SIMS + Pupil E-Mails

[stm-tech]

Hi Folks.

 

I don't think I am alone here but I am confused with SIMS Pupil Records and their fields.

 

I understand that a parent will be linked to the pupil, and that parent may have an e-mail contact.

 

Why can't the pupil have their own e-mail address? All of our pupils have a school e-mail address and I want to import these into SIMS, but where does it go?

 

When you look at a pupil record, the e-mail address is that of the parent.

[Steve21]

It shouldn't be, If someone's filled that in it's probably a legacy thing It should be the student email address (whether personal or school) as that's what most systems like SMHW/Classcharts etc sync to use as their login

 

Steve

[ModeratelyGruntled]

Pupils have their own email - the Email Addresses field for each student should be their email address. Linked adults will be a contact and have their own separate email address/phone number (and option to turn intouch on/off for each contact).

 

There's a tool for adding student emails in bulk - ask whoever you get your support from.

[stm-tech]

Ok - I have just used the SIMS tool to import all of the pupils e-mails.

 

I go to SIMS, run a report - and none of the e-mails I have uploaded are present.

 

I used the student e-mail, primary email, email(own)

 

none have been updated.

[Banjo]

Speak to your support team, they may even log on and run the routine for you.

[stm-tech]

The diagnostic script says that there are incorrect column headings in import file:

 

My column headings are: person_type , surname, forename, midname , upn_adno_ni_tt, email_phone , notes, location, main, primary

 

This is as per the documentation that came with the patch.

[TechMonkey]

The diagnostic script says that there are incorrect column headings in import file:

 

My column headings are: person_type , surname, forename, midname , upn_adno_ni_tt, email_phone , notes, location, main, primary

 

This is as per the documentation that came with the patch.

 

Could it be the spaces before commas? Probably best to contact your support team.

[matt40k]

Got to love a crooked Capita SQL scripts that hacks data directly into the database rather then going via the business logic\API. Kinda undermines themselves when they say third parties must go via the API. Especially bad when someone's already done all the hard work

[stm-tech]

Matt40K - I hear and feel for you.

 

TechMonkey - I put those spaces in to make it easier to read on here.

[ModeratelyGruntled]

I populate person_type (has to be S), upn_adno_ni_t (UPN), email_phone (school email adress, notes ('Student's school email' for sanity so I know that it's been done in bulk), location (W), Main (T), Primary (T).

 

I last ran it in September and it was ok...

[stm-tech]

I still get incorrect column headings in import file.

[ModeratelyGruntled]

Not sure - as above I think you'll have to go back to your support team.

 

I'm not populating the columns surname, forename, midname. Other than that I can't see what we're doing differently.

[David44]

We've not done this for a while because it crashed SIMS and kicked everyone out the last time we did it, but I seem to recall it was fussy about the file encoding. Open the file in Notepad and go to Save As. Check the encoding on this screen. If it's ANSI, try Unicode and vice versa as I can't remember which one was correct.

[Kate101]

What is this SIMS tool called please? I am part of an SSU and can find out nothing about this. Have spoken to Capita and they say they don't know of such a thing!!!! Have several schools who want to import student emails from AD into SIMS for Options Online.

[matt40k]

Depends what you mean - Capita has a patch that takes a CSV then imports it - which is horrid as, it's a patch as its pretty a hack job. I wrote this > https://simsbulkimport.uk/ but I've had to discontinue it I don't work with SIMS and the company who was going to take it on got told they'd get a large bill from Capita if they did. Then you've got third party tools like SalamanderSoft that does that and alot more. I think Capita has some way of provisioning Office 365 account, but you'll have a fun time with GDPR as it doesn't appear you can opt-out individuals so legally you could only use it if every parent agrees they are happy your sending your student info off to Capita. Hope that helps.

[David44]

Hi Kate,

 

The tool we received from Capita in 2015 was called 'BULK IMPORT UTILITY'. It seems it might also be called 20343 and/or 17195. For some reason it is distributed as a patch even though you would need to run it every time you want to import data, not just once to enable the option. As matt40k says, it is a horrible solution to try to hide the fact that there is a very obvious missing feature in SIMS. IIRC, file paths were hard coded and the input file had to be put on c:\. All I can say is that it worked for us once but we have gone back to having someone enter the email addresses manually now as it was a very messy process and crashed SIMS each time it was run.

[Kate101]

Many thanks to both of you - matt40k and David44 - for your replies. I feared the answers were going to be along those lines.