SIMS Software and Administration Systems Support

About the Service

Lancashire County Council Education Digital Services provide a range of options to support schools that use Capita SIMS as their school's management information system. SIMS is pivotal for:

Schools' management and administration;
Assisting curriculum planning and performance monitoring;
Assisting the day to day running of the school;
Financial planning and management;
Evidencing compliance with statutory duties;
Assisting with strategic planning for the school.

Our service provides schools with the necessary support to maintain reliable access to their SIMS management information system and to ensure your school can make effective use of the software and data.

What are the benefits?

Our SIMS Support services provides your school with access to a team of SIMS support and technical staff who will provide you with:

Specialist support to help you make the best use of your SIMS system.
Technical support options to keep SIMS running efficiently.
Effective management of your business critical SIMS system.
Support services designed with security and data protection as their underlying core principles.
A service that is designed to help you minimise downtime occurrences, which could risk leading to loss of productivity.
Lancashire maintained schools subscribing to the support service also benefit from supplier management and procurement on behalf of your school, benefiting in a reduced price for Capita SIMS Annual Entitlement.

What's Included?

Service Features

Service Options

We offer four different options for SIMS Software and Administration System Support:

Support Option	Description
SIMS Managed Service	This is our premium SIMS support option and the most popular. It includes: Support for your staff in the use of your SIMS software. The highest level of support for your school's SIMS system and is the option recommended for all schools. Managed upgrades to SIMS software. It also provides support for the devices (servers, workstations and peripherals) used for access to the SIMS system.
SIMS Software Support Only	This option provides: Support for your staff in the use of your SIMS software. Managed upgrades to SIMS software. It does not provide: Technical support for the physical devices (servers, workstations and peripherals) used for access to the SIMS system.
SIMS Basic Support Only (Default where a Third Party support company restricts our access to the server where SIMS installed)	This limited option only provides: Support for your staff in the use of your SIMS software. Release of SIMS upgrades (but not managed installation). It does not provide: Technical support for the physical devices (servers, workstations and peripherals) used for access to the SIMS system. Notes: We recommend that schools encourage their third party ICT support companies to allow us to proactively access and manage SIMS, thereby allowing your school to benefit from the more cost effective SIMS Software Support option. If we are unable to use our automated or remote support tools to proactively manage SIMS, SOLUS and or our Remote Data Backup (RBUSS) it increases the demand on our updates/upgrades schedule for SOLUS, SIMS or our Remote Data Backup (RBUSS) service. Please note we will change your school's subscription to this option, where your third party ICT support company restricts our access to the server where SIMS is installed. We will notify you in advance giving one month's noice of the change of support option.
SIMS Finance (FMS) Support Only	This option provides: Support in the usage and operation of your Finance system (FMS) only and does not provide any technical support. Managed upgrades to SIMS FMS only. Please note that Capita no longer offer annual maintenance just for SIMS FMS, schools purchasing this service will need to purchase full Capita SIMS Annual Maintenance.