[sims] Tidying up Contacts and Admission Applications

[kennysarmy]

We recently found over 50 duplicate contacts in our SIMS database. Eg. Parents in multiple times with each occurrence linked to their different children, rather than one account linking to all of them.

 

This was causing us issues in our VLE (Moodle) as it was importing all the duplicate parents and auto-creating multiple accounts for parents.

 

I've now sorted all this out and merged the contacts in SIMS, deleted the duplicates in Moodle and re-imported the new single account linked to all the off-spring.

 

In doing this I discovered there are many duplicate accounts in SIMS (maybe between 500 and a 1000) for contacts who are linked to students who have now left the school.

 

In Focus -> Admission -> Application there are also 100's of old admission records, some going back as far as 10 years.

 

What if any are the issues in removing all the admission applications for students who have now left the school? and is there any easy way to do this, rather than having to go in to each one individually to check if the student is still on roll?

 

And also is there an easy way to delete all contacts who NOT linked to students currently on roll?

 

Cheers

[bobsmith]

two part question gets a two part answer.

 

old applicants - delete em (unless there is a super amazing reason why you'd need to keep em).

 

contacts linked to former students - SIMS doesn't do "datasets" like some other MIS, but this is often a good thing. you can remove the duplicates - but I'd leave the rest, you never know when you're gonna need a phone number.

[kennysarmy]

two part question gets a two part answer.

 

old applicants - delete em (unless there is a super amazing reason why you'd need to keep em).

 

contacts linked to former students - SIMS doesn't do "datasets" like some other MIS, but this is often a good thing. you can remove the duplicates - but I'd leave the rest, you never know when you're gonna need a phone number.

 

Thanks for your reply - I was going to export ALL contacts before doing anything so we have a backup of all contact information.

 

By coming old contacts I just think we'd end up creating another duplicate anyway as the old account could potentially hold incorrect address, telephone, email data and we get issues where if the name is slightly different the admin here create a new account anyway....we've had Mr P Smith, Mr Pete Smith and Mr Peter Smith - !

[bobsmith]

When I moved schools in January one of the first jobs I did was comb through ALL their contacts (literally one by one) to merge all the duplicates.

 

The very next job was to put a virtual gun to the heads of the admin staff to CHECK for an existing contact before ever creating a new one.

 

In the long run it'll pay off.

[kennysarmy]

When I moved schools in January one of the first jobs I did was comb through ALL their contacts (literally one by one) to merge all the duplicates.

 

The very next job was to put a virtual gun to the heads of the admin staff to CHECK for an existing contact before ever creating a new one.

 

In the long run it'll pay off.

 

Make sure they don't do what ours did though and take it so literally that when an ex student came back to teach she reactivated their old student account rather than creating a new teacher as she did nt' want to create a duplicate!!!! Arrgghhhhh

[kennysarmy]

FOCUS -> ADMISSION -> APPLICATION :

 

Does anyone know what an Application Status of "withdrawn" means? I've loads showing under that category.

 

Current & Applied shows just three

 

Admitted shows 100's

[Boredguy]

It means that the Applicant never started and the request was withdrawn.

 

I just had to delete a Withdrawn applicant (and agree that it might muck up the stats) as the individual passed away before they were able to enrol.

If it wasn't for the fact that the record was showing up in family links we would have just left it with the rest of the withdrawn records.

[bobsmith]

Make sure they don't do what ours did though and take it so literally that when an ex student came back to teach she reactivated their old student account rather than creating a new teacher as she did nt' want to create a duplicate!!!! Arrgghhhhh

 

I thought Capita recommended that you do use the original record?

[kennysarmy]

It means that the Applicant never started and the request was withdrawn.

 

I just had to delete a Withdrawn applicant (and agree that it might muck up the stats) as the individual passed away before they were able to enrol.

If it wasn't for the fact that the record was showing up in family links we would have just left it with the rest of the withdrawn records.

 

Hi

 

What STATS would it much up if I deleted all the withdrawn applications? - some are from back in 2010 and on the application have contact (parent) details which when you check in SIMS under PERSON -> FOCUS -> CONTACTS the person is in SIMS twice - I presume once against the application and then again against a current student on roll....

[Boredguy]

I have no idea what stats, but capita helpdesk said we could always re-add the student at a later point without any family link and set it as withdrawn if need be.

[bobsmith]

Since some other MIS systems don't use applicants (I didn't use them for 10 years in CMIS) I don't think individual schools return any census info on them.

 

Therefore, unless you want them for some reason, you can remove them.