SIMS to Bromcom migration & Vulnerable student data

[petben]

We are just planning the SIMS to Bromcom migration and have been told by Bromcom that they only import 5 years of student data by default, with other years possible, but for a charge.

 

Legally we are required to keep vulnerable students data until they get to age 25, so that means potentially a student aged 12 comes to school, stays a term then leaves and we need to keep their data for 13 years.

 

- We don't want to import 13 years of crap into Bromcom

- Bromcom apparently can't identify and import the data of just those students (SIMS does a good job of identifying and not deleting them them though if you have ever done a data clean)

 

Bromcoms response was most school keep their SIMS server available. For 13 years, unlicensed? Surely not....

 

Thoughts?

[Aprice]

Bromcoms response was most school keep their SIMS server available. For 13 years, unlicensed? Surely not....

 

Thoughts?

 

The post I've just been reading regarding ESS's policies on sharing database backups for migrations seems to suggest that you must delete all their software upon ending your relationship with them.

 

I.E no spinning up SIMS to check something 3 months down the line. I'm surprised they haven't put some sort of activation step in so if the licence isn't valid SIMS won't run.

 

 

Quote from their migration note:

 

Provide access to the SIMS, FMS or SIMS Document Store databases, or a backup copy of these databases

to any third party at any time, nor are you permitted to retain copies (including backup copies) of the

databases or the software itself after the end date of your contract;

Edited February 1, 2024 by Aprice

[drutt]

The post I've just been reading regarding ESS's policies on sharing database backups for migrations seems to suggest that you must delete all their software upon ending your relationship with them.

 

I.E no spinning up SIMS to check something 3 months down the line. I'm surprised they haven't put some sort of activation step in so if the licence isn't valid SIMS won't run.

 

They have the eligibility key check with the newest versions, I'm honestly expecting the software to lock us out at midnight the day the licence expires.

 

https://customer.support-ess.com/csm?sys_kb_id=e9e2396b1bc685909f2142a7b04bcbe3&id=kb_article_view&sysparm_rank=2&sysparm_tsqueryId=5d0ccb731b6e09189f2142a7b04bcb1a

[Ditto]

5 years of data is too short in my view. I worked in an all through school with 6th form - that means a year 13 pupil could have 14 years of live data. Bromcom should be able t to identify the data for any context of data. This is now added to my list of procurement questions. For the pupils who have left the school and require data to be retained ,I'd suggest archive it from SIMS to another medium. Key to all this is your schools retention policy - check that it is fit for purpose and then work to the policy.

[supportman]

We did 5 years and I would definitely advise to not do any more. A clean database is important.

 

Saying that, why not just create a report in Sims and export?

 

Thats what we did with all our legacy students but have never actually used it as far as I know. It just went into an excel file for archival.

[Damon]

Historically, you had a perpetual license with SIMS so it was fine to keep a database running as long as you didn't upgrade it. However if you signed up to the 3 year direct license with ESS then you're out of luck as they removed that ability and started charging for you to run an old DB.

 

Have you checked to see what data you actually need to keep for those students? I think the ICO has a guide on that. You might just be able to run a report for those students that dumps into a few documents. Then you can securely store those in case of data access requests. Bear in mind when these requests come it's not like they need a CTF or something, it's just the information that will be sufficient.

 

When I've helped schools do this on the old SIMS Star databases for example, they just needed to confirm when the student attended the school or something like that. However, that wasn't for vulnerable students so I'm guessing there might be a bit more to keep.

Edited February 6, 2024 by Damon

[Ditto]

Historically, you had a perpetual license with SIMS so it was fine to keep a database running as long as you didn't upgrade it. However if you signed up to the 3 year direct license with ESS then you're out of luck as they removed that ability and started charging for you to run an old DB.

 

Have you checked to see what data you actually need to keep for those students? I think the ICO has a guide on that. You might just be able to run a report for those students that dumps into a few documents. Then you can securely store those in case of data access requests. Bear in mind when these requests come it's not like they need a CTF or something, it's just the information that will be sufficient.

When I've helped schools do this on the old SIMS Star databases for example, they just needed to confirm when the student attended the school or something like that. However, that wasn't for vulnerable students so I'm guessing there might be a bit more to keep.

I did wonder about the perpetual license and thought what you described would be the case. Makes a bit of a mockery of the word 'perpetual'. How explicitly does the new license invalidate the old - would be interesting to see it tested in law.

 

Presumably anyone who didn't renew could still access their data how they like, but won't get any maintenance or version updates? I doubt few are in that position. Retention needs to follow the schools policy. It's notoriously hard to pin the legal requirements, with little to no guidance from the DfE, but when it comes to safeguarding data, it can be a long time.

 

Also, lots of what should or shouldn't be kept won't be in SIMS. CPOMS and other apps come to mind, and I would be delighted to meet a school that has a water tight retention policy that is actioned to the point SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, all staff PCs, backups and more are compliant.

 

Data retention is harder than many might imagine. If you end up in part of a serious case review (Children Act 2004), you really want to be sure you have retained the right data for the right amount of time. Yet, you have to balance that against being compliant with GDPR Principle (e) Storage Limitations. Chances are that if your DPO isn't involved, well simply, they should be.

