If you're migrating from SIMS to Arbor over Easter, you've probably got some questions about how the switchover will work with your contract expiry dates. We've prepared this guide to answer some common questions.
There are 3 key dates to bear in mind when thinking about the migration from SIMS to Arbor:
- Migration Date: this is the day you'll send us your SIMS backup so we can migrate your data to Arbor
- Go Live Date: this is the first day you'll use Arbor to take attendance
- SIMS Contract Expiry Date: this is the date that your SIMS contract ends. For lots of schools, this is 31st March.
If your SIMS system is hosted on your local server, you will not lose access to it when your licence ends, though you won't receive access to patches and updates that allow SIMS to be used to submit census.
You'll be able to access the system for reference and to complete your post-migration data checks.
You should not enter any data into SIMS after your backup is taken - this will not transfer to Arbor and will need to be manually re-entered after migration.
Depending on your hosting arrangement, you may have read-only access to SIMS after the licence expires, or you may lose access altogether.
In this case, it's a good idea to contact your SIMS host to confirm what will happen when your contract expires. Your host might be a support partner or your local authority.
If the date that you lose access to SIMS (so the SIMS system is completely unavailable) is before your Migration Date, please contact:
- Your Customer Onboarding Manager (Secondary Schools and Secondary Specials)
- The Onboarding Team (Primary Schools and Primary Specials)
Preparing for the switchover
To make sure you have access to the data you need, we recommend the following contingency methods:
- Produce reports of essential student and staff data
- Produce a list of emergency guardian contacts
- Prepare paper registers for the last and first days of term, so that you have a fallback way of taking attendance
For more information about the Migration Process, including guidance on what migrates, please visit the Migration Help section of our Help Centre.
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