Vicky Piert SIMS Team

v0.9

Helping to support School Census Autumn

Helping to support School Summer Census

Secondary

Contents

1. Summer Return

2. Common Support Calls

3. Data Quality

4. Support/Training Options

Spring Upgrade 7.162Upgrades start w/c 27th April - same day as your Half Day Engineer visit. Please check all workstations log in before he/she leaves.Please read the release notes – they are usefulWhen did you last - Reports / Import / ?

Predefined Reports 7.162

School Census Summer 2015 (Spring Release)

Upgrades

Main changes1. This is the last of the Censuses in the DfE cycle for

2014/152. The changes are limited to those already made for

the Autumn and Spring Censuses, except for the introduction of Childcare questions

N.B Collects the least pupil characteristics and is therefore most prone to DfE Validation Error 9999 (module is missing) – normally indiciates missing First Language

Creating the ReturnWe recommend that all schools carry out dry runs in advance of the Census Day in May.

Late change to the Dfe Specification

• Lots of Child Care questions have been added• As this has been added at such a late stage,

Capita have restricted the supporting functionality to the Census application

• Capita are to look to moving this functionality to School Details for a future release.

Importing the Fileset 191 – due to be available from Capita

The fileset will be emailed to the school address from ‘Agilisys Training Team’ – please don’t delete.

Save the attachment to your desktop and Extract the .zip file

Tools / Setups / Import Fileset

What’s new? New Childcare Questions

Before School Childcare (Code B)Is childcare provided on the school premises? If childcare is off site, is it signposted? What time does the service become available? What is the maximum number of children the service can simultaneously provide places for? Who provides the childcare service? Is the service made available to children from other schools? After School Childcare (Code A)Is childcare provided on the school premises? If childcare is off site, is it signposted? What time does the service cease operation? What is the maximum number of children the service can simultaneously provide places for? Who provides the childcare service? Is the service made available to children from other schools?

New Childcare Questions

Holiday Childcare (Code H)Is childcare provided on the school premises? < LI> If childcare is off site, is it signposted? What time does the service become available? What time does the service cease operation? How many weeks of childcare are provided? What is the maximum number of children the service can simultaneously provide places for? Who provides the childcare service? Is the service made available to children from other schools?

Child Care Question VoluntarySchools can leave this table completely empty, but if enough schools do this it might mean less spending in the this area in the future.

Capita Approach to the Childcare Questions

If schools decide to answer the questions they do so by clicking new and creating records for each type of child care that is relevant. Where information is provided it should be complete and accurate.

Top-up FundingDo you wish to copy forward from the students from the Spring? YES

Attendance

Focus / Attendance / Deal with Missing Marks

DfE Validation• DfE have not yet provided suppliers with XSL file used for

validation• Leaving the 2015 versions of the files in place causes

confusion, so Capita are displaying the following when Create & Validate is run

Summary ReportDfE have not yet provided suppliers with XSL file used for this reportLeaving the 2015 versions of the files in place causes confusion, so we are displaying the following when the Summary Report is run

Detail ReportsMake use of the detailed reports

Detail Reports

Copy Census

Modified message – to emphasise that panels with “views” on SIMS data are not copied

Course Management (Post 16)Provider UKPRNNew Course Classification CodeUKPRN – 8 digit numberUK Register of Learning Providers (https://www.ukrlp.co.uk)

Setup Provider UKPRN – Maintain Course Classification

Using Provider UKPRN – Maintain Course - Default

Using Provider UKPRN – Maintain Course - Default

Using Provider UKPRN – Maintain Course - Default

Using Provider UKPRN – Maintain Course - Default

Learning Aim Withdrawal Reason – Maintain Course

Learning Aim Withdrawal Reason – Curriculum Assignment

Problem with Protect and Exam Result Columns (Added 27/04/2015 at 11:00)

Adding the column for Withdrawal Reason has resulted in an issue when the user is adding or removing ticks from the Protect column. Unfortunately, when the user clicks on the Protect column the software attempts to provide details of the Exam Result, which is the functionality intended for the Result column. This causes difficult both for users who want to protect a membership and for users who want to see details for Exam Results.

Users who want to Protect memberships are given the impression that the system has hung, as the “busy” pointer is shown until the pointer is move off that Protect cell. Although unlikely in the real world, our training data already has the Exam Results for memberships that have not yet been completed and this triggers a different issue in that the Exam Result details are shown when the Protect cell is clicked.

Users who want to view Exam Result details can only do so by clicking the Protect cell and thereby toggling the tick in the Protect cell.

The problem has been caused by the introduction of a new column in the table and cannot be fixed by a database patch. However, we have provided a solution via a release of a separate Workstation fix for all other customers that may be affected.

Learning Aim Withdrawal Reason – Leavers Routine

Reporting Dictionary – Students’ Programme of Study

Course Management

Maintain Course – Improved Performance

• When opening courses• When saving courses

Reporting Dictionary – Students’ Programme of Study

Improving DataFamily & Home / Salutation / Siblings

Training OptionsCensus Refresher – Half Day @ £71 or onsite @ £110 per hour

• SIMS Office User Top Tips & Techniques – Half Day @ £71

Tuesday 19th May A.M. - 9 – 12 p.m.Wednesday 20th May P.M. - 1 – 4 p.m.

Places are still available!!

• SIMS Reporting Top Tips & Techniques – Half Day @ £71

www.sthelens.org.uk/imstraining

Support – Log a call

Telephone: 0808 178 6996

http://www.sthelens.org.uk/servicedesk/