SIMS data requirements for pre-admissions

You are able to import your pre-admissions for this year in to Schoolcomms.

To be able to do this once they have been entered into SIMS as pre-admissions you will need to tick the box in Management (Desktop version of Schoolcomms), Edit Settings to Import pre-admission students.

Once the import has been run they will be imported and as long as there is an email address entered in SIMS for the parent you will be able to email them.

To successfully import linked people and their contact details for pre-admission pupils, message contacts within Schoolcomms and for parents to access School Gateway, you will need the following data in SIMS Application found via Focus, Admission, Application search pupil:

Email addresses

In SIMS please check that:

• The email address is in section 5, Family and Home of the student's record, in the correct parent's record
• The location of the address needs to be Home or Work
• The parent needs to be priority 1 for that student, or match your import strategy if you've changed who is imported

If that all appears to be correct please check in Schoolcomms to see if the contact has been imported. To do this:

• Go to School members and groups
• Find the student in the list and single click on them to highlight them
• Click on the Linked people icon at the top of the page. This will open up a new window showing who is linked to the student
• If there is no Prime Parent, click on the New from SIMS button and select the correct parent when the window opens up. It may ask for your SIMS log in details
• If there is not an email address for a contact, highlight the correct parent and click on the SIMS update button. It will check the information in SIMS, hopefully bringing across the email address if it has not already imported it
• If there is an email address on the parent’s line, you need to check the parent has not been opted out. Select the parent’s name and the button underneath needs to say Opt out. If it says Opt in that means the parent has been opted out and you will need to confirm with them they want to receive your messages; if they do click Opt in
• If there is an email address, but the contact method does not include email, their email address may have become blocked. Please check your data issues for the parent’s name. You can find your data issues in Management | Import management, select View Data Issues from the top toolbar
• If the parent's email address is blocked, please confirm with the parent that they want to receive your messages. If they do, go back into the Linked people screen - as described above - select the parent and click Re-enable. This will unblock their email address and you will be able to send messages to them again.

Mobile numbers

In SIMS, please check that:

• The mobile number is in section 5, Family and Home of the student's record, in the correct parent's record
• The location of the mobile number is marked as Mobile
• The parent needs to be priority 1 for that student, or match your import strategy if you've changed who is imported

If all of that is correct, the next place to look is in Schoolcomms:

• Go to School members and groups
• Find the student in the list and single click on them to highlight them
• Click on the Linked people icon at the top of the page. This will open up a new window showing who is linked to the student
• If there is no Prime Parent, click on the New from SIMS button and select the correct parent when the window opens up. It may ask for your SIMS log in details
• If there is not a mobile number for a contact, highlight the correct parent and click on the SIMS update button. It will check the information in SIMS, hopefully bringing across the email address if it has not already imported it
• If there is a mobile number for the parent, you need to check the parent has not been opted out. Select the parent’s name and the button underneath needs to say Opt out. If it says Opt in that means the parent has been opted out and you will need to confirm with them they want to receive your messages; if they do click Opt in
• If there is a mobile number, but the contact method does not include text, their mobile number may have become blocked. Please check your data issues for the parent’s name. You can find your data issues in Management | Import management, select View Data Issues from the top toolbar
• If the parent's mobile number is blocked, please confirm with the parent that they want to receive your messages. If they do, go back into the Linked people screen - as described above - select the parent and click Re-enable. This will unblock their mobile number and you will be able to send messages to them again.

Please click here to access the Pre-admission FAQs.