Unlinked persons must be deleted from SIMS. These may be applicants, agents, pupils, employees, contacts or other individuals whose historical personal data should no longer be retained in line with school policy and GDPR guidelines. Unlinked persons could still be present because at the time of deletion, a secondary role for the individual may have existed within SIMS.

Identifying contact records which should be deleted

Run the report * Contact Records with an effective date in the new year - this will produce a list of all contacts on the system – any contact listed without linked pupils will likely be linked to a leaver

Use Focus > Person > Contacts and delete pupil links from the Associated People panel in the contact record in accordance with the school’s Data Retention Policy

Sense check remaining contacts and amend as necessary (for example Granny Smith should be recorded with a correct Forename, Mr & Mrs Smith should have separate records)

Once links to pupils have been removed, the contacts can be