jacquij123 Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 I hope i'm not repeating someone else, but does Edulink write back to SIMS regarding attendance. So if a parent leaves a message saying why their child was off can you import that directly to their record in SIMS?
jezi55 Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 We have been using Edulink One for just over 2 months now, we use it for taking registers, resource and room booking, parents evening, clubs registers, and the admin side is really easy to use as long as your sims personal records are up to date. We used to use multiple products for all these features and the fact it is all in one place acceesable through an app makes life that little bit easier for staff. The install was very straight forward (it just adds a new link in AD - we used pager as this was not being used). We are now saving money each year going forward. Parents can have access to the app to look at behaviour. Students can even have their own login to check timetables. 1
mthomas08 Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 Yes, it's moderated (by you) though. It can write back the SMS message? What about messages in EduLink? I didn't know this. It was one of the reasons why our attendance office still uses InTouch. Can it be done in mass?
SouthCoastSaint Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 The way ours is set up we can't have incoming text messages. (The text company does allow you to buy an incoming number but these messages are sent to an email address with no reference to the parent sender). This is significantly different to what our attendance officers are used to in Schoolcomms where messages are shown centrally with the parent and child shown against them. As far as I am aware this would be the same even if we bought our texts from another company. The parents that use the app can reply to app messages. It's a shame as text replies are useful for less engaged parents who don't tend to use parent portals but will see and reply to a text.
RobFuller Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 Do people have any issues using the seating planner? We are have real issues with getting larger rooms to fit onto the screen and fitting all the information on? Its ok if you use a high resolution monitor. I'm pushing to rid us of SMHW and this is the last bit that isn't up to scratch for us yet that's holding the project back. Otherwise very please with the whole product and the support! 1
coolhands Posted January 30, 2020 Posted January 30, 2020 Can this be used instead of sims 'Parent' in terms of uploading pupil reports; and also can parents see pupil achievements etc if you want?
RobFuller Posted January 30, 2020 Posted January 30, 2020 Can this be used instead of sims 'Parent' in terms of uploading pupil reports; and also can parents see pupil achievements etc if you want? Yes they can
Linfit Posted January 30, 2020 Posted January 30, 2020 Can this be used instead of sims 'Parent' in terms of uploading pupil reports; and also can parents see pupil achievements etc if you want? Parents, staff and students can potentially see anything which is in linked documents - ie anything published to the document server. You can control which type of document they are able to view from the Edulink admin console, so we allow Parents and students to view individual reports. You can also make assessment data visible in a seperate area, so we have a summary table of progress monitoring in there: this updates when the aspect is updated in SIMS. We haven't done it yet, but will eventually allow parents to opt-out of recieving paper reports if they wish.
Simcfc73 Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 I've been asking for this for a while now and there may be some movement. I'm hoping it would replace our messaging service to offset the cost. I have asked them but wondered if anyone else would know Does it do MFA for staff? I'd be slightly concerned if staff were allowed to access the data on their personal devices.. especially the app. Is there a mail merge function, we send out personalised letters using our existing messaging service which picks up their admission number in sims in the document title and distributes it to parents. Are parents alerted when a new document arrives? As in if a letter is sent out.
Gongalong Posted February 28, 2020 Author Posted February 28, 2020 I've not spotted MFA. We were going to issue guidance to staff about ensuring phones/tablets were PIN locked, and not accessible by anyone else - on my iPhone at least it seems to store the login details so I can just go straight in, but there are some setttings for login timeouts (although we do have timeouts set). There are templates which allow you to mail merge fields for emails/SMS/push. Not sure offhand if it includes admission number. If parents have the app, messages will go to that (emails will also go to their email account, but SMS will only go to the app if they use it), which notifications for are enabled as per smartphone setup. You can send push messages which only go to the app/website, but that seems more staff oriented. 1
Gongalong Posted February 28, 2020 Author Posted February 28, 2020 I checked the mail merge fields, and admission number's not listed. You get the following. You can always ask if they will add it: Recipient: Title Forename First Initial Surname Full name Learner: Forename Surname Full name Form group name Form Teacher House group name Year group name he/she He/She his/her son/daughter His/Her him/her his/hers - - - Updated - - - Interested to hear what you find out about MFA!
jthompson Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 Regarding MFA, I've noticed that options for logging in using Microsoft or Google accounts have appeared. That's only available for AD-matched users and I've not tried it, so don't know any ins and outs. I'm guessing that it's possible to use one of those options and then be secured by whatever MFA you already have in place there. 1
Quatermass Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 Indeed -that's how we're hoping to do it, having just bought P1 Azure licences
Simcfc73 Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 That's the response I just got from them, they are still working on a Azure logon (been 12 months since I first asked) but the MS and Google buttons are available now for Staff and Learners. As we use MFA for google accounts and Google uses Azure to authenticate I'd hope it would MFA prompt them.
Quatermass Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 We've tested it with O365 MFA and it worked fine.
Simcfc73 Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 They also send the SMS service is a bolt on and recommended Clicksend, anyone use this? Just thinking of emergency closures etc... when a app notification isn't enough.
jthompson Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 We've just recently integrated ClickSend for SMS. Really easy to do. Our SMS traffic is going to be pretty tiny, as it's just for chasing up unauthorised absences rather than whole school notices. No reason why it shouldn't work though, as you just need to have credit on your ClickSend account. You can sign up to ClickSend and get some free credit to test things with before integrating it with EduLink (which is just a case of pasting in an API key iirc).
Gongalong Posted March 4, 2020 Author Posted March 4, 2020 Not using it in anger yet, but we found ClickSend very easy to setup and to deal with.
coolhands Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 Does anyone know if it's realistic to use this to replace SIMS Teacher App to enable PE staff to take registers on ipads etc?
supportman Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 Does anyone know if it's realistic to use this to replace SIMS Teacher App to enable PE staff to take registers on ipads etc? Yes most definitely. Far superior product than the Sims one. 1
Linfit Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 Yes, about half our staff do their registers on Edulink rather than SIMS - they often want to use their PC for lesson related stuff especially at the start. Works well in PE and Drama here. 1
pooley Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 It's just a shame it doesn't allow for taking dinner registers
synaesthesia Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 It's just a shame it doesn't allow for taking dinner registers That would appear to be quite a niche requirement, I think I'd suggest having that as a club/extra curricular.
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