[sims] bulk addition of applicants

[DNeal]

I am looking for a way of adding applicants on to SIMS quickly. I can see there have been a few threads on this with similar senarios, but I have not found the answer yet, and those threads have not had replies in a while.

 

We are a sixth form free school academy, taking applicants from many schools in the area. Applications come to us through a local online applcation system, and via our website (as we take students from across 3 local authorities). I have combined the data from the systems into an excel file to have a common format for all applications.

 

I am looking at entering some of this data into SIMS, previously this has been done one applicant at a time, directly in SIMS, but I am hoping there is a more efficient way. Having all the data in a spreadsheet I was hoping with a few tweaks I could upload it directly to SIMS, but having been given the permissions to add data into SIMS I realise this is not as straightforward as I'd hoped.

 

I would appreciate any guidance or experience anyone has to offer.

 

Thanks

 

Doug

[vikpaw]

Haven't used it for over a decade, but i vaguely recall that there was a way to build your own CTF, as that or one other file type was the only way to bulk import data.

Now, there is also the option of using the API too, but would require some programming or a third party app that supports this.

[Seb1780]

Hi Doug,

 

There's no straight forward way of doing this, it's not as easy as uploading a CSV file that some applications allow.

 

You'll have to first convert your data into an ATF file - there are standard schemas for this online. You can then use Excel's export to XML feature to generate the ATF from your data. I used this method a couple of years ago, as a last resort, and it worked but it was not perfect and a lot of data had to be added one-by-one in SIMS afterwards (particularly additional contacts).

 

Alternately, you can scour the internet for tools others have made to do this - IIRC there is a CTF tool from a guy called Mark Coyles that looked pretty good but I've not tried it yet.

 

Using ATFs means the applicants data will go into an application group where you can manage the ongoing process, removing those who withdraw etc, and it does not create the student record until you admit them.

 

If you use CTFs I think this will create the student record straight away, and you will have to delete those that withdraw etc.

 

Both these methods are free / low cost - we ended up buying Admissions+ from Applicaa to manage our enrolment processes (6th Form and Y7), this offers a lot more than just importing into SIMS though.

[DNeal]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I have had a look for the CTF tool mentioned, but am having little luck (apart from having possibly identified Marc commenting on a tool created but not the tool itself).

 

I may probe into Applicaa and see if it is something we could find room in the budget for (now there's optimism!).

[jmak]

I think this might be what people are referring to:

 

https://www.edugeek.net/showthread.php?p=1696218

 

Ahem... the last version, just found a copy: SIMSBulkImport_2.5.0.0.zip

 

 

 

Zip file contains:

 

 

 

* SIMSBulkImport_2.5.0.0.msi

 

* SHA-1: 63ec7c2af8886c34102a5a30a8e46690472e058a

 

* VirusTotal scan result

 

 

Manual_2.5.0.pdf

 

* SHA-1: 37310406d772f716a69d3febbe69fc7cc3fe8aad

 

* VirusTotal scan result

 

 

 

 

 

For some reason the MSI is not digitally signed but it is the correct version: