SIMS FAULT : Issue with Contacts and CTFs with Pre-Admissions

Contact Matching when importing CTFs for new Admissions is broken!

Capita have discovered an issue with importing CTFs for pre-admissions that may cause some problems with your contacts. Simply put, when importing a CTF for a new pupil, going into a pre-admission group, the matching routine for Contacts is not working correctly. Ordinarily it matches Contacts to existing Contacts in your system which helps with things such as sibling links, however a problem has been found where it’s only matching against Name and Gender. This means that contacts might be being matched to other contacts with the same name and gender (for instance, John Smith, being a common name, could be affected). Not only will this combine the two contacts, it will also update the address to the new contacts address, causing further issues.

So, what do you need to do?

If you think it’s unlikely that you’ve been affected, or you can wait, then you don’t need to worry as Capita are going to be making a routine in SIMS that will help find and then fix the problem. If you think you have been affected and it could be causing you problems, then there is a patch that will fix any contacts that were incorrectly matched where they had an address. Capita are also working on a patch to fix any contacts that were incorrectly matched, where there was no address. Capita are also working on a patch that will restore the original address to the first contact, but this will only work if the school haven’t tried to fix it themselves beforehand.

What can SBS do?

At the moment there is only the first patch available, with a further 2 coming out soon. We are able to apply this patch for you if you have an SLA with us. Please let us know if you would like us to apply the first patch and/or the subsequent patches when they are released in the usual manner either by calling us on 0345 222 1551 • Option 3 or email the MIS Service Desk misservicedesk@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk

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