Search the Community

EDIT ADDED A Complete howto on setup for your org https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk8RygAHqdHfjgZ_UovEv3sNfNaYkbJIh EDIT END So I have decided to make my sheets public but before I go full blown with it I'd like to know how much interest there is in this. Each teacher makes a copy of the attendance sheet for themselves and if the main attendance sheet is updated they are notified within their copied sheet to make a new copy. This is a static version so it only updates if I manually add meet data. Our actual one updates itself every hour with the latest information. MAIN DATA SHEET https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZOE3wNXJb8Ddwrl-oFvcRMDLkTEUsnoojImTcHjnjfI/ ATTENANCE SHEET https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W1W_Y8N-C6dpfJ7pzIK2rSYNtzGsgS8CFCm5zRuXViE/

General question regardless of the MIS system you happen to be using... Any schools out there using classroom based iPADS for the capture of attendance through the day? If so, could you outline how you set them up to be optimised for ease of use and speed of taking the register? Also, how did you secure them in the classroom to ensure they didnt go walkabouts Do you use any particular software to manage them? Are they multiuser in that multiple teachers can use the same device depending on who is using the classroom? Many thanks. Answers to any or all of the above would be great

I'm new here and quite new to SIMS so I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but I just can't figure it out. We had an INSET day planned in October but it got changed to later in the academic year. The problem is, when we changed the term dates on SIMS and the code # marks were removed for the old date, it has left the in-year leavers with missing marks. They have code Z for the days before and after, as you would expect, but nothing now for that day. I have worked out how to edit their attendance, but of course I can't manually add code Z (or can I somehow?) Is there a workaround for this situation, as it can't be unheard of that term dates change? I have put in code C for now, just to stop the missing marks reporting. thank you!

Hi everyone, I have just taken on some Attendance duties at my school and have been asked to gather some attendance data on a week by week basis. The previous attendance officer was doing it manually and, with my limited knowledge of reports, there simply must be a way to design a report for this and automate it. Here is what I need: % Attendance of this week for each student % Attendance UP TO this week for each student Is this possible? Appreciate your time

Hello I'm new to the forum and new to SIMS and looking for some help. Our Sixth Form used to use Facility CMIS and our reporting was extensive and basically did whatever we want. The lower School moved to SIMS last year and we rolled over to it this September. I'd like to have a 'herringbone' report for all lessons with percentage, similar to the Registrations Certificate Report, but using the sessions/lessons, not AM/PM. Does anyone have anything like this? I'd greatly appreciate some help. Lizzie

Hi all, perhaps I'm just having a bad morning but I can't see anyway to do this. If you add the "Behaviour today" column to a register, you get shown a count of behaviour incidents for each student. Whilst this is quite useful, it would be infinitely more useful if rather than a count of incidents, it actually showed total points. Is there any way of doing that, or am I going to have to raise a CR? Please vote for my change request: CR: 1309-1214005

Hopefully somebody might be able to point me in the right direction or has a clue what I am babbling about. As a mail merge setup is too difficult for some members of our Admin team to grasp the concept of, I thought that setting up the letter template in a report for SIMs might be more useful for them. So the setup is this. The letter template is ready to roll however the data required is captured from the report found in Reports - Attendance - Selected Pupil Reports - Pupils with Chosen Code Report. Is there any way to modify this report so that it can include pupil address, the selection of a date range and specifically the code 'L' for Late. Then using this to merge the data into the predefined word template? This would save a lot of time and hassle in the fact the 2 months later I would probably need to train the users on mail merging again. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Hi all It is fair to say that I am not terribly technical but unfortunately I am now the administrator for SIMs in a small school. Currently the teachers have been given Class Teacher access and they seem to be able to edit each others marks and this has led to staff being able to change marks that I would rather they didn't! Can I restrict/change the access so that they can take the registers but not amend/edit? Your help is appreciated! :-)

Hey Edugeek, I've had a user responsible for attendance come to me to say that she entered a whole school's worth of attendance for a couple of days, but come back to it to find 50% of it missing. I'm tempted to say that it was just a failure to hit save, but has anyone ever encountered users reporting attendance just disappearing? Cheers in advance.

Feel free to point me to another post if this is already answered but we are working through a deployment of iSAMS and I need to make a recommendation on the solution to capture the attendance in the class. We will be using the iTeacher portal, so my question is moreso what you have found worked best for this in terms of - what device to use (tablet, phone, laptop)? - provided by the school or BYOD, or a device that remains in the classroom ? - does it meet the expectations of the teachers taking the attendance (ease of use)? many thanks...

