Sims office User Top Tips and Techniques – Primary

13. 
    From the Find Student dialog select Year 4 from the Year Group drop-down list and click the Search button. Note the other search criteria available for finding and adding pupils to a group.
    
14. 
    The pupils in year 4 are now displayed. It is possible to use the Ctrl and Shift keys to highlight a block of pupils. Use the Ctrl key to select 10 pupils, ensuring that one of the pupils selected is Amy Smith.
    
15. 
    Click the OK button.
    
16. 
    Click the Save button to complete the creation of the group.
    
17. 
    If required, click the Print button to print details of the group including the members.
    

User Defined Fields

Chapter Introduction

Although SIMS is capable of holding a wealth of data, the ability to create user defined fields provides the facility to record information in SIMS where there is currently no place to do so.

User defined fields can be added to the following areas within SIMS:

Data Domain	Data Area
School	Home School Details
	Other School Details
Person	Contact Details
	Student Details
	Applicant Details
	SEN Student Details
	Employee Details
	Agent Details
	Prospective Pupil Details
Admissions	Application
Enquiry	Enquiry

User defined fields can be created to hold a variety of different types of information including text, number (decimal or integer), date, logical (true/false) and so on.

The ability to control which panel the user defined field is to be displayed in is also provided.

There are several ways of approaching what schools actually want to record and this will be investigated in the following examples.

Step by Step – Creating a User Defined Field

Schools are required to send data collection sheets out to parents on a yearly basis to ensure that they have up to date information about their pupils. However, schools are not obliged to chase up unreturned forms.

Therefore, it may be useful to keep a note of whether a parent has returned a data collection sheet or not and there is no field for this currently in SIMS.

1. 
   Select Tools | Setups | User Defined Fields.
   
2. 
   Click the New button to create a new field.
   
3. 
   Type Data Collection Returned in the Description field.
   
4. 
   Select Date from the Field Type drop-down list.
   
5. 
   Select Person from the Data Domain drop-down list.
   
6. 
   In the Data Area field select the Student Details check box. Note that more than one data area can be selected for each field.
   
7. 
   Click the Panel column in the Student Details row, and then use the drop-down list to the right of the field to select Family/Home.
   
8. 
   Accept the default date range shown in the Data Field Details panel.
   

9. 
   Click the Save button to save the details.
   
10. 
    Click the Close button to close the User Defined Field screen.
    
11. 
    Open up a pupil record and click the hyperlink 5: Family/Home. The newly created user defined field should now be visible.
    

User defined fields can be used in reports and are particularly useful if the school is concerned that a number of parents have not returned a data collection sheet for some time. The user defined field could be used in the body of the letter to show the date the school last received a form and as a filter to select families who have not returned a form since a given date.

NOTE: To be able to see the newly created field in the reporting dictionary, log out of SIMS and back in again.

If a user defined field is selected for inclusion in a report created to find out who has not returned a data collection sheet, the data fields in the report may look like this:

NOTE: Although the field has been added into panel 5: Family/Home, the newly defined field is to be found under the user defined field heading when creating a report.

In order that the report only returns those pupils who have not yet returned their data collection sheets, it might be useful to remove any existing filters and to add the filter, as shown in the graphic displayed below.

NOTE: When defining the filter it is often useful to select the Prompt at runtime check box so the date can be changed whenever the report is run.

It might be useful to filter according to year group, selecting the Prompt at runtime check box, so that the report could be produced for the whole school or specific year groups only.

Once the filters have been added they are then listed, as shown in the graphic displayed below.

Step by Step – Creating a User Defined Field with a Lookup

This is similar to the previous example. However, rather than adding a date into the field created, the ability to select from a drop-down list of options, rather like many of the other fields in SIMS may be more appropriate.

Data collection sheets are sent out when the pupils are in each year group, so rather than storing a date, the year they were in when the data collection sheet was returned, for example, year 1 or year 2 and so on, may be more appropriate.

1. 
   To create the lookup select Tools | Lookups | Maintain.
   
2. 
   Click the New button to create a new lookup.
   
3. 
   Type Data Collection Sheet Year in the Description field.
   
4. 
   Click the New button located to the right of panel 2: Values.
   
5. 
   Enter Year N2 in the Code and Description fields, and then click the OK button.
   
6. 
   Repeat adding values up to Year 6.
   

NOTE: If the fields are added in the wrong order they can be moved by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. This is also true of any lookup in SIMS where the order may need to be changed.

7. 
   Click the Save button to save the lookup table. A message will display advising you that the change will not be available until SIMS has been closed and re-opened. Click the OK button.
   
8. 
   Close SIMS and log in again to re-start SIMS.
   
9. 
   Select Tools | Setups | User Defined Fields.
   
10. 
    Click the New button to create a new field.
    
11. 
    Type Year of Data Sheet in the Description field.
    
12. 
    Select Lookup (Single) from the Field Type drop-down list.
    
13. 
    Select Person from the Data Domain drop-down list.
    
14. 
    Select the Student check box in the Data Area(s). Remember more than one data area can be selected for each field.
    
15. 
    Click into the Panel column in the Student Details row and use the drop-down list to the right of the field to select Family/Home.
    
16. 
    From Lookup Type in the Lookup (Single) Field Values panel select the Data Collection Sheet Year lookup table.
    

NOTE: As this is a user defined field with a lookup table it is possible to add these fields to be assessment filters by selecting the Apply to Assessment Manager Filters check box.