SIMS for the New User

1. SIMS for the New User Bobby Williams Student Accounting Consultant North Carolina Public Schools (DPI) 919-807-3734 bwilliam@dpi.state.nc.us (created by: Bobby Williams) (revised by: Ann Tyndall, Diane Parsons, Bobby Williams)

2. Table of Contents • Minimum Hardware Requirements • Getting Around the SIMS Screens • Hard Drive/Network • Directories • Utilities • Calendar • Student Records • Reports • Data Builds • Tips/Pointers/Questions/Answers

3. Hardware Requirements

4. Minimum Hardware Requirements • An IBM (or fully compatible) computer, with a minimum of: • PC-DOC or MS-DOS version 3.3 or higher • 640 RAM with at least 484K free memory • 40MB hard disk with at least 20MB free space • Monochrome or Color Monitor • Parallel Printer Port • Dot Matrix Printer

5. Optional Hardware • Laser Printer (not PostScript) • Optical Scanner (NCS or Scanning Systems)

6. 2000 SIMS/Windows & XP • At this time there is NO support for SIMS running on Windows 2000 or Windows XP WIN 2000 WIN XP

7. Getting Around The SIMS Screen

8. Getting Around the SIMS Screen

9. SIMS Sign On Screen The ID and password are set up in Security. When you type any information in a SIMS field, press the enter key. Do not tab to a new field. Pressing the tab key will get you to the next field but the information you keyed in the previous field will not be saved. The school name will appear in the top middle portion of the screen.

10. SIMS Version Date F9 will cause you to leave the screen and not save the info you have entered F3 gives you a popup of available info to be used in a certain field F1 is similar to pressing the enter key to process and save the information HS Main Menu Enter your selection number or highlight the option and press enter to continue. Some SIMS screens do not have the highlight option.

11. SIMS Version Date F9 will cause you to leave the screen and not save the info you have entered F3 gives you a popup of available info to be used in a certain field F1 is similar to pressing the enter key to process and save the information Elementary Main Menu Enter your selection number or highlight the option and press enter to continue. Some SIMS screens do not have the highlight option.

12. * The top left hand corner will show you which module you are in. * The top right hand corner will show your system date. * Student Records is the option to see and enter student information. * Directories house the coding system for SIMS information. * Reports option is where you can select reports to print. * Processes modify SIMS information.

13. Indicates there is more information. Information you need to see on individual students or groups of students can be found in Student Records. The options are alphabetically listed.

14. Directories are listed alphabetically. Some directories are set up by the state but most are set up by the user. The Directory option is where directories are setup or updated.

15. Reports have been created for you to print information from SIMS. You can set up some reports with variable reports and rosters but first you will need to create the report in the directories section.

16. Processes are done to modify large amounts of information in the system at one time.

17. * To move from field to field on a SIMS screen, you must press the enter key. * To move to a previous field, you can hold down your CTRL key then hit the TAB key or you can hit your arrow up key. * To move around in the field you can right or left arrow key * The ESC key will remove information from a SIMS field. * The Num Lock must be active to key numeric data from the keypad.

18. Network or Hard Drive (C)? SIMS on a network can sometimes be bothersome, therefore we recommend doing certain processes and reports from SIMS on your local hard drive (c). Processes and reports that take a long time to complete should be run from the hard drive. Transferring student information from one school to another should be run from the hard drive. Most reports will run faster from the hard drive rather than the network.

19. Network or Hard Drive? In order to run SIMS on the Hard Drive you must have the SIMS program installed on the hard drive and named something other than “ccsmss”. After the program is installed you can copy the “I” files (data files) from your network drive to your hard drive. If “F” is your network drive and “C” is your hard drive, you will use the following command, in DOS, to copy from the network, (ccsmss), to the hard drive, (ccsmssbk): copy f:\ccsmss\*.i* c:\ccsmssbk Now your SIMS program on your hard drive is an identical match to SIMS on your network. To copy from your hard drive to your network just reverse the command: copy c:\ccsmssbk\*.i* f:\ccsmss

20. SIMS DIRECTORIES

21. INFORMATION DIRECTORIES School Information School Parameters Grade Levels Scheduling Directories

22. The “Long School Name” must have the school code at the end of the name. (The format for a Charter school is school number-000.) The date order, month format, date separator character, and the year format are your choice. The current year is the year’s data you are working in.

23. Percent credit for teaching assistants can be 0 or 100. It does not matter because we do not give credit for teaching assistants the way SIMS can. You must say yes for entering detailed or summary daily attendance. It is your choice if you say yes or no to enter detailed or summary period attendance.

24. These next two questions may look similar to the previous ones but they mean something different. The previous one means you are collecting the attendance and these refer to entering detailed attendance. Detailed means that you enter information for specific school days. If you answered the previous period attendance question with a “N” you will not see the period attendance question. The reason code you select here will be the default in your system if you do not enter a reason for a student’s absence.

25. GRADE LEVELS Only the grade levels of students that you have in your school should be in this directory. Grade levels are specific to a year. If your database is split into academic progress and scheduling years changes made from Student Scheduling are not reflected in Academic Progress and vice versa. The units refer to how many course units a student can be scheduled for.

