SIMS Next Gen Setup Service

What is it?

This consultancy service is designed to help schools in the setup of Education Software Solutions' (ESS) use of their SIMS Next Gen cloud solution. SIMS Next Gen is SIMS in the cloud with new features and a new look. Teachers will be able to access the service by mobile phone, tablet or laptop.

SIMS Next Gen extracts data from SIMS hosted on your school server and makes it available in the cloud. To start your school's journey to the new cloud-based version of SIMS, you will need to on-board your school with SIMS Next Gen, which will enable teachers to take the register for their classes. When the register is saved or changed, the data is synchronised back into on premise SIMS. Users log in to SIMS Next Gen using their Microsoft 365 identity.

Why do I need it?

Included in the setup, Education Digital Services will:

Help your School Administrator setup a SIMS ID Administrator for accessing SIMS Next Gen.
Ensure only correct, current SIMS personnel data is transferred to SIMS Next Gen.
Ensure staff have SIMS logins ready for using SIMS Next Gen.
Activate relevant Data Exchange tiles in SIMS ID Launcher.
Ensure SIMS Services Manager is working and connected to SIMS Next Gen (for schools supported on our SIMS Managed Service option, this will be carried out by Education Digital Services).
Help the SIMS ID Administrator to invite teachers to use SIMS Next Gen - Take Register.
Show the SIMS ID Administrator how to link Office 365 accounts to SIMS ID accounts, adding an additional layer of security.

What are the benefits?

No more paper registers.
Teachers can take their registers with a click of a few buttons, whether it’s primaries completing statutory am/pm registers, or secondaries taking daily lessons.
Teachers can input registration directly into SIMS Next Gen which writes back to your SIMS in school within minutes.
Make registration quicker, supporting faster chase times with parents.
The consultancy session will be scheduled at a date and time convenient for your school.

What is included?

With the help of one of our School Applications Support team, our SIMS Next Gen Setup Service is designed to give school staff the peace of mind knowing the setup of the register in SIMS Next Gen is complete. As part of the consultancy, we will:

Ensure at least one School Administrator and two teachers are able to use Take Register.
Work with your SIMS ID Administrator to ensure relevant data transfers to SIMS Next Gen.
Provide documentation showing you how to add an additional SIMS ID Administrator to SIMS Next Gen.
Provide documentation showing you how to add more users, so they can use SIMS Next Gen Take Register.
Provide consultancy from a member of our Schools' Applications Team.

What is excluded?

Amendments or new requests for assistance should be commissioned separately.

What does it cost?

Log-in to find out information on our pricing.

Additional information

Is there anything I need to have in place before I can use this service?

You school will need to have SIMS operational on a SIMS server hosted within the school, a unique Microsoft 365 log-in with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled, and if your school has taken devolved admin for your Microsoft 365 tenancy or support your own tenancy, a Microsoft 365 tenancy administrator may need to be available during the course of the setup consultancy.

Pre-requisites

The latest version of SIMS needs to be installed on the schools SIMS server.
A unique school email account for each SIMS user, with MFA enabled.
Internet connection on all devices using SIMS Next Gen Take Register.
Ensure the web browsers on the devices that will use SIMS Next Gen are up to date. Supported browsers are detailed in the ESS Technical Roadmap which can be found on our website.
Add noreply@sims.co.uk to your school's email whitelist to ensure that the automatically generated system invite does not go into the Junk folder.
If your school does not purchase our SIMS Managed Service, your third-party IT company will need to allow us access to your SIMS Server, along with the SA password, to allow the setup of SIMS Services Manager.

How many consultancy hours are included as part of this service?

This consultancy is expected to take two hours. If additional hours are requested or required, extra hours will be charged at our standard Price Band B consultancy rates.