Staff Absence

[AndySimmo]

Hi there,

I was wondering, do you at other schools use any sort of Absence management for staff?

We have been asked to provide some sort of software (preferably web based) and open source.

i have had a look at Staff Holiday Planner and Absence Management Software but it is expensive, £14/per user per year we have been quoted.

So (in order)

Absence request submitted
(Headmaster) will either approve or decline the request
organiser is forwarded or somehow receives the approval to *organise the agency staff. *This won’t be managed by the system, he will mange the agency staff externally.
The staff will then be notified of absence whether they have been accepted or declined.
This is all then available to the Finance Officer to review, who is in contact with H.R. will then pass the absence on via the **Stockton system to H.R. **The H.R. System is beyond our control.
All the absences should then be either printed daily, weekly and monthly

Anyone had a similar situation and have a solution?

Been looking around and will continue, but will keep you updated!

[Sivadam]

Methinks you should be using SIMS.
Then you can use the Cover7 Routine - with its associate links to P7 and SWC Return.

Maybe a webpart for SLG is a future possibility as well!

[mjs_mjs]

i've been asked to make somthing like it for my mums workplace. i'll let you know if i get round to making it anytime soon.

[CAM]

Sivadam is on the right track. Out of interest, do you use SIMS or another MIS provider? Also why are they after Open Source and web-based software? I'm assuming it's budget constraints and ability to access anywhere from home so staff can book themselves in as sick?

[bossman]

Methinks you should be using SIMS.
Then you can use the Cover7 Routine - with its associate links to P7 and SWC Return.

Maybe a webpart for SLG is a future possibility as well!

Ditto here, Sims has what you need :-)

[AndySimmo]

SIMS is managed by the council for us.

We cannot add any modules into sims as it runs on their network.

We access the shared drive to use and install SIMS.

We have found Online Staff Holiday and Absence Management Planning Software and are getting a quote now

Hopefully this will be cheaper!

However Cover 7 sounds intersting, if teamseer is not any benefit or too expensive, i'll contact the person who manages our SIMS.

thanks for the answers though! Keep 'em coming!

[Sivadam]

Cover7 should be part of the standard SIMS Installation. It is part of the Curriculum Suite!

And if the LA is limiting your use of SIMS then maybe it is the time to declare UDI and get direct support from Capita. I have no real complaints about our LA but we wanted to take SIMS further and I have no regrets whatsoever at taking this step.

[AndySimmo]

We also want to be able to use it externally.

[Sivadam]

That will be happening some time in the future! It was definitely on the wish list!
Hopefully it may appear in the SLG Roadmap - due out on 19th October.

If you use an external program then you will end up double entering loads of data, as much of this is required in SWC, which will soon no longer be a Pilot - it will be compulsory!

[AndySimmo]

Tried teamseer, too expensive £22/per user.

SIMS isn't offering what we need. We want staff to be able to SUBMIT requests and have a no cover policy

I'll keep digging

[PhilNeal]

If you are an LA school bear in mind that the DCSF require details of absence in their return.

[kiran]

If you've got Sharepoint / VLE you could add asence requests via this medium. Once the request is accepted or declined you can add it as an absence on Sims.net Cover and then finance /SWR etc will have all the info.

I'm a big advocate of using Sims.net for everything but sometimes this isn't physicaly possible -- in these cases you need to work round it by trying to most things that you can on Sims.net in Sims.net and rest e.g. accept/reject absence requests via a VLE/Sharepoint using workflows/lists etc and enter absence on Sims.s

I hope this makes sense.

[AndySimmo]

Kiran:

Yeah i have been trying to do that but the only issue i face with sharepoint is column level security.

I need to make it so the headmaster is the only one who can accept and reject requests, and the administrators & the head can edit. This is slightly difficult unless you know a way around it! might have to do some coding to hide the column/field from certain users!

Or perhaps even a formula?

[GrumbleDook]

What you are talking about with Sharepoint is creating a workflow where allocated users are the only people able to authorise the process to the next level. At home at the moment so can't give exact details but there are tutorials on the MS website for this.

[AndySimmo]

Ahhh, yes. Workflows! I'll try with a workflow and see how it goes.