00.002+01:00

New development in FMS since version 7.128.

Journals can now show suppliers

However, selecting a supplier will limit your code selection to Expenditure Codes. This is because the supplier will only be needed when setting up a recurring journal. To use the cash Book journal in the usual way you MUST leave the supplier blank.

Bank Reconciliation in Version 7.132

The new upgrade has instituted extra security measures whereby the statement is recorded by date plus number. This causes problems where schools have been in the habit of recording each sheet of a statement as a separate statement. From now on a statement must be recorded in its entirety as a single item.

This will mean the 'statement numbers' (which are really just page numbers) will not be consecutive but you will still have the paper statement as a reference. Any attempt to record by page will cause problems with the statement’s starting balances as it now goes back to the balance at the end of the previous day for each entry.

Monthly Tasks in SIMS .net

2010-08-27T09:40:00.002+01:00

This Month’s Checks Tick sheet
[] Complete data entry for new admissions or readmissions
[] Enter Free School Meal Eligibility Dates
[] Update Mailing Points
[] Check End Dates are entered for Students moving from part time to full time (eg. Nursery to Reception)
[] Print and send out Data Collection Sheets

SIMS Learning Gateway

2010-08-27T09:39:00.002+01:00

You will know from the letter last term concerning Harnessing Technology Grant that this project has had a significant funding cut.

However, the good news is that the project will continue on different lines and we will be letting schools know how to participate in due course.

Centrally Hosted Systems - Scheduled Works

2010-08-27T09:37:00.001+01:00

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

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

11th and 12th September - Systems unavailable

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

ICT Service Helpline - Your Comments are Important to Us

2010-08-27T09:30:00.001+01:00

The ICT Service is always pleased to receive feedback from schools, both positive and negative, as both can help us to improve the service we provide.

Please do let us have any comments or suggestions you might have for ways we could improve or extend the service we provide.

Key Dates Sep - Nov 2010

2010-08-27T09:21:00.002+01:00

FMS6 for New Users - 9th & 16th Sep, 5th & 13th Oct, 14th & 19th Oct, 2nd & 10th Nov (WB)
ToPP - 15th Sep (WB), 21st Sep (WB)
eProfile getting started - 22nd Sep (WB), 30th Sep (WB)
Advanced Dinner Money 7 - 28th Sep (WB), 30th Sep (WB)
FMS6 the Next Step - 29th Sep
SIMS .net for New Users - 4th & 11th Oct (WB)
Attendance 7 - 6th Oct (WB), 11th Nov (WB)
RAISEonline Question Level Analysis - 14th Oct (WB), 21st Oct (WB)
FMS Accounts Receiveable - 20th Oct (WB), 9th Nov (WB)
FMS Equipment Register - 21st Oct (WB), 3rd Nov (WB)
IMPULSE Conference - 16th, 18th, 23rd, 25th Nov

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

Central Hosting v2 - coming soon!

2010-08-25T10:04:00.002+01:00

The current configuration of Centrally Hosted MIS has stayed essentially the same over the last 3-4 years. While the system continues to provide an excellent service, it is starting to show its age and is need of some work in two principal areas.

At the launch, Office 2003 was the Capita-supported version and this has been in use ever since. However, from December 2010 there will be a few features that are only supported on Office 2007. This issue is likely to grow over time.

Also the “locked down desktop” that users see when they log in was necessary to preserve security for all users, based on the operating systems available at the time. We can now open up some features on the desktop (such as “right click” menus and searching) using the next generation of software. This has been in demand from a number of users.

Over the years, the ICT service has invested in software and equipment to enable this transition to take place at no additional cost to schools other than possibly Office 2007 licences (see below).
Changes for schools

Office 2007 look and feel
The “user experience” is rather different from Office 2003. Having said that, many schools have been using this for some years, but some staff may need help with the transition. There may therefore be a very modest training requirement for them.

Windows 7 desktop
The “desktop” users see when they log in will look slightly different as it will reflect the new Windows 7 system. However the desktop is kept deliberately plain for central hosting so users will not notice much change.

Office 2007 licensing
Under the terms of the agreement we have with Microsoft, schools must hold an equivalent number of Office 2003 or 2007 licences to those in use on central hosting. Any school purchasing Microsoft Office from the ICT Service since 2007 will have Office 2007 licences, even if they decided to continue using Office 2003. However, there may be some schools who do not have sufficient Office 2007 licences to cover their use of Central Hosting who will need to buy additional licences to cover their use of central hosting. The ICT Service has a record of licences purchased through them.

