Staff FAQ

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Set up heads of subjects for behaviour referrals and grade analyses

Most staff types, such as Head of House, Form Tutor, Head of Year and Head Teacher are configured in SIMS therefore you do not need to do any extra configuration in PARS. However Heads of Subject must be setup in PARS if you wish to send behaviour referrals to them, or for Heads of Subject to perform grading analyses via PARS Connect.

Heads of Subject can be configured using the instructions on this page.

Detentions show my name, instead of the name of the person who gave the behaviour incident

Some schools have a system where one member of staff will issue a behaviour incident and refer that to another member of staff (usually a member of the office staff). The second member of staff will then issue a detention for the behaviour incident.

If you want the detention to appear as if it was given by the person who originally issued the behaviour incident, then you will need to update your preferences. Go to:
PARS main menu > System management > Preferences

Look under the detention section for a preference called "Use behaviour recorders identity when adding a detention to a behaviour". This needs to be switched on.

Email replies are going to the wrong email address

If parents reply to emails sent from PARS, the replies can go to one of two places. Go to:
PARS main menu > System management > Preferences

Look under the email section for a preference called "Reply address to user for emails sent from PARS". This is the email address that replies will be sent to.

However, there is a user permission that will override the setting above. Go to:
PARS main menu > System management > Permissions

Edit a user's permissions and look under the PARS section for a permission called "Use own email address as email reply if available". If any staff have this permission switched on then their email address (as taken from SIMS) will be used for replies for any emails they have sent themselves.

New staff logging in to PARS don't have any menu items

Your staff members need to be given permissions to access areas of the system. Go to the permissions page for more information.

How can I send notices as pop-ups?

When composing a notice via the homepage you will need to choose recipients. If you choose recipients from the "Staff" list then the message will be sent as a notice, whereas messages sent to "Users" will be sent as pop-ups.

A member of staff is not receiving pop-up messages but not notices on the homepage

This indicate an issue with the staff member's details in SIMS. Typically this is because the staff member's 'user account' is not linked to their 'person account'.

To check this, log in to SIMS and go to:
Focus > Person > Staff

Search for the staff member using their surname. If there are multiple people with the same names, open each of them to find the one with the correct timetable for the member of staff. When you have found the correct person, edit their forename slightly (for example, add the letter "x" to the end of their forename - this can be changed back later).

Next go to:
Focus > System manager > Manage users

Search for the member of staff by surname. Does their forename reflect the change you made earlier? If not, the user and person are not correctly linked. Please contact your SIMS support for help dealing with this issue.

Remember to change the staff member's forename back when you are done.

Staff who have left the school are still appearing in PARS

There is some housekeeping that needs to be done in SIMS to rectify this. First go to:
Focus > System manager > Manage users

Find the old staff members' users and either delete or deactivate them if this has not been done already. Next go to:
Focus > Person > Staff

Find the staff members and make sure that they all have a date of leaving in their employment history. Once done, the staff will no longer appear in PARS, unless they have logged in during this academic year, in which case they will disappear when the academic year ends.