[sims] Sims and Fronter group problems

[emmaburt]

We have a problem with Fronter which we are int he process of setting up to go live next term with some year groups.

 

I think it is to do with how our timtable is set up.

 

When we import a year group of students into a room in fronter it also picks up all groups attached to that year group, however some groups have students that are in all year groups as in nova t6 i have created a derived year that contains all years groups to timetable tutor session (vertical tutoring) and afterschool activities. therefore its importing into that 'room' in fronter all students from all years when we actually only want it to pick up some years.

 

Anyone got any ideas how i might get around this isse.

[vikpaw]

Not sure how fronter / rooms work, but i would have thought it picks up the list of attached groups, not the contents of each group.

If that is the case, it's weird, but i think you'd have to speak to Fronter to resolve that particular peculiarity with your timetable. Maybe there is a way to exclude attached groups or specific groups.

[emmaburt]

Thanks Vikpaw,

 

we've spoken to Fronter who say its a sims thing. I've only just got involved as i'm the MIS manager, so Fronter is new to me also, i'm just having a play around now

 

It is very weird, it doesn't let you see the contents of the groups that have imported in, and you haven't asked it to import in any groups other than a group of students in a specific year but it seems to add in all the classes attached to that year gorup and because they are also in a derived year for afterschool and tutor time it brings them in as well.

[jdoyle]

do you or a colleague have Admin rights in Fronter to view the imported groups? You should be able to see all imported groups and the contents of those groups.

 

http://www.kingsdownschool.co.uk/images/fronter.jpg

 

Are you using Fronter's automated import mechanism?

[emmaburt]

Yes i have admin rights and can see into the sections you've pointed out, when i look there all the groups look fine.

 

However when i add members into a room and i select say year 9, when i'm looking at that room on its front page and i click members i get a list of all the students in the whole school, even though i've only added year 9 as members.

 

when i go into edit it says that there are 147 students in that year 9, which is correct, but it says there are 114 groups within year 9, which i don't think is correct but i cannot see how to find out what these groups consist of?

 

don't know if that makes any sense what so ever.

 

yes we do use the automated import from sims to fronter.

[CAM]

Have you got any other groups assigned by accident to the room? Maybe check the corridor too as it could be inheriting the extra members from higher up.

[vikpaw]

Maybe it adds all classes available as well and because of your vertical structure that becomes huge..?

[adamf]

when i go into edit it says that there are 147 students in that year 9, which is correct, but it says there are 114 groups within year 9, which i don't think is correct but i cannot see how to find out what these groups consist of?

 

don't know if that makes any sense what so ever.

 

yes we do use the automated import from sims to fronter.

 

Thats normal.... I have 324 students and 188 groups enrolled in Year 9.

 

If you scroll down past the students you will see the groups. The groups are the individual classes 9a/DT1 for example which contain the members of that class.

 

[emmaburt]

hmm ok i've found the groups within the members, thanks for that.

 

It is picking up our tutor groups as they are vertical, as i suspected. however it then adds in all the students in those tutor groups.

 

does anyone have anything similar? what i'm going to do is resign the tutor groups for the membership of a year group and see if that works, but worried that the import overnight will just add them back in?

[adamf]

I think I see what you mean..... correct me if I wrong... Our 6th form are in vertical tutor groups. There is a group for Year 13 which includes students in Year 13 but then the groups that are also enrolled in Year 13 contain students that are in Year 12?

 

I suspect that if you resign them, they will just re-import overnight.

[emmaburt]

yes that is exactly it, as we are the opposite was around so our year 12 and 13 are separate from the vertical tutor gorups in year 7-11,

 

Well, i've resigned the tutor groups from year 9 and i'll see what happens overnight.

 

If anyone can make this work permanently that would be great!

[adamf]

It might be worth logging a call with Fronter about it, but, I suspect they will say it's a problem with the data and only something Capita can fix.

[emmaburt]

yes that seems to be exaclty what they say! hence why i've ended up involved as one of the teachers involved in setting it up were saying it was the data from sims but there isn't any other way of having sims set up.

 

The network manager had a long conversation with Fronter the other day but to no avail, they just said it was a sims issue.

[jdoyle]

I suspect that if you resign them, they will just re-import overnight.

 

I think that would be the case.

[jdoyle]

Yes i have admin rights and can see into the sections you've pointed out, when i look there all the groups look fine.

 

However when i add members into a room and i select say year 9, when i'm looking at that room on its front page and i click members i get a list of all the students in the whole school, even though i've only added year 9 as members.

 

when i go into edit it says that there are 147 students in that year 9, which is correct, but it says there are 114 groups within year 9, which i don't think is correct but i cannot see how to find out what these groups consist of?

 

don't know if that makes any sense what so ever.

 

yes we do use the automated import from sims to fronter.

 

not sure I fully understand your setup but is there anyway you can setup your own Year 9 group in the Manually Created Groups corridor and add in the SIMs generated groups that meet your needs?

[emmaburt]

yeah thats a possibility, i'll wait to see what happens overnight tonight and take it from there.

 

thanks for all the advice

[vikpaw]

Sounds to me like a 'way fronter uses sims info' fault rather than a 'sims fault'. Sims is set up how you want, you can't change the timetable because their auto routine wasn't designed to handle that situation. They should thank you for finding the fault, and then fix it so they can add it to their marketing blurb, that it even handles vertical tutor groups.

[jdoyle]

Sounds to me like a 'way fronter uses sims info' fault rather than a 'sims fault'. Sims is set up how you want, you can't change the timetable because their auto routine wasn't designed to handle that situation.

 

Had a similar conversation with Fronter a while back. SIMs is the changeable part of the set up; the import routine should be able to handle whatever way SIMs is configured.

 

If a school chooses a vertical or horizontal structure, the import to Fronter should cater for this.

[emmaburt]

Well so far what i've done seems to have worked, they tutor grups haven't imported over night back into the membership of year 9 so fingers crossed i can make it work!

[adamf]

I've just done a little test. I've given our Year 13 group write access on a room and I have been able to access the room as a Year 12 student that is enrolled in the Year 13 group because of the vertical structure we use.

 

I'm going to log this with Fronter.