SIMS Next Gen - It doesn't honour permissions

[David44]

We have used SIMS 7 for many years, over that time we have created custom permission groups to allow users to access the areas of SIMS and the data they require to do their jobs. We created the custom groups because we found that most of the built-in (or 'template') groups weren't right for us. All fine.

We now find that SIMS Next Gen doesn't support permissions, when deciding which areas of SIMS Next Gen that a user should have access to, it only looks at group membership and then only the template groups provided by Parent Pay.

If a teacher user is a member of the template group 'Class Teacher' then they can access SIMS Next Gen. If a teacher is a member of our custom group 'Our Class Teacher' they can not access SIMS Next Gen. This is even if the Our Class Teacher group has the exact same, or even more, permissions set.

SIMS Next Gen basically doesn't look at permissions at all. I have had this confirmed by our SSU.

Are we unique in using custom groups in SIMS 7? Do most other schools use the template groups? How are other schools getting around this?
 

[ITGuyNW]

We just use the built in permission groups in SIMS. and yeah I had that confirmed too because I had some staff who had permissions in SIMS7 not seeing it replicated in SIMSNG. 

[Bankesy]

Hi,

 

I also had it confirmed that there is a known issue with users having what appear to be the correct permissions in SIMS 7 but then getting an error in Next Gen.

 

Also had it confirmed to me about the timetable redirect not going to the person that has just been searched for in SIMS 7 as it only redirects broadly and vaguely to the timetables page as a whole in Next Gen rather than the specific user that you have just viewed in SIMS 7. So Next Gen will always show timetable of user logged in and you have to search for timetable of other user again even though you have just done that in SIMS 7 and been "redirected" 😀

Edited June 23 by Bankesy

[enbiggen]

17 minutes ago, Bankesy said:

Also had it confirmed to me about the timetable redirect not going to the person that has just been searched for in SIMS 7 as it only redirects broadly and vaguely to the timetables page as a whole in Next Gen rather than the specific user that you have just viewed in SIMS 7. So Next Gen will always show timetable of user logged in and you have to search for timetable of other user again even though you have just done that in SIMS 7 and been "redirected" 😀

 

Well, that's rubbish - I'm not sure how they could have ever thought that was okay before pushing it out: I've got a case open about this this morning - I can't even type the same pupil's name in, as it can't find them (or anyone), unless I go via Pupil Profile, find the student (by name only), then click on the link for the full timetable. If it's a know problem you'd expect them to get back - I suspect they'll leave it until 4pm, then send it, if it's anything like their normal support. (Sorry, I'm getting increasingly cynical and grumpy - and it's not even reached peak heat outside yet.)

[Boredguy]

Your support provider should have a spreadsheet of the SIMS 7 (.Net) groups and what can access what in Next gen.

I just downloaded a copy from SchoolICTS this morning to confirm with a colleague what group they needed to see timetables, and we got caught out when we initially looked to move to Next Gen back in May 25.

 

Also like everything Next Gen related, always wise to give it overnight for settings to take effect since who knows when some of the data syncs happen

[Boredguy]

1 hour ago, David44 said:

If a teacher user is a member of the template group 'Class Teacher' then they can access SIMS Next Gen. If a teacher is a member of our custom group 'Our Class Teacher' they can not access SIMS Next Gen. This is even if the Our Class Teacher group has the exact same, or even more, permissions set.
 

I'd guess they are matching based on the backend guid for the default groups rather than the granular permissions we all likely setup since a class teacher might not have needed access to everything that capita originally thought they would 15 yrs ago.

[David44]

50 minutes ago, Boredguy said:

Your support provider should have a spreadsheet of the SIMS 7 (.Net) groups and what can access what in Next gen.

I just downloaded a copy from SchoolICTS this morning to confirm with a colleague what group they needed to see timetables, and we got caught out when we initially looked to move to Next Gen back in May 25.

 

Also like everything Next Gen related, always wise to give it overnight for settings to take effect since who knows when some of the data syncs happen

I have got access to that spreadsheet ("NextGen-SIMS-Permissions_v13.xlsx") but there is no group that allows users just to see timetables, there are groups that allow users to see timetables plus some other things. Adding a user to one of those groups will give them access to the other things which they may or may not already have access to. I want to avoid giving people additional permissions just so they can see timetables that they could already see in SIMS 7. I am just not sure of the best way to do that yet.