Hi, I'm trying to create a report in SIMS which shows the number of achievement & behaviour points and attendance between certain dates. E.g for a term. I can design the basic report but I thought that 'effective date' might help me produce two snapshots of points. However, I get the same results no matter what effective date I use. Does anyone have a successful workaround for this? many thanks for any help Chris

Hi Everyone, I'm trying to install SIMS' Attendance module on our teachers' laptops and I'm having some problems. We have a curriculum and an admin network and I have no control over over the admin network - it's being administered by the council's ICT services. So, a while ago I asked them to setup a trust, which they did, but I can only see the share from the curriculum server but not from any of the clients. I have verified there's a two-way trust and I can ping the admin server by name. I've contacted ICT services again, but I've been put on hold and I need to sort it relatively soon. Has anyone else had this issue, or have any ideas on what to do? Is there something I could from my end? Thanks

I've been asked to try and incorporate attendance data in some marksheets for Form Tutors. Obviously I'm able to include Absence % and such, but I'd really like to be able to count, or at least make a note of, if anyone has had a late mark. Anyone done anything like this? Failing that, can I include this sort of data on additional columns within the register sheets themselves?

I started writing this as a comment to the article linked below, but it got very painful really quickly, especially with no preview, so here it is in it's own thread: OK So initial feedback from showing the BETT video (EduGeek.net - BETT 2010 - Capita and Stone Computers Demo) of the SIMS app to staff and management has been very positive and i've been doing some digging, asking some questions of my account manager (who checked some things with Groupcall) and i thought i'd share the responses for anyone that is interested. Answers have been reworded slightly. I'd like a demo on my phone to test. I was hoping for this at BETT, but it was not offered. Is it possible to try it out? -> Demo link to follow Contact your account manager for info. If i install to my personal handset then decide to leave, can it be remote disabled? -> Each device has a unique installation and can be remotely locked/disabled. Follow up: I'd like for it to auto disable if not synched for x-days. It appears from the settings the different DBs have expiration times but i think that just controls when it next synchs. At secondary pricing I'd need 28 units minimum before it's worth getting a site licence, but i only want to try it out with 1/2/5 initially, how will that work if i later add many more? [secondary: £299 1st device, £99 after that. £2995 site. Primary: £195 1st device, £99 after that. £1995 site.] -> Once a number of individual school licences reach the equivalent of the site licence, the school’s licence will automatically be upgraded to a site licence. [therefore cost is capped.] Follow up: What affect if any is there for a dual Primary/Secondary site, where most of my students are Primary (2/3). Usually new modules require installation / training, at additional cost. What is the hit? -> Training is optional since Emerge is so intuitive. Remote training can be provided if desired. On-line training materials are available and will be sent to existing customers on receipt of payment. Groupcall is in the process of creating a range of training videos I'd like the nurses to have access too. When will medical / behaviour be available? -> A number of profiles are currently available, however we can add / create bespoke profiles as requested. The additional of medical information is available now. Groupcall intends to add the facility to write back behaviour information in the next release (due April 11) Assessment information is currently under review, and we’re hopeful that it’ll be added before the new academic year (Sept 11), however this is yet to be specified or confirmed. Can one device be used with multiple logins, i.e. I can have a shared iPad for Heads of Year to use? -> Yes it is possible to set this up using the Emerge management console which will be installed for the school to manage. Any idea on timeframe for other devices i.e. Android, Nokia, etc. -> Not defined yet - but hopefully an Android app will be available in the next few months, followed by WM& and then Java. ============================ Further queries and thoughts posed: iPod Touch 4 is currently around £150 here for an 8GB. I think 3rd gen is cheaper still. Will it work on that? Is the pricing annual? Or is there an on going cost? The demo, appeared to have a limit of around 50 students on a search, but i may be wrong. When searching it finds the character / combo in any part of the name, so 'al' returns 'sally' and 'wallis'. That could be a limitation for me! Can it access UDGs so when used for a school trip all info is in one list? Any recommendations on management software to lock down usage of the devices? On this i'm thinking one of the synch charge cases / racks seen at BETT2011 would do the job. They could all be restored from backup to prevent rubbish being downloaded. Any useful apps though could be added for all. I'll be looking at other threads regarding this, as i'm sure it'll be an issue when kids get given iPads; dont want them playing Angry Birds! (Unless it's in Physics!)

Hi folks First time poster, long time follower. Has anybody come across any systems that are targeted towards managing Attendance? We've discovered one called Attend (https://attending.school/) a couple of days ago. Anyone else come across this or similar systems? We're planning to get a demo lined up, and I (perhaps more than my fellow Attendance lead!) am eager to see it in action. At a quick glance, it looks quite interesting and seems to go a step further than other solutions we've used before. I'm still in the dark about the pricing, but the features look fascinating. Any advice or insights I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions..! Thanks