Compatibility of older applications
At the time of writing only one application has proved incompatible with Version 2. This is NOVA T4. However the new timetable reports in the Summer release (July 2010) make the continued use of T4 unnecessary. Capita cease support of T4 next March. If this is likely to be an issue for your school, please contact the Helpline.

SIMS Learning Gateway - New Pupil Page

2010-08-24T15:44:00.002+01:00

In the latest upgrade to the SIMS Learning Gateway site, the "My Children" link has been revamped and is now called the "My Children Dashboard".

This new look contains active elements including news items from the homepage and parent front page, rolling information on the pupil's attendance and behaviour and any recorded incidents from the previous seven days.

As with any field in SLG, these can be edited and shown or hidden as the school desires.

Census Autumn 2010

2010-08-24T12:44:00.003+01:00

New notes have been produced to accompany the school Autumn Census 2010 and they have been posted on the SIMS Home Page.

The new Census date is Thursday 7th October.

Click on the links below to read the notes now:

Preparing the School Census Autumn 2010:

Producing the School Census Autumn 2010:

Errors and Resolutions 2010:

Version 5.0

Please keep checking back on the SIMS Home Page for any further updates.

Finance Scam Emails - Beware!

2010-08-23T15:44:00.001+01:00

Schools are experiencing an increasing number of scamming e-mails purporting to come from Banks and Card companies as well as government bodies such as the Tax Office.

If there is no valid reason and you have never linked your personal with your professional business then this must be regarded as 'phishing' - trying to obtain access to either your personal or the schools accounts.

If you do have an account with this bank or company then you need to be aware that no bank will ever ask you to log onto a website to change or update details and, in this context, a bank is unlikely to suspend your account facilities because you haven't checked your details lately.

This is almost certainly a 'phishing' scam aimed at getting access to accounts. If the school has an account with the bank then contact them in the usual way to verify that all is OK. They may require you to forward the e-mail to their security department. You might also like to forward it to Trading Standards as notification of the scam.

If the school has no Account with this bank or company - this is a scam. Delete and ignore and NEVER, EVER, open and attachment or link. You might also like to forward it to Trading Standards as notification of the scam.

Recent scams

HSBC - 2 versions
1. During our regularly scheduled Database maintenance and verification procedures, We've noticed some errors in your contact information.

2. During our regular scheduled data review we notice the above account has been inactive for a couple of years
Response: Why would the bank be addressing YOU at this address? Does the school have an account at this Bank?

A foreign lawyer with concerns over a tangled will or intestate client (2 versions)
1. We attempted to use the bank details you supplied but were unable to complete the transaction. However we would like to remunerate you for……

2. We have a client with the same surname as yourself and who has died in-testate but left instructions to thwart the State seizing the estate by passing it to anyone with the same surname.
Response: Is it likely? Who has a surname of CromwellPark or ElyStMary?

The Tax Office has discovered you are entitled to a refund to the value of……….
Response: How can the school be due a refund when it pays no tax?

Junk e-mail

There are two kinds of junk e-mails - advertising and newsletters.

Advertising e-mails are usually for embarassing or offensive commodities or services. Although all attempts are made to stop these some will always leak through. By all means forward the most offensive ones to the Helpline and we will attempt to block them globally but some will simply have to be deleted.

Newsletters (and Information sheets) are circulars from companies or organisations. Usually these have a link at the bottom of the document allowing you to unsubscribe/cancel. If such a link exists then use it rather than contacting the Helpline. Usually the letter has to be subscribed to and where several users share an e-mail such as Office@ they seem to other users to be junk.

SIMS and FMS Summer release notes

2010-08-09T12:48:00.003+01:00

The latest versions of the SIMS and FMS release notes are now available for download from the SOLUS planet of the SIMS Home Page.

Click on the links below to read the notes now:

SIMS Summer Release 7.132

FMS Summer Release 6.132

SIMS Permissions Spreadsheet 7.132

These and other upgrade notes can be found on the SOLUS planet of the SIMS Home Page.

Results Day Survival Kit 2010

2010-07-20T09:39:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-15T14:52:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:39:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:37:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:36:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:34:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:32:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:31:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:29:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:25:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:23:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:22:00.001+01:00

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

2010-07-13T16:16:00.002+01:00

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

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

Primary SIMS SQL Migration - new notes

2010-07-07T09:34:00.002+01:00

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.

