[sims] Contacts addresses linked to pupils

[ProjectO]

(In our first year running SIMS) we have had someone input contact addresses etc. We have realised that these are not always linked (by SIMS) to the students' address although they look the same. Is there any way to improve this without changing all addresses? and if this is needed, is there good practice to avoid this happening in the future? We are not in the UK so do not used postcodes.

[matt40k]

You've got duplicate addresses, when you enter them in future, enter part of the address and it'll search for existing records in SIMS. Would suggest you contact your support team as they're a fair amount of info on the topic.

[ProjectO]

You've got duplicate addresses, when you enter them in future, enter part of the address and it'll search for existing records in SIMS. Would suggest you contact your support team as they're a fair amount of info on the topic.

 

Thanks Matt40K - one of my challenges is that I probably know SIMS better than my (third party) support team.

 

Does anyone have views on using the address housekeeping and merge functionality to improve the match? I am reluctant to use relatively "advanced" functionality while the widespread use of SIMS is in its infancy across the school. One of my key objectives here is to build confidence... (so I could live, as a once off, with trying a manual tidy up)

[vikpaw]

Use the housekeeping routine, it will give you a report with recommendations if i recall correctly then you can manual fix. Don't let it stew into a bigger problem. We have massive issues here, and 10s of duplicates for each address, exacerbated by addresses like 'palm tree 3' and 'beyond the big green building on medina road'. True Story

 

Once you get clean, always search for an address upon entry as matt said.

 

If you're addresses aren't the same physical record in SIMS, it won't give you the little house icon next to the contacts and then it won't think they are a family and all sorts of confusion will ensue, especially when trying to link siblings.

 

Word of warning on the housekeeping, do it on the server and out of hours as i recall it tied up the system somewhat, though i've not used it for some time.

[ICTLady]

Hope it's OK to resurrect an old thread rather than start a new one.

 

We've found that we have huge numbers of duplicate contacts in SIMS, and many siblings with the same contacts entered separately for each. My suspicion is that these are loaded from the CTF (when admin staff enter contact details manually they search for existing and set up the sibling link, so it is not happening that way). Apparently there is an add-on to SIMS that will identify potential duplicates when loading the CTF but if this exists, we don't have it.

 

Does anyone else have this issue? is there any useful way around it other than cleaning the data manually?

 

Apologies if these are newbie questions, I've only been in the job a couple of weeks! Thanks for any help

[GeeHubb]

I think that what you are talking about is the CTF Matching Screen and I believe that it a separate licence applied via a Patch, though I couldn't find anything in a quick look on the Capita website. Whether it will do what you think it does I am not so sure. I think its purpose is to match a student already on roll to a specific CTF, though someone else may be able to elaborate in greater detail. I don't think it will weed out duplicate contacts.

 

The way I do it (which is no help in your current situation) is to untick the box on the CTF import screen for importing contacts and addresses. I prefer to enter those myself - in any case if the student has moved house the address will be different as will the contacts details.

[ICTLady]

Thanks GeeHubb. That sounds like the bit of SIMS that I was told about!

 

I realise I didn't ask one important part of my question. Is there any way i can see when or by whom the various contacts were added in SIMS? Do entries have any kind of timestamp? It would help me greatly in working out how this has happened if I can see when each of the many duplicates entered the system.

 

Thanks to anyone who might know

[vikpaw]

Unfortunately, there's not much in they way of auditing available. Unless it's included in part of the ctf import log.