Opening the 'Import Management' screen:

• The first time that you log in to Schoolcomms as a SIMS user you will be taken directly to the Import Wizard. Follow the Import Wizard help below.
• Otherwise, select the 'Management' bar and click on the 'Import Management' icon.
• The 'Import Management' screen will be displayed. This displays a summary of recent imports and provides access to the import and related functions.
  
  
• For SIMS users, click on 'Import Wizard' and follow the Import Wizard help.
• For non SIMS schools, use the help on Import Members from CSV for non SIMS schools.

Import Wizard for SIMS users:

• The wizard starts at the Import members screen.
  
  
• Enter your SIMS log in details.

   

  NB. If you have opted to import the pre-admission students, you will need permission rights in SIMS to view admissions.

• If you have not imported your members before then you cannot skip this stage. Click 'Next'. If you wish to perform the import later, then click 'Cancel'.
• If you have imported members before, the screen shows the date of the last refresh. You can untick the box if you do not want to refresh your member and group details at this time.
  
• Click 'Next'.
• The import will run. It will import the names and groups for all your school members: students, teachers and support staff. The screen will show how many members have been imported. Click 'OK'.
  
  
• If there are members that are no longer in your SIMS database, you will be prompted to confirm them as leavers.

• If you are happy that the displayed names are leavers, tick the check box and click 'Next'.
• If you are not sure you can untick the box and continue. The proposed leavers will be shown again next time you perform a member import.
• The wizard will now show you the following screen unless you have previously imported contact details.
  
  
• You can choose how to register the contact details of your members, either by importing them from SIMS or by inviting your members and family contacts to register for themselves on the web site. Before making this choice, please read the help here on 'Choosing how to register contact details'.
• Select to run the contact import or to skip it. Click 'Next'.
• If you skip it, go to 'Creating Security letters'.
• If you choose to 'Import contact details from SIMS' you will be shown the screen below.
  
  
• The Import Contacts feature will import the following details from SIMS if your selections are as above:
  • The email address and mobile phone number for all School Members (students and adult school members) who are not already registered.
  • The Priority 1 contacts of all Students that do not already have a linked Prime Parent in Schoolcomms. Imported Priority 1 contacts will be given prime parent status.

It is important that you have informed your school members and parents that you are going to use the data collected from them for this purpose, in order to comply with the data protection regulations. Users must be informed that their details will be used for email and SMS messaging in connection with school administration and they must be offered the opportunity to opt out.

• If you are an existing school that has some web registered links and some manual links added by the school, use the flow chart here for guidance.
  
  If you need any advice please email support@schoolcomms.com or call 0844 445 7147.
• For schools that have previously created links themselves or who have web registered links, go to Management Reports. Select the report of Non-prime linked parents. Check that none of these should have been linked as prime by checking their status in SIMS. If they are Priority 1 in SIMS you may wish to change them to Prime in Schoolcomms to ensure that their details are not imported again. Use Manage school members, Linked people to edit their status.
• You can look at the report of Students with no Linked prime parents to check which students will have a Priority 1 contact imported.
• Use the Opt out function detailed below to opt out any contacts that have requested not to be contacted electronically.
• Select which details you want to import by ticking or unticking the check boxes. You can select a combination of staff, students and students' family contacts i.e. parents. Only the Priority 1 contacts in SIMS will be imported, unless you contact us. No parental contacts will be imported for students that already have a web registered or manually linked prime parent.
• Select whether you wish to import the email address and/or mobile number. The import will bring in details which are held in the email address field for 'home' or 'work' (but NOT 'other'), and the number held in the 'mobile' field for telephone contact in SIMS. This is section 4 in SIMS for the students' own details and section 5 for the parental contacts.
• Select whether to send email and/or SMS confirmations to the contacts that are imported in. We recommend that you do this unless you have already informed parents by other means that you intend to use email and SMS messaging. The confirmation messages will inform recipients how to opt out if they wish to. The messages will be sent when you click 'Next'. If you do not wish to send the notifications, untick the boxes.
• Click 'Next'. When the import completes click 'OK'.
  
  
• Our import will show you the details of any records that need to be checked because they have been queried in our validation checks.