[Damon]

I did wonder about the perpetual license and thought what you described would be the case. Makes a bit of a mockery of the word 'perpetual'. How explicitly does the new license invalidate the old - would be interesting to see it tested in law.

 

I think it was a completely new license/contract because it was previously a central one held by the LA and then with the 3yr changes schools had to sign direct with ESS. The LA contracts were ended (in most cases) and schools signed new terms which 'clarified' what they meant by perpetual... Which was so nice of them. Since then they have gone one step further.

[petben]

I haven't come to any conclusion with this. I think identifying 'SEN' or 'Ever In Care' students is easy, but how do you export ALL their info, including linked documents?

[Bromcom_Darren]

Hi petben,

 

Would you like mw to get a member of the migration team to contact you? Happy for you to DM your contact details to me.

 

Thanks

Darren Moody

Community Manager

[pete]

 

Bromcoms response was most school keep their SIMS server available. For 13 years, unlicensed? Surely not....

 

Thoughts?

 

I would identify your vulnerable students and then use the Person Data Output routine (Routines > Data Out > Person Data Output) to export their data.

 

That arrives as a word document (100 pages for the average Y13 student). You'll also need to export linked documents on the pupil record. Convert those to PDF (if not already) and store.

 

The Bulk Delete Student Data Tool (Tools > Student > Bulk Delete Student Data) can show you Name, Age, SEN and EIC Status as a long list that you can filter. It won't export to anything but it'll give you an idea of affected students.

[nicholab]

EES should be discussed at them selves this is your data that you should have access to the directors have a lot to answer for! The shareholders should have taken the board to task over this issue. This is an outrageous change of of situation I am so cross there is nothing that 20k of us can do! Edited February 7, 2024 by nicholab

[Rob_D]

5 years of data is too short in my view. I worked in an all through school with 6th form - that means a year 13 pupil could have 14 years of live data. Bromcom should be able t to identify the data for any context of data. This is now added to my list of procurement questions. For the pupils who have left the school and require data to be retained ,I'd suggest archive it from SIMS to another medium. Key to all this is your schools retention policy - check that it is fit for purpose and then work to the policy.

 

I might be wrong, but when we moved it looked like we got all the data for current students and 5 years worth of historic students.

[supportman]

I might be wrong, but when we moved it looked like we got all the data for current students and 5 years worth of historic students.

 

Yes your correct, so its more like 7 + 5 years of data

 

Nobody needs more than that on a live system. We just archived the old student data into an excel report.

 

We also archived all the old Sims linked documents into a SharePoint backup. Not looked at them since!

[William1]

Just digging up this post. I have read schools not retaining the data other than what they migrated with, surely this would be wrong. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick with guidelines and if you haven't got it you can't retain it.... So just checking for schools out there migrating away from SIMS did you run a series of reports to archive all you legacy data as per your retention policy. How many reports would you have to run to export all the data you would need?

[Steve21]

Just digging up this post. I have read schools not retaining the data other than what they migrated with, surely this would be wrong. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick with guidelines and if you haven't got it you can't retain it.... So just checking for schools out there migrating away from SIMS did you run a series of reports to archive all you legacy data as per your retention policy. How many reports would you have to run to export all the data you would need?

 

We are literally just in the middle of this

 

So all leavers up to retention age that wouldn’t come across in Bromcom migration (unless you pay lots and lots extra for more years) came to nearly 5000 reports for us

 

But obviously that will depend on your school size as the larger the year groups the more you’d need

 

Steve

[petben]

I think you need to keep any SEN and In Care student data up to when they turn 25, so migrating the default 5 years (for Bromcom) will not cut it if the police come knocking one day to ask for this legally required data on a student who left 10 years ago.

 

The only way found this was possible (Capita professional services could not even offer a paid for service) was to identify them using bulk delete (showing the ones it wouldn't delete as they were 'Ever SEN' etc) and then export them individually via Routines/Data Out/Person. You can probably do this programmatically somehow.

[supportman]

Just digging up this post. I have read schools not retaining the data other than what they migrated with, surely this would be wrong. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick with guidelines and if you haven't got it you can't retain it.... So just checking for schools out there migrating away from SIMS did you run a series of reports to archive all you legacy data as per your retention policy. How many reports would you have to run to export all the data you would need?

We used Salamandersoft to export the linked documents. It was a 1 click thing.

 

The point is that you don't want to migrate everything to a new MIS database. Only the stuff you really need going forward to access on a daily basis.

 

Archiving off the 10 year old data into excel or some report is a sensible plan.

[Ditto]

We used Salamandersoft to export the linked documents. It was a 1 click thing.

 

The point is that you don't want to migrate everything to a new MIS database. Only the stuff you really need going forward to access on a daily basis.

 

Archiving off the 10 year old data into excel or some report is a sensible plan.

I fully agree on this and I think every migration I have heard about includes reference to data deletion policy. In truth, the data shouldn't be in the old system, the same GDPR rules apply! But, I realise in reality, we don't live in a perfect world.

[pete]

Bromcom will migrate additional years for a nominal cost. We require 7 years.

[William1]

Hi,

 

I am intrigued into how many sperate reports really are need to export the data. Someone said 5000 reports...?!! Did anyone get or have any SIMS reports templates that can be shared for the bulk of export. I know udf's etc will be unique to the school.