I don't think it's possible, so my thinking now is that I will need to come up with something for SLT along the lines of "User X had access to A,B and C in SIMS 7. For them to use SIMS Next Gen we will be forced to give them access to A,B,C,D and E. Please authorise this change. GDPR? No, never heard of it."

[Boredguy]

Come on, don't go being logical that we have some users that we only want them to have access to minimal data.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't expect Bromcom and Arbor to have such granular control over access to features like SIMS.Net has due to the difference in requirement over website and client.  Think we need to start switching our mindset for SIMS Next Gen to be exactly what it is, a new product and not really a incremental update from SIMS.Net, and as such things like permissions need to be reviewed as if you moved to a new MIS completely.

 

[coolhands]

the timetable search is not working, they know about it. You have to go to print timetables and search there (or something, I've not bothered trying).

 

Our redirects are not working so even though when opening timetable in SIMS it should open in Next Gen, it doesn't it just opens in SIMS!

[howartp]

5 hours ago, David44 said:

We have used SIMS 7 for many years, over that time we have created custom permission groups to allow users to access the areas of SIMS and the data they require to do their jobs. We created the custom groups because we found that most of the built-in (or 'template') groups weren't right for us. All fine.

SIMS Next Gen basically doesn't look at permissions at all. I have had this confirmed by our SSU.

Are we unique in using custom groups in SIMS 7? Do most other schools use the template groups? How are other schools getting around this?
 

Yep, we started completely afresh in Sept 2021 with new groups based on roles, and only read-only unless you actually needed edit rights.

 

Just playing with all this right now, but at the moment none of my teachers can get into Next Gen including the ones I invited and accepted last week (so overnight shouldn't be an issue).

 

Grumble grumble

[Bromcom_John]

3 hours ago, Boredguy said:

Come on, don't go being logical that we have some users that we only want them to have access to minimal data.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't expect Bromcom and Arbor to have such granular control over access to features like SIMS.Net has due to the difference in requirement over website and client.  Think we need to start switching our mindset for SIMS Next Gen to be exactly what it is, a new product and not really a incremental update from SIMS.Net, and as such things like permissions need to be reviewed as if you moved to a new MIS completely.

 

Can't say for absolute certainty if we do or not.. but would be fascinated to know what sort of access controls you would have been expecting?
Bit unrelated to the OP, but I am still intrigued.

Edited June 23 by Bromcom_John

[Bankesy]

@howartp

 

We also use custom groups but most them are historical from before my time so I am hoping I can just get rid and go back to template groups as much as possible.

 

So far we have only seen these groups causing an issue in Next Gen with our Attendance Officer.

[browolf]

how do i stop staff from seeing other staff's personal data?

 

Edit: I think it's 1 slt who already had those permissions in SIMS and didnt realize it 

Edited June 26 by browolf

[UnsureQueen]

Can anyone help with sims? If I write a register comment but go back later and add additional information or edit the comment. Is there anyway of anyone seeing my edited comments? I want to keep it in a tight chronology I’m not sure if there’s an audit that can be ran to show edits, time stamps etc. thanks 

[David44]

I wonder if a fellow SIMS Next Gen admin can check something for me. If your sync between SIMS 7 and SIMS Next Gen fails, do you receive an email alert?

As an admin, you can see the status and enable email alerts here...

https://www.home.sims.co.uk/home/systemstatus

I wonder if anyone who has emails enabled and has had the sync fail (or purposely turned off SIMS Data Exchange Service in SIMS Service Manager) had actually received an email alert.

We had SIMS Data Exchange Service disabled all weekend and although the status on the page changed, neither myself or a colleague received an email alert. I also just disabled it for a few minutes this morning, still no email alert.

Do the email alerts work for anyone?
 

[Boredguy]

I setup our Zabbix monitoring on our servers to notify if the SSM service stops working since its likely faster than waiting for an e-mail about a sync failure. 

[David44]

We monitor the Windows Service 'SIMS Services Manager' too but that won't help if the SIMS Service 'SIMS Data Exchange Service' stops running for example. Since it's a closed system, the only way to monitor SIMS Services is via the option that ParentPay gives us, which doesn't seem to be working, for us anyway.

Has anyone ever got an alert from SIMS Next Gen to say that data syncing has failed?