[sims] Validate E-Mail Addresses and Mobiles

[FragglePete]

Hi All,

 

Is there a way in SIMS to validate an e-mail address and mobile phone number in SIMS when details are entered? I'm finding errors in Parents e-mail addresses (using characters like , or / in the address) which have been entered incorrectly by our admin staff who don't understand correct formating of e-mail addresses while trying to decypher bad handwriting. Also, we have mobile phone numbers which don't have enough numbers in them. SIMS just lets you enter invalid info and makes no checks when you add or amend contact details.

 

TIA

 

Pete

[bobsmith]

write a report to pull out the email addresses, then chuck it in excel and do some simple formulae to identify those with dodgy characters.

 

you can do the same trick with the mobile numbers, you can have the formula check the length of the phone number and flag those up too short or too long.

 

Back in my Facility CMIS days I was allowed to play with the SQL, so I actually had a script that would format all the phone numbers for me to have the spaces in the places i wanted them...

[FragglePete]

write a report to pull out the email addresses, then chuck it in excel and do some simple formulae to identify those with dodgy characters.

 

you can do the same trick with the mobile numbers, you can have the formula check the length of the phone number and flag those up too short or too long.

 

Back in my Facility CMIS days I was allowed to play with the SQL, so I actually had a script that would format all the phone numbers for me to have the spaces in the places i wanted them...

 

I appreciate that, and we're using Schoolcomms which is flagging up these errors once they've been imported. However, why is SIMS allowing invalid characters, formating, etc to be entered in the first place?

 

Pete

[bobsmith]

You could PM PhilNeal with that question, but if you hold your breath waiting for data entry validation rules to be implemented you may turn a funny shade of blue before it happens.

[pete]

^ SIMS will (or used to*) allow invalid characters to be imported via CTF. When a real human goes into the record it should then mark it red until it's fixed. However, the "is this a real email address?" routine just looks for [email protected]ing so typos (binternet is the usual) will always slip through.

 

*my life has been CTF free for the last couple of years and I like it that way.

 

And yeah, I'm sure Phil's been nagged more than once on here about email validation.

[enjay]

why is SIMS allowing invalid characters, formating, etc to be entered in the first place?

We have some non-UK numbers listed for parents. Having SIMS tell us they're not valid would be annoying...

I agree validation on email address would be useful, but IME, the data input errors with email addresses are more often misreading (- not _, for example) not entering invalid characters, so you'd still need to go through your Schoolcomms reports anyway.