SIMS: Parent not appearing on the system or not linked to children

If you have synced the data from SIMS but some students are not linked to a parent, or a parent is missing, you can follow the steps in this article to check things are set up correctly in SIMS. The most frequent reasons are that the parent does not have a title in SIMS or is not linked to all of their children.

Check that the parent is appearing under Manage Parents

Firstly, check to see if the parent exists at all on your SchoolCloud system. Go to Data > Parents and check if the parent appears on the page. If the parent is shown, click on the pencil at the side of their record and check if the student is listed under Linked Students. If the parent is not showing, or they are not linked to the student, you need to check the record in SIMS.

Check data in SIMS

1. Open SIMS and go to Focus > Person > Contacts.
2. Using the Search function access your parents record.
3. Check that the parent has a TITLE, FORENAME and SURNAME under Basic Details. Especially check that a title is present, parents without a title will not be picked up by the sync.
4. Ensure the relevant children are showing under Associated Students.
5. For each child, double click their entry in associated students then check that they:
   • Have the correct Priority.
   • Have the correct Parental Responsibility setting. The Extract Tool can be configured to pull through parents regardless of this setting using the Only Include Contacts with Parental Responsibility option on Step 3 of the tool. By default, only contacts with parental responsibility come through.
   • Have the correct Court Order setting. If the parent has court order ticked, we assume they don't have access to the child. You can pull such parents through anyway using the Include Contacts with a Court Order option on Step 3 of the SIMS Extract Tool. By default, parents must not have a court order to be pulled through.

If any of the above details are not correct, update them and click Save at the top left.

Check the sync settings and re-sync with SIMS

Once your data is correctly set up in SIMS, run another sync using the Parents Evening System SIMS Extract Tool to update the information on the system.

Under Step 3: Select Contacts, ensure to select the priorities of contacts which you wish to sync. You may choose to only sync contacts with Parental Responsibility with the Only Include Contacts with Parental Responsibility option. You may choose to include contacts with a Court Order in the sync with the Include Contacts with a Court Order option.

Once you have run the sync, again go to Data > Parents on the system to check the parent appears. To check which students they are linked to, click the edit icon (the pencil) and look under Linked Students.