SIMS Automatic Alerts

[tmcd35]

Hi,

 

We're about to move to SIMS starting over this half term. I'm currently looking at ways of improving our and perhaps automating how we create and manage AD useraccounts.

 

Does anyone know if their is a way for SIMS to automatically flag up to me when our admin staff add new staff or students to the database?

 

Or will I be able to generate a report of new users since the last time that report was run - and can SIMS automatically run reports, perhaps daily?

 

Thanks

[creese]

There is no flag for details entered.

 

You can run reports regularly. It takes a bit of setting up but the notes are good.

[tmcd35]

So I could set up a report to run automatically that generates a csv file of new pupils/staff added since the last time the report ran? If I can do this and know where the generated csv file would be stored I think I'd be more than halfway towards getting what I need.

[creese]

So I could set up a report to run automatically that generates a csv file of new pupils/staff added since the last time the report ran? If I can do this and know where the generated csv file would be stored I think I'd be more than halfway towards getting what I need.

 

Not that I can think of off the top of my head. You could run a simple report of 'admission dates after' and run that each day but they wouldn't be a scheduled report as the date would change.

 

The current Sims Reporting tool leaves a lot to be desired I'm afraid.

[enjay]

Don't think you can automate reports, but you can manually run a report of new users this month, or new in a given date range.

[creese]

Don't think you can automate reports, but you can manually run a report of new users this month, or new in a given date range.

 

You can automate reports.

 

Have you got access to Supportnet? Resource 12485 & 11982

[enjay]

Well, every day's a school day! Not sure I'd actually want to do this, but it could be useful.

[creese]

Well, every day's a school day! Not sure I'd actually want to do this, but it could be useful.

 

To be honest I set it up on a test database and for one Deputy in a school. No so good out of 160ish schools.

[tmcd35]

Thanks guys, I think I'm going to e-mail Capita and see if they can set up a vbs script to do what I need.

[creese]

Out of curiosity, why do you want to do this?

[tmcd35]

I want to autmate the process of creating AD user accounts.

 

At the moment,

1 - Secratery adds record to Phoenix (moving to SIMS)

2 - I find out about the new student/staff a few days down the line

3 - I export list of new users added and ftp it to county

4 - county return a list of userid's (part of their e-mail address system)

5 - I want to use the county userid as the AD user account, probably importing using Wisofts BulkADUsers

6 - An overnight sync of SIMS with Fronter *should* give the user the county userid as their Fronter logon

7 - SIMS ADP should create a tempory AD account for SLG, which the user can consolidate with the AD account generated above.

8 - I send the user either via register of pigeon hole their county userid, e-mail address,initial passwords and instructions on consolidating the two AD accounts.

 

I want to streamline this process as much as possible. If the first few steps can be automated to the point I recieve a csv file back from county that would be a great help. Reduce the reliance on two or three office staff remembering to send files and let me know about new accounts, etc.

[creese]

That makes sense. Thanks.

[penfold_99]

It's possible to automate this process if you use SIF, there are sif agents available that will create staff and student acounts. When a student is added to your it automatically send a sif message is send and the account is then create in ad by the ad agent.

[splattthecat]

Capita have an AD Provisioning Tool (I think you have to pay extra for it) which may help

[tmcd35]

We have the AD Provisioning Tool on order. It's part of the Learning Gateway. Unfortunately this only sets up tempory AD accounts to log into SLG with. The user then consilidates the temporary account with their usual AD account the first time they login to SLG. They then login to SLG with their regular AD account after that.

 

I'm trying to automate the process of getting the data out of SIMS to the LEA to generate what will be the users regular AD account logon.

 

The plan is, from next years year 7's, that the users will have thes same userID for the network, SLG, Fronter and E-mail even if the passwords end up being different (until Shibboleth is rolled out by the LEA).

[vikpaw]

Why not use the ADP process to give you the information you need. i'm sure it's there somewhere.

We are planning to use ADP to actually create the final AD accounts as it now supports our userid scheme which is merely the admission number. So we wont have to consolidate.

If you need the accounts to be in a certain form and generated by county that's fine, but you can still use the ADP as a tool to get the info you need as it should run overnight ( or more frequently) and so will give you uptodate info as you require.

If you can't get it out of ADP via the management webpage then should be a SIMS ADP report that you can run, failing that can't you query the AD to see which accounts were created and where. if there's not a log, then a compare to previous day...?

It just seems like you've already got the info you need, you just need a way to tap into it.