Sims office User Top Tips and Techniques – Primary

Process Flow for Sending Communications to Parents

Check for duplicate contacts and tidy appropriately.

Delete unlinked contacts via Tools | Housekeeping | Delete Unlinked Contacts.

Update name format to ensure correct case is used throughout all contacts via Tools | Housekeeping | General.

Consider using the mailing point update via Tools | Housekeeping | General.

Check parental addressee format via Tools | Setups | Setup Addressee format.

Update parental salutation and addressee fields (pupil record) via Routines | Student | Update Salutation/Addressee.

Ensure estranged parents requiring copies of letters have their salutation updated and correspondence selected.

Ensure letters or labels have appropriate settings for mailing point and that required labels are generated for estranged parents (not required for parental ballot).

Set main telephone numbers and create emergency contact list in Reports | Design.

Consider carefully using the overwrite option. This is useful if case changes have been made but will overwrite any manual changes.

Activity 1 – Manually Generate Contact Salutation and Addressee Details

Salutation and addressee details for individuals not living at the same address as the pupil may need to be updated, for example, the pupil’s parents have separated,

• 
  Select Poppy Fleming’s record and click hyperlink 5: Family/Home, select Poppy’s father, Mr Peter Fleming and open his contact record.
  
• 
  Click the Generate button to the right-hand side of the Salutation field and the Addressee field to update both fields.
  
• 
  So that Mr Fleming also receives communication from the school regarding Poppy, ensure that the Correspondence and Pupil Report check boxes are selected. Click the Save button followed by the OK button.
  
• 
  Check the record for Poppy’s mother. Even though her surname is now Wright, she lives at the same address as the pupil so would automatically get copies of correspondence. As a result, she would not need the Correspondence and Pupil Report check boxes to be selected.
  
• 
  Click the Save button to save any changes made.
  

Activity 2 – Globally Update Contact Salutation and Addressee Details

1. 
   Select Routines | Pupil| Update Salutation/Addressee | Contact to display the Find Contact(s) browser.
   
2. 
   Select appropriate filters to narrow down the search for the contacts whose parental salutation and addressee fields are to be updated. If no search criteria are entered all contacts become available, even if the salutation and addressee fields have already been generated.
   
3. 
   Change the filter options to Salutation Blank and Addressee Blank, and then click Search.
   
4. 
   Choose All from the Select drop-down list.
   
5. 
   Select the Update Contact Salutation, Update Contact Addressee and Overwrite any existing information for the selected contacts check boxes to overwrite existing information, including details entered manually.
   
6. 
   Click the Generate button to generate a new contact salutation and a new contact addressee, and then click Save.
   

Customising Correspondence

Chapter Introduction

SIMS contains many different ways to communicate with parents.

This chapter intends to cover some quick setup options to ensure that required data is readily available when it is needed. This may include letters for individual pupils that need to be produced quickly, or letters that are required for a group of pupils.

Step by Step – Viewing and Customising the Quick Letter Template

The Quick Letter template is designed to enable schools to be able to quickly produce a letter to the home address and contacts for a given pupil.

The letter is accessed from within a pupil record using the links on the right-hand side.

Not only will the quick letter template merge the required parental salutation and address fields in automatically, but it also prompts for the letter to be uploaded and a copy attached to the pupil, which enables the letter to be viewed in the linked documents area.

The quick letter template is customisable for each school to apply their own design.

1. 
   Open the pupil record of Rebecca Akeman.
   
2. 
   From the Links panel (located on the right-hand side of the record) click the Quick Letter hyperlink.
   
3. 
   Word is now displayed. To get the merge fields to display the data, macros need to be enabled. A security warning message at the top left of the screen, Word 2007 and 2010, is displayed. For Word 2007 click the Options button and select Enable this content; for Word 2010 click the Enable Content button.
   

NOTE: With Word 2007 and 2010 the content needs to be enabled by selecting the appropriately labelled button.

4. 
   The text ‘Edit Quick…..’ could be removed and the school address added but this would need to be repeated each time the letter was run.
   
5. 
   Click the Close button to close Word, and then click OK to the message that the document has not been uploaded to the document management server (DMS).
   
6. 
   Select Start | (My) Computer, and then browse to C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS.net.
   
7. 
   Within the folder find the file QuickLetterTemplate.
   

NOTE: If the school uses Office 2010 (64-bit edition only) the original QuickLetterTemplate.doc will need to be renamed to QuickLetterTemplateOld.doc, and the QuickLetterTemplate-Office2010.doc renamed to QuickLetterTemplate.doc before making amendments to the layout.

