[sims] Document retention within SIMS

[Dave_O]

This question is directed at Phil from Capita I think.

 

What document retention policies and processes are in place within SIMS? eg. You attach a document to a student record be they linked document or documents within for example the SEN section etc. The student passes through school and finally leaves being taken off role etc.

 

What happens to the linked documents when for example the student record is archived? What happens to the linked documents associated with that student in all scenarios?

 

Also what level of security is there on the document store?

 

Dave O

Edited October 14, 2014 by Dave_O

[LosOjos]

This question is directed at Phil from Capita I think.

@PhilNeal

 

[that should alert him to this thread]

[PhilNeal]

Taking a pupil off role doesn't remove them from the system. Most schools wish to retain information for legitimate purposes for many many years in case of reference requests.

 

Documents are retained in the same way. Document access is role based or private to the creator. (I wouldn't recommend storing "private" documents as you need to manage them when an individual leaves.

[Dave_O]

Phil

1. "Taking a pupil off role doesn't remove them from the system." Yes fully understand that.

2. "Most schools wish to retain information for legitimate purposes for many many years in case of reference requests." Again yes and this is the purpose of asking the question. Legally an establishment has to retain data for lets say X years, beyond that point it should be removed. Is there a way of doing this eg records older than X years can be deleted (in bulk) and are the associated linked documents also deleted?

3. "...Document access is role based or private to the creator. (I wouldn't recommend storing "private" documents as you need to manage them when an individual leaves." Within SIMS this is true but outside of SIMS, certainly for linked documents held in the document store, these are accessible to anyone who has the appropriate file path information.

 

Forgive my lack of knowledge of the inner workings of SIMS but if I attach a document lets say within a student's SEN record is that saved in the document store or is it saved as perhaps a BLOB within the database?

 

What would you recommending to schools in relation to document security? Don't store confidential documents in "linked documents" and flag them as private when stored elsewhere?

 

Is there a way to purge records from SIMS beyond the legal retention date in bulk.

 

Thank you

[vikpaw]

The files are encrypted.

Also, you can't guess the filepath easily - it's pretty random, as can be the naming.

I believe attached documents end up in the doc store. Note fields etc are in the database.

 

I'd be interested to know if there is a delete routine based on x years since leaving date, and whether deleting does remove the linked docs. I believe it would remove the docs, as before you can delete it goes through a whole rigmarole checking all linked areas. However, often it could come back and say, you can't delete due to these links, e.g. maybe financial links. I've only ever deleted dupes / tests and mistakes, never an actual live student file, so not sure if you can.