Email all teachers linked to a pupil

[Ditto]

Interesting request today. Head of Dept. Would like to be able to email all the teachers linked to a pupil. He said in a previous school it could be done in O365 - that sounds like an awful lot of admin or has some interesting auto group management. Any ideas on how this might be achieved. We are a SIMS based school, but I'm happy to hear if there are solutions in other MIS or Enterprise apps.

[Norphy]

They probably had Salamander or something similar linking their SIMS to Office 365.

[mcrompton01]

Dang it, someone beat me to it. We use Salamander to achieve this exact thing, the call them "{SchCode} Teachers Of {Surname} {Forname} ({Form})" this pulls anyone who teaches the student or is involved via the pastoral structure.

[FN-GM]

We do that with Salamander as well.

[mullet_man]

Yep we have this implemented via Salamander.

 

"Teachers of Joe Bloggs" are the naming convention we use.

 

Salamander is an amazing bit of software it's very cheap for what it does as well.

 

Is it still about 1k a year?

Edited April 25, 2019 by mullet_man

[Ditto]

Thanks all. Sounds like Salamander is the option. I'll see if there is any budget, but the HoD perhaps needs to sign up some other supporters and for me to add other benefits of Salamander's suite of software. Out of interest, would SIMS have a report that shows the linked teachers or are Salamander using a SIMS API or directly accessing the database?

[snagrat]

This must create hundreds of groups and/or distribution lists?

[Ditto]

This must create hundreds of groups and/or distribution lists?

I had a similar thought! In my current school, I'm thinking just shy of 2000! However, if fully automated, I guess it could work - but I expect it looks scary in the O 365 Admin account?!

[Roberto]

This must create hundreds of groups and/or distribution lists?

 

It can do but the benefit of IAM tools is that you don’t need to care about that, it worries about all that so you don’t have to.

[AliG]

I can now do this in ActiveMan. I have been working with them to add this feature. We call them SDL's (Student Distribution List) i.e. SDL Joe Bloggs

 

https://www.activman.co.uk

[mullet_man]

Yeah it creates a massive amount of groups in your directory we also have every class and form group setup too

[hardtailstar]

Thanks all. Sounds like Salamander is the option. I'll see if there is any budget, but the HoD perhaps needs to sign up some other supporters and for me to add other benefits of Salamander's suite of software. Out of interest, would SIMS have a report that shows the linked teachers or are Salamander using a SIMS API or directly accessing the database?

The teacher should be able to view the students timetable in SIMs and go from there.

 

If I have to email a teacher about a student I just view their timetable and see the teacher(s).

 

Ok it's not automated but it works.

[FN-GM]

The teacher should be able to view the students timetable in SIMs and go from there.

 

If I have to email a teacher about a student I just view their timetable and see the teacher(s).

 

Ok it's not automated but it works.

But slow. The man hours people use to do that will build up over the year. It would probably be cheaper to get the software than pay for the lost time.

[hardtailstar]

But slow. The man hours people use to do that will build up over the year. It would probably be cheaper to get the software than pay for the lost time.

Takes less than 30 seconds to do it. Maybe a bit longer for someone who hasn't done it before.

[FN-GM]

Takes less than 30 seconds to do it. Maybe a bit longer for someone who hasn't done it before.

 

I used to take us longer. Plus thats just for 1 student. Can soon built up.

[djrscally]

Actually this is one of Progressos strengths. There's a good list of combinations of people connected to other people that you can email through it. Teachers of students, Tutors of students, contacts of students, students of teachers and so on.

 

Doesn't help you anymore though obviously

[jthompson]

EduLink has similar functionality too, but the message would need to be composed on the EduLink platform, not your main email service.

 

I didn't know Salamandar had these features tbh (don't have it but have been considering it for ages now). I'd be concerned that having thousands of extra Groups in G Suite would slow down the Google Cloud Directory Sync job considerably, though, even if most were excluded from the sync. Can ayn G Suite admins shed any light on that at all?

[FN-GM]

I'd be concerned that having thousands of extra Groups in G Suite would slow down the Google Cloud Directory Sync job considerably, though, even if most were excluded from the sync. Can ayn G Suite admins shed any light on that at all?

 

The first sync does take quite a long time but after that its not too bad. It is a scheduled task for us so doesn't matter anyway.

[bobsmith]

surely it could be done on the fly? Semi-static groups for each student does seem like massive overkill.

 

alternatively SIMS does allow you to message all the teachers of a particular student using the inbuilt SIMs messaging system - does inTouch allow email as well?

[howartp]

This must create hundreds of groups and/or distribution lists?

 

We only have 4800 distribution lists in Exchange, created by Salamander...

[jthompson]

surely it could be done on the fly? Semi-static groups for each student does seem like massive overkill.

 

The mail system would need to have such groups present in the global address list in order for end users to successfully pick them.

[gordonbarclay]

Interesting request today. Head of Dept. Would like to be able to email all the teachers linked to a pupil. He said in a previous school it could be done in O365 - that sounds like an awful lot of admin or has some interesting auto group management. Any ideas on how this might be achieved. We are a SIMS based school, but I'm happy to hear if there are solutions in other MIS or Enterprise apps.

 

 

If you have SIMS InTouch then it is easy. When on the Student Details page select "Send Message" from the links on the right hand side. This brings up all linked adults, - select all except for parents

[bobsmith]

The mail system would need to have such groups present in the global address list in order for end users to successfully pick them.

Agreed provided you want to send directly from outlook - if it was driven from within your MIS then it could be done more creatively.

[Ditto]

Actually this is one of Progressos strengths. There's a good list of combinations of people connected to other people that you can email through it. Teachers of students, Tutors of students, contacts of students, students of teachers and so on.

Doesn't help you anymore though obviously

Indeed! I remember the functionality half working well! To be fair, they did fix the issues I reported and currently it's the neatest solution in this thread, but unfortunately not one within SIMS it would appear. It does reiterate one golden rule - it's better to have all you data in one place as every time you replicate it out, it adds an overhead.

[Ditto]

If you have SIMS InTouch then it is easy. When on the Student Details page select "Send Message" from the links on the right hand side. This brings up all linked adults, - select all except for parents

Thanks for this. I've no idea if the school has InTouch - I'll check on Monday. Any idea what InTouch would cost per annum for just under 2000 pupils.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Ditto