This blog follows a series of insightful articles from our staff about their day-to-day roles - see more >

Our MIS Service Desk team has provided some insight into their day-to-day work.

The MIS Service Desk supports over 300 education establishments with their MIS databases. We are currently accredited to support Arbor, ESS SIMS, IRIS Ed:gen and ScholarPack. Our expertise is from a variety of backgrounds, some have worked in schools for many years, others have come from MIS software developers before joining SBS. 

How we work

When you make a call to the service desk, our phone system hunts for an available operator. If all are engaged in calls, you will be put through to leave a voicemail, we understand how busy you are and we know how irritating it is being held in a queue!  

Your voicemail automatically creates a ticket within our ticketing system and an operator will call you back at the earliest opportunity to assist you. (Please remember to leave your name, the school name and a little information about what the issue is). 

We are available during school holidays, but as these tend to be quieter times, we take the opportunity to upskill, through self learning, reading blogs, going back over past tickets to find solutions or paired learning where someone with a particular area of expertise will train others on the team.

Our team

Jason King

Jason started working in a school as an apprentice doing IT and after completing this he then went on to work for Capita learning SIMS as a 2nd line Analyst for 5 years. Jason says:

"I enjoy the working with a variety of different people and no day is the same as the last, this keeps you on your toes. There is always something new to learn which keeps the role exciting and refreshing. It is rewarding to hear positive feedback from customers when I am able to help them resolve any of their issues, and I have made their day that bit easier." 

Dawn Holloway

Dawn has worked in the Education sector in administrative roles since leaving school, joining SBS after 16 years as an administrator in a secondary school. Dawn says:

 “The position of MIS Service Desk Assistant was a totally new experience and challenge for me, using the knowledge of SIMS that I had accrued whilst at the school. That knowledge was quite limited however and I have found that I have learnt so much more since joining the team back in 2016, in fact I am still learning as there are so many different aspects to SIMS as well as the other MIS systems that we support – every day is a school day as they say! I enjoy having a variety of issues to resolve and have built up many good relationships with our customers on the way.”

Penny Dewhurst

Penny's background is in SIMS administration for senior schools, starting as a receptionist and working her way through various back-office roles, including exams officer. Penny says:

"I’ve been with the team for 2 years now and have enjoyed building good relationships with our customers, I enjoy the challenge of looking for solutions and increasing my knowledge of the various systems we support. I find it very gratifying to be able to support our customers and to be able to help reduce their stress by finding solutions. I believe that it’s never too late to learn something new and that we should share knowledge with others which I try to do either by spending time with customers on the phone or by giving detailed instructions and screenshots by email for them to work on in their own time."

Your MIS returns and support covered throughout the year!

Our MIS Service Desk support is included in this annual subscription to cover:

• All pupil census returns (Spring, Summer, Autumn) - book by 7th January for us to do your Spring Census
• Workforce census return
• End of Year processes
• Start your subscription anytime.  Let us meet the deadlines while you focus on maximising data and improving education outcomes for your students.
• See the full package

See our full MIS support