NB. The report may show the school member to be checked, the linked person and the error type. Make the amendments to the records in SIMS and then rerun the contact import. These people’s details will then be brought in.

• If you do not have sufficient SMS text credits, the process will abort and will need to be repeated to complete the import.
• Only one confirmation will be sent to any one contact in SIMS, regardless of how many students they are associated with. This avoids duplication of confirmation messages.

Important Notes on Importing Contact details:

1. If a student has more than one Priority 1 contact in SIMS, they will all be imported.
2. If a recipient's details do not appear in Schoolcomms as linked to a school member there are a few possible explanations:
   
   • The student already has a web registered or manually linked prime parent or the school member themselves is already linked
   • The contact is not Priority 1 in SIMS
   • The contact has been flagged as opted out
   • The details in SIMS are not in the correct fields. Schoolcomms will read the student contact details from the student telephone and email section (4 in SIMS) and the parent contacts from the relevant contact in Family (5 in SIMS). Any entries that do not satisfy some basic validation tests will be ignored. Examples include a mobile number that is too short and an email address without an @ sign.
3. If a parent has their priority changed from 1 to 2 in SIMS, their details in Schoolcomms will continue to be updated unless you remove them by opting them out. Their status will be changed to non prime in Schoolcomms. If a link needs to be deleted altogether then this can only be done by removing their relationship in SIMS.
4. The contact import should be repeated regularly to keep Schoolcomms up to date with the latest details from SIMS.
5. If you repeat the contact import with, for example, email unticked, all the email details will be removed from the previously imported contacts. The default setting in Schoolcomms is for the same boxes to be ticked as in your previous import.
6. The import will not affect links created manually by the Add/Edit link screen or those who have registered through the web site.
7. Mobile numbers that are not standard UK format will need to be entered in SIMS with the full international format e.g. 33 628 123456 for a French mobile.
8. Email addresses entered in SIMS as 'Other' will not be imported. If a contact has more than one address, the first main one will be taken from 'home' and 'work'. If the parent wants to choose a particular address for messages from school then they might be better to web register for themselves, or remove the alternative address from SIMS.
9. Check the report of Queried SMS numbers to find data entry errors. This report shows numbers that have been imported that do not conform to the standard UK format. They are not necessarily wrong! They may be genuine international numbers.
10. We can set your school to import other priorities as well as Priority 1. Other priorities will be imported as non Prime in Schoolcomms. If you would like to take advantage of this facility, please contact support@schoolcomms.com.

Completing the Import Wizard:

• If you have not yet installed the Schoolcomms Licence key, the wizard will show you how to do this.
  This only needs to be done once at each school.
  
  
• Follow the instructions at 'Installing the Licence Key'.
• Click 'Finish' to close the wizard.

Import Members from CSV for non-SIMS users:

Click here for more information. 

 

Deleting leavers:

School members who were included in the last import but were not included in the most recent import are assumed to be school leavers. Schoolcomms provides a list of these suspected leavers so that the school administrator can check through it and confirm that they should all be removed from the system.

NB: If you wish to retain the attendance contact history for any of the leavers, you must first print this from the 'Contact history by student' screen before deleting them. The attendance response history can be saved by going to Management, Management reports and opening and saving the Attendance response history. This can be sorted by student and only the relevant section saved and printed if necessary. Leavers can also be deleted as part of the Import 'Wizard'.

• Click the 'Delete leavers' button on the top tool bar of the 'Import Management' screen. The following dialog will be displayed:
  
  
  
  
• Select the members that you wish to remove on the left hand side and click the 'Add' button to move them to the 'Delete' list.
• To select all members:
  • Select the member at the top of the list
  • Scroll to the bottom of the list
  • Hold down the 'Shift' key and select the member at the bottom of the list.
  • Click the 'Add' button to move the members over to the right hand side.
• To select a mixture of members:
  • Hold down the 'CTRL' key and select each member individually.
  • Click the 'Add' button to move the members over to the right hand side.
• When the right hand list contains all the members that you wish to delete, click the OK button. You will be able to remove those members remaining on the left hand side at any point in the future.