8. 
   Double-click the file to open it.
   
9. 
   Macros do not need to be enabled when editing this document. This file can now be edited. Remove the paragraph top-right.
   

NOTE: While in this example a letterhead is being created, schools are much more likely to copy the content of their existing letterhead into the QuickLetterTemplate document. Alternatively if schools print letters onto pre-printed stationery the template will still need to be adjusted to have enough space for the heading of the stationery.

10. 
    Select Insert | Table and insert a table containing two columns and one row.
    
11. 
    In the left column add the school address; Havelock Road Junior Department, Wolverton, East Town, Eastshire S13 7ND.
    
12. 
    Click the right-hand column and add in a graphic by selecting Insert | Clip Art. Search for a suitable picture using the search facility in the panel on the right-hand side of the screen, or if a copy of the school logo is available select Insert | Picture and navigate to the location of the logo.
    
13. 
    Save the document using Office Button | Save (2007) or File | Save As (2003 and 2010).
    
14. 
    Repeat steps 1-3 to run the quick letter for Hannah Abbot.
    
15. 
    The quick letter displays using the new template.
    

16. 
    Add in a line of text in the letter, and then click the Add-Ins tab and click the Quick Letter Save and Close button.
    

17. 
    The Summary and Notes field now displayed is available for editing to include more detailed information about the letter if required.
    
18. 
    Click the OK button to confirm that the letter is to be saved and uploaded to the Document Management Server (DMS).
    
19. 
    Click the OK button when a message is displayed stating that the quick letter has been successfully uploaded.
    
20. 
    If time permits, view the letter using the Linked Documents area to see letters, notes and other documents that may be stored against the pupil.
    

NOTE: It is important to note that the template file is held locally on each workstation. Once the file has been edited on one workstation it may be an idea to copy and replace this to the same location on any other workstations that may require it.

Step by Step – Creating a User Defined Group

SIMS holds many different groups of pupils such as year groups, registration groups and houses. However, it may be useful to group pupils together based on criteria that are not already held on the SIMS system such as pupils going on a school trip.

The group can be allocated a supervisor and can contain other people that exist in SIMS including teachers and parents.

Once defined and members have been allocated, reports can be produced and the group can be available to other software modules such as Examinations Organiser, Attendance or Assessment. It can be particularly useful for monitoring particular categories such as frequently late.

In addition groups can be defined specifically for Profiles and Assessment. Any groups configured for analysis within Discover can also be searched for and current group membership viewed.

1. 
   Select Focus | Groups | User Defined Groups.
   
2. 
   Click the New button to create a new group.
   
3. 
   Type Year 4 Stoke Bruerne Canal Trip in the Group Description field.
   
4. 
   Type Yr4 STCT in the Short Name field and make the group Active.
   
5. 
   Click the field browser (magnifying glass) button to the right of the Current Main Supervisor field.
   

6. 
   Select Action | Add Supervisor. Type Lester in the Surname field, accept the Role default of Employee, and then click the Search button.
   

NOTE: Additional members of staff or parent helpers can also be allocated at this stage by clicking the role drop-down list and selecting a different category of person, although there can only be one main supervisor.

7. 
   Select Mrs Sabina Lester, and then click the OK button.
   
8. 
   Select Main Supervisor from the Supervisor Title drop-down list when prompted, click the OK button. Click the OK button again to confirm the supervisor.
   

NOTE: The default date range is the whole academic year which can be edited if required.

9. 
   The Notes area is useful for including specific information about the trip for others to access, particularly if there are any queries from the parents. For example, parents may wish to know what pupils might need to take with them and what time they are being collected and returned.
   

10. 
    If further analysis is required for the newly defined group, click the Include in Discover check box.
    

NOTE: Discover enables graphical analysis of pupils that cross over a number of selected criteria. If required a dynamic group can be created to keep track of pupils that fall in and out of that selected criteria. These will be visible in SIMS under the user defined group area Discover groups. Equally groups created in SIMS can also be used in Discover.

11. 
    The Membership panel is where the pupils who are going on the school trip are added. Once again the effective date range defaults to the whole year but can be changed if required.
    

NOTE: If the date range is to be changed to reflect group membership for a specific period, it is important to do this before making the selection of the pupils as it cannot be globally amended for all pupils once names are added to the list.

12. 
    Click the Action button and select Add Student from the menu displayed.
    

NOTE: Selecting add member enables other people to be added to the list according to their role, which defaults to student, but provides the option to select contacts, employees and so on. In addition, it is also possible to select members according to other groups to which they may belong, for example, membership of an assessment user defined group.