Import SIMS attendance data from Excel

[RTay]

Hi everyone,

 

I wonder if you can help me please?

 

We have lost our SIMS attendance data from September 2014 when our RAID array failed and so did our recovery systems (we have not had the best luck!)

Anyway we have a Groupcall export spreadsheet file containing the attendance data up until the hardware failed. The file contains what appears to be a single cell for each pupil with a string of characters (/#\ ,etc.) representing their attendance. We need to transfer this information back to SIMS but it is going to take a long time to enter this information manually for all of the pupils, especially if we have to enter each pupil’s attendance for each day manually one at a time.

Is there any way to import this attendance data into SIMS, even by using a third party tool/company? If it is not possible through the SIMS interface, could we copy and paste this string of attendance data for each pupil (or an edited version of it) directly into the SIMS database files somehow? Even if we had to do it for each pupil, it would still really help.

 

If you have any other suggestions or comments I would be really grateful.

The only other option is a RAID recovery company but this could be costly.

Thank you in advanced for you help and time, it is greatly appreciated.

 

Rich

[glen_j]

Dont forget you can blanket fill present marks and then just change absent ones.... i know capita have a tool to do this as we've just had our data converted to sims and they did our attendance marks. Not sure if there is another easier way of doing this though.

[matt40k]

I assume it isn't just attendance data you've lost?

 

Attendance data wise, you can enter it on bulk, missing marks(?), I'd prob just set everyone as present then go back and correct the absences doing a week at a time, only worry about AM/PM as that's the legal requirement. The priority will be LAC (Looked After Children). It's prob cheaper to hire a temp for a week or so. Speak with your local primary schools, you might find some of the office staff are happy to do a little bit of extra work over the holidays for a bit of extra cash. It's going to be cheaper then paying developer or trying to bosh a CTF that you can import.

 

However the first step will be to ensure you have a proper backup in place and that you've learnt your lesson - ie if your RAID controller failed, that you've actually replaced it and confirmed its working 100%, same with your backups, if they've failed, make sure your 100% sure your backups actually work, otherwise you'll waste lots of time, money and effort only for the same thing to reoccur.