FMS - Direct Payments from Bank Account

2010-06-24T14:42:00.003+01:00

Schools will now be able to lodge direct payments to some suppliers such as utility companies etc straight from the Internet screen.

The advantages of such payments lie in their speed since payment can be ensured within three days and sometimes can happen the next day. Such payments will then appear on the Bank Statement as normal and at that point will need to be processed into FMS.

Click here to read these notes now.

These and other finance helpsheets can be found on the Finance Planet of the SIMS Home Page.

Centrally Hosted Systems Scheduled Works

2010-06-11T10:42:00.002+01:00

Purpose: Important Information regarding disruption to service

Audience: All School Staff

The County Data Centre in which the schools Centrally Hosted systems sit is having major upgrade work carried out over the next few months. Systems affected include centrally hosted MIS/SIMS, email and remote access.

At present we expect the following planned outages:

19th to 20th June - Systems will be available but users may experience temporary failures.

4th July - Work at Scott House: Schools in Huntingdon affected.

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.

End of Key Stage - Statutory Returns

2010-06-07T12:05:00.002+01:00

The deadline for End of Key Stage assessments to be submitted this year, is Friday 9th July 2010.

Foundation Stage Profiles - CTF file to be uploaded to S2S

KS1 Teacher Assessments - CTF file to be uploaded to S2S

KS2 Teacher Assessments - CTF to be uploaded to the QCDA Website
KS3 Teacher Assessments - CTF to be uploaded to the QCDA Website

The FSP CTF should be named in the format 873????_ctf_873LLLL.nnn.xml where ???? is your school’s DFES number.

The KS1 CTF should have a destination of Cambridgeshire and therefore a filename in the format 873????_ctf_873LLLL.nnn.xml.

The KS2 and KS3 CTF should have a destination of NAA and filename in the format 873nnnn_ctf_NAALLLL.nnn.xml.

The web address for KS2 and KS3 files is: http://ncatools.qcda.gov.uk/home.aspx

Guidance notes on End of Key Stage Procedures are available for download from the Assessment Planet from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal.

Assessment and Reporting Arrangement notes are available from the Data Collection area of the ONEVision Website on the Portal.

SIMS Accreditation

2010-06-07T12:02:00.001+01:00

It does not seem possible that 2 years have passed since we last went through the Accreditation Process with Capita which allows us to continue to support schools’ use of SIMS.

However, 2 years have indeed passed and the accreditation process has begun once again.
Capita will be sending a survey directly to schools to seek their opinion of the support provided by Education ICT Service. This is a very important part of the process— we can’t be accredited without your survey responses. Your feedback is as always an essential part of improving our service.

We would be very grateful if you could find a few minutes to complete this on-line Survey.

The Survey should only take 10-15 minutes to complete. A Word version of the survey can be provided for schools who
need to collate the responses of several staff—please contact the Helpline.

There is a prize draw for all schools who complete the survey before the end date. (The prize being a digital camera!)

The survey will be sent out directly from Capita from Monday 14th June and run for two weeks - a reminder will be sent to those schools who have not replied within a week.

The password which schools will need to access the survey and instructions on how to complete it, will be sent via email directly from Capita - Any schools experiencing problems with their password can contact the webmaster via : http://support.capitaes.co.uk/accreditation/

Capita can only accept one return from each school.

New Education ICT Service Sales Website

2010-06-07T12:00:00.002+01:00

The Education ICT Service Sales Team have launched a new website:

http://sales.cambsed.net/

This website contains up to date pricing information about equipment and services that the ICT Service offers to schools.

You can now create your own instant quotes and place orders online after a simple automated sign up process.

The site will continue to be developed to include advice and guidance about the types of equipment commonly used in schools, offering comparisons to enable schools to make informed decisions about ICT purchases.

Year End Procedures in SIMS .net

2010-06-07T11:58:00.001+01:00

Guidance notes on preparing SIMS .net for the next academic year are available for download from the SIMS Home Page on the Portal.

Preparations can be made now, it is not necessary to wait until the end of the Summer Term.

The ONEVision team have uploaded CTF files to S2S for Secondary Schools which contain details of their new intake for September 2010. Primary Schools that would like to receive a CTF file of their new intake should request one from ONEVision.

Ensure staff inputting data on new students have received proper training for using SIMS .net.

If data is not input correctly this will have a knock on affect on the School Census and the correct functioning of SIMS and may result in large amounts of time being spent identifying and correcting data errors at a later date.

For users who have not performed the year end procedures before, there are courses available on 6th, 8th and 13th July.