26. In the School Information directory you will enter the demographic information of the school. For Charter schools be sure to enter the school number as “000” and the Unit number as your school number (ex: 47A). NOTE: The College Board and Accreditation may be left blank. School Information

27. Scheduling Directories

28. School Days Directory(creating the School calendar) • Creating the school calendar cannot be done until PNSY has been completed, however it is acceptable to wait until RYE has been completed. • If you create the calendar before RYE, you must create it under Student Scheduling • If you create the calendar after RYE, you can create it under Student Scheduling or Daily Attendance.

29. Directories Needed for Reporting Purposes Year/Semester Cities Personnel/Teacher Homeroom Rooms Report Periods Daily Attendance Parameters Academic Progress Parameters Months

30. Year/Semester Directory The Years/Semesters directory is mainly used to change or add descriptions of previous years and semesters. You will only add previous years when it is needed for historical data input, like historical grades for a transcript. The directory is not used to add or change current or future years unless your current school year changes the start or end date. A new year is automatically entered in the directory when you PNSY. Always use the standard format for the year (2001/02).

31. The rooms directory stores a list of all the rooms in your school by code and description along with room capacity. The system will warn you if you are putting in more students in the room than the capacity allows. The rooms directory is unique to a school year. Rooms

32. Be sure to update the experience status after the teacher’s first year with your school. You do not have to fill in the Limit field. Personnel/Teacher A 4 character code and a 16 character description identify personnel and team codes. Each team can include an unlimited number of personnel. Using a numerical code for the teacher is recommended. Source of Funds is not a required field.

33. Ethnic Category

34. Experience Status

35. Assignment

36. Homeroom The Homeroom directory stores the homerooms at your school by code and description, along with the capacity, room number and teacher. All students must be assigned to a homeroom. When a student is assigned to a homeroom, this is not the same as being assigned to a class. Therefore you still have to assign the student to a class in addition to a homeroom. In order to add a homeroom, you only need to add a new homeroom code, enter the capacity, enter the room the homeroom meets in and add the teacher assigned to the homeroom. You cannot delete a homeroom that has students assigned to it.

37. Homeroom The homeroom assignment is used to automatically assign homerooms to students using a course and section attachment. In the Student Scheduling component, you have a process called Assign Homerooms. This process is useful if you are enrolling a large number of students, or as student’s progress from year to year. If you plan to assign homerooms by course section, you must first enter the course section information in the Homerooms directory. To do this, you need to access the Homerooms directory from the Student Scheduling menu, and use the Homeroom Assignment Info option.

38. Cities The Cites directory stores a list of cities used by your school by code and description. The full name of the city and the abbreviation of the state are stored for each code. The format you will use is city:comma:space:state abbreviation (Asheville, NC). You must use this format so your addresses show correctly.

39. Daily Attendance Parameters This directory lets you choose between collecting attendance from homeroom lists or from class lists.

40. The Months directory can only be accessed through the Daily Attendance Directories menu. School Months This directory defines the number of each month, the date of the last day of the month, and the number of days for each school month. You cannot print North Carolina attendance reports unless the month you specify for the report is in the Months directory. The PMR that you send to the state reflects the number of days for the school month depending on what is in the directory. If you update your school calendar, you must update the Months directory.

41. Academic Progress Parameters Do not change the first three questions after you have answered them, changes may delete important marks information. It is your choice to say N or Y. Alternate final marks is your choice. The GPA will be the standard for the transcript.

42. Academic Progress Parameters The number of semesters, report periods, and mark types depends on what data you will be collecting and how often. Consider when you need final grades for your courses when deciding how many semesters. “Mark Type” is the “name” for your grades being collected.

43. Academic Progress Parameters These type screens will tell the system when final grades will be collected and which mark is the final grade.

44. Academic Progress Parameters You will have a screen to put in dates for each of the report periods. If your school calendar changes these dates must be updated also.

45. Academic Progress Parameters There will be a screen for each report period that you will indicate which marks are to be collected during that report period. If you do not indicate a mark to be collected you will not be able to collect it.

46. Report Periods Report periods are the grading periods. The dates for this directory are the last day of the grading period. This information will be in your system if you have set up your Academic Progress Parameters.

47. Report Periods This information will be in your system if you have set up your Academic Progress Parameters.

48. SIMS UTILITIES

49. SIMS Utilities 1 9 2 8 7 4 5 6 3

50. Backup Backups are “snapshots” of your ever-changing database and should be made on a regular basis and kept in a secure area. It is a good idea to keep a backup “off-site”, in case of building damage. Your SIMS Coordinator can assist you in setting up a backup procedure. Generations are numbered starting with “0” and ending with “11”. A prefix of SSBK and a suffix of two numbers are part of the naming system. The first two numbers indicate the generation number and the last two numbers represent the diskette number. NETWORK USERS: You cannot use this function when any other user is using the system on the network. If you attempt to access this function when others are using the system the message, “Resources Not Available” appears. Always have blank formatted diskettes on hand for use as required in a backup.