Hello, and where to begin?

[terrymadeley]

Hi everyone, happy Friday.

 

I've just recently started as a Data Manager, at a secondary school using SIMS, after working in university and college admin for many years. I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it, as all of the terms, acronyms and systems are quite new to me - there seems to be lots to get to get my head round, SIMS, Progress 8 etc etc! I've been looking for a forum such as this for a while, to network with and learn from, and this place looks really good.

 

So here's my Friday afternoon question. If you were new to all this, and just starting out, what would you start with first? Where would you go to get an overview of all the data manager processes we're all involved in?

 

Cheers all,

Terry

[simpsonj]

See if your LEA or provider of SIMS does any training courses, or at least, some kind of technical meeting/conference you can attend.

 

Otherwise, there's documentation within SIMS that might help and Capita Support.net/ My Account which might help too.

 

If you find yourself with specific questions or need to know how to do stuff, there are some excellent people on here to help!

[teejay]

Hi, welcome to the Edugeek :-)

My first port of call would be whoever is your support provider for SIMS, whether it's Capita, your LEA or another third party company. All of them will run training sessions and can also do consultancy sessions. They really are invaluable as they put you on track for the 'Capita' way of doing things, which will then require adjusting for how your school works.

[vikpaw]

@terrymadeley

Get yourself registered with Capita's My Account https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/ which is their support portal. I'm pretty sure on the old portal, there was a calendar like download which outlines lots of key processes a SIMS Manager has to deal with, e.g. start end of year process, sorting out options. It won't go into nitty gritty but is a good guide for you to then research specific processes. That's your main tasks outlined.

 

Then you need to browse this forum, and you'll get a feel for the day to day churn, from moving server, updating, doing key data tasks. There is a group here for data managers http://www.edugeek.net/groups/data-managers.html , where there are some useful conversations on specific data analysing / processing tasks, though this wider public forum is more use for general usage.

Edited March 30, 2015 by vikpaw

[terrymadeley]

Thanks all, that's really helpful. Onwards!

[Darth]

Hi,

I know it's a bit late, but you the following link from Capita is helpful for how to's and documentation.

Home

[terrymadeley]

Thanks, that's very helpful. I especially like their 'Yearbook' checklists.

[jonnykewell1]

Hi Terry, I see you are in Leeds. I know a couple of Data managers in Leeds Schools who would be happy to talk to you and offer any advice on SIMS etc. Drop me a message anytime.