Linking HR Systems to SIMS 7

August 2021 (Updated Apr 24)

This article is intended to help HR providers, MATS, School Groups and LAs when planning an integration with an external HR system.

Primacy of Data?

The first large call is which system has primacy of data.  The usual driver is defining which product will produce SWC, SWAC or SSR or whichever statutory return is required. If the answer is SIMS then SIMS typically needs to be the master data source and feed HR systems, if the answer is that the HR system will produce the return then there may be no need to maintain staff contractual data in SIMS.

Further consideration needs to be given to financial planning, SIMS FMS / SIMS Finance for example uses salary information from SIMS to provide financial planning tools.  There is an alternative for FMS whereby the HR system provides a replacement file and we have documented this here.

HR Assistant

This is useful where SIMS is NOT the source of statutory returns (one exception below).  The application allows a basic import of up to 28 fields under licence (fees apply) and will update SIMS to match the data in the HR system.  It is essential that employee/payroll number and/or NI numbers are set in SIMS to ensure that correct matching occurs. The HR System then produces either an XML or a | delimited file which HR Assistant can import.  The Application will show the user the consequences of the import and invite them to confirm that these changes are correct before importing the data.  The UI is essential because importing the wrong file for say a test school would make all the staff leave and effectively need a restore from backup.

Alternatives to HR Assistant

Technical integrators are free to write their own version and use standard mechanisms to deploy and maintain the application on the customer site.   At the time of writing there were insufficient web APIs to enable TI's to implement similar functionality.  We have published various code snippets which may help with this work. Whilst some may consider the functionality of HR Assistant as limited because of the small subset of fields covered, this was a pragmatic decision to avoid the need for complex behaviour in a number of areas:

• Addresses - The staff address may be shared with pupils and other parents - SIMS would offer to move / spilt families. This requires a UI and the user to know information beyond the HR sphere.
• Contracts - Many HR systems will have different contract models which may not match SIMS. It is possible to create these in code and some TIs may have done so but it is complicated and become even more complex if data is updated in both SIMS and the HR system.

In essence, if the HR system is to be the source of truth and do the staff returns to government then it may be a moot point as to whether SIMS needs to know say marital status, religion and ethnicity because this information is usually restricted to 'Personnel Management Staff' as special category data under GDPR; so why increase the risk of it being accessed inappropriately.

It is possible to automate the data exchange based on a guarantee that the HR system is onboarded and replaces that part of SIMS.  We would recommend that the customers backed up their data before enabling the first update and scheduling it so that a rollback is practical.

Quality of Data

It is only when data in SIMS is used to drive payroll when errors are likely to be felt by the school staff.  Anecdotally, one school didn't run a staff pay promotion routine and were surprised when staff increments were not applied.  Clearly the payroll process should highlight the changes from last month and appropriate checks should identify and allow for the correction of errors.  During the onboarding process it is essential that appropriate checks and balances are made to ensure that pay is correct and experience suggests that this may take longer than might be hoped for.

Experience also suggests that there may be a gap between the 'staff' in the HR system and those in SIMS. Schools might for example create a 'Mrs New Chemistry' to enable time table planning for the next year but these won't likely be in the HR system. Other edge case may also occur and time needs to be allowed during the planning and onboarding stage to consider these.  Where the person is real and appears in a classroom, the expectation would be that they would be in the HR system to enable DBS checks and alike even if they are unpaid but some schools may view this differently. 

Help

There are some very useful APIs that were produced to provide salary data to an external payroll system which is documented in detail here. It offers details of staff over the past couple of years and their salary details.  This may be a sufficient import for other payroll systems.

Equally there are may partner and SIMS own APIs that will provide additional data for extended systems.  TIs with support are welcome to ask for assistance.  TIs without support may wish to seek consultancy or add the support option to their package. 

Planning

It is quite possible that an organisation may create a plan to onboard a payroll system for the MAT/LA/Group without engagement with the SIMS Partner Team.  Often this is done with consultants from the HR system provider or who have considerable expertise in their system.  We would recommend that a consultancy day is considered at an early stage of planning, ideally before the contract is signed.  The objective of the day would be to work out what data needs to move, which system his data supremacy and to ensure that the cost / effort the SIMS part of the integration is encompassed in the plan.

Resources

• https://www.sims-partners.com/product/SIMS7/HRAssistant
• SIMS 7 Integration
• FMS Integration with alternative sources of payroll data

Staff Absence

HR Assistant does enable staff absences to be exported / imported (subject to licence) and would replace all the absences in SIMS for a period of time specified in the import file.  This is valid even if SIMS is the source of statutory returns so long as updates are made from the HR system before the returns are generated.

Addendum (Apr 24)

Challenges of HR Integration

We now have many years of experience assisting HR integration between SIMS and external systems. Here are some of the challenges faced:

1. The first challenge is one of expectation between the school, the MIS and the HR system.  Logically, the personal details such as personal addresses, emails and phone numbers would be restricted to the HR system with the MIS only needing work phone and email (public knowledge).  it is often not how the school perceives the integration need.
2. The second major factor is matching up staff on employee / payroll number and/or NI numbers.  Some HR systems for example allow or enforce hyphens in NI numbers, SIMS however removes them and AB123456C is not the same as AB-12-34-56-C.  It is essential that these identifiers are set and checked before the first data exchange or duplication of staff will likely follow.
3. Systems define minimal data differently, some systems do not require preferred forenames but SIMS will not save a staff record without one.
4. Lookups need to match and depending on algorithms used may or may not be case sensitive.  Some systems call lookups slightly different names e.g. Illness category (SIMS) vs Absence category.  Most of the time this seems fine but we have seen Illness Category = 'Wedding' which as an absence category might make sense.  Some HR Managers are inclined to create additional absence types as and when different scenarios occur,  These then need to be added to SIMS before the data exchange completes.
5. Absences can only be added to matched staff members and the absence type must match.
6. Schools want cover absences to appear in SIMS microseconds after the save button is pressed in the HR system.  About the best that can be achieved is a sync every 5 or 6 minutes with an average data latency of 3 minutes.
7. Schools often ask for a larger data sync to include addresses, contracts et al.  Concepts such as contracts will be different in the HR system and may not be compatible with SIMS.
8. The data used to onboard an HR system often comes from the previous payroll system and not the MIS which can complicate matching.
9. Cleaning up the MIS after migration is often an afterthought. However, data such as contracts for staff that are now managed in the HR system need to be cleaned up because the data will age and become wrong over time.  Failure to clean up can impact on the data exchange.
10. On migration, aged leavers are often left in the MIS and not migrated to the HR system.  This isn't a problem but needs to be planned in advance.

None of these issues is either rocket science and can be overcome by design and a roll out processes that builds the ownership of the processes in to the customer's working practices.