How we Migrate Staff Absence and Cover

The article explains the migration process for staff absence data to Arbor, noting that while staff absence data is migrated from various systems, cover requests and absence notes are not. It details how absence categories are mapped from Progresso and highlights the handling of Covid-related absences and differences in absence types between systems.

Cover requests and Absence Cover notes are not migrated into Arbor. This includes past historic cover, cover added to the previous MIS before migration and future cover requirements. This means your cover statistics will show 0.

However, we do migrate staff absence data, which may trigger cover to be required for future events.

We migrate information for staff absences and the category of staff absences from SIMS, Bromcom, Integris, Progresso, CMIS and ScholarPack.

We don't migrate Absence notes or narratives.

Please note the following can vary for a GroupCall API migrator, we are working on adding the GroupCall Migrator specifications to this guide. If you need to raise any data discrepancies post migration please contact Arbor support or your dedicated partner and we will be advised of the next steps.

Migration from Progresso

In Progresso, staff absences can be entered without a time. This will migrate to Arbor with the end time being 1 minute after the start time. You'll then need to amend the times so the staff absence duration and working days lost calculations are correct.

Progresso doesn't have a separate category for Paternity, so we've mapped to the most common (Maternity). You can change the category after migration.

Migration from ScholarPack

In ScholarPack, staff absences can be recorded in two different places:

1. From the Admin > Personnel menu and then the Manage Staff Attendance page.
2. From the Staff Profile, under the Absences section.

Absences recorded via the Manage Staff Attendance page are recorded as either an AM absence, or PM absence. These are stored in ScholarPack as multiple separate absences, so these will migrate to Arbor as individual AM / PM absences too.

Absences recorded on the Staff Profile can have a start date and end date input. Absences recorded this way will migrate as one long period of absence to Arbor.
Note that this only applies if the end date on the absence in ScholarPack was added at the time the absence was originally recorded, and not added afterwards.

Covid-related staff absence

We can only migrate the Absence category and Sickness category for staff absences. In Arbor, it is the third level (Sickness subcategory) that logs a staff absence as Covid-related. As that information isn't migrated, Covid-related staff absence will just be migrated as the generic Cold, Cough, Flu, Viral infection Sickness category. You can see how to then amend these details here.

Absence types

There may be some differences in the staff absence types available on Arbor compared to your previous MIS. For example:

• 'Release' in SIMS migrates to 'Sickness' in Arbor.
• 'Internal Duties' in SIMS migrates to 'School Activity' in Arbor.

Arbor will always try to find the closest match for any unknown absence types when migrating your staff absence data. However, you are welcome to edit the absence to manually select a category from Arbor's list - you can see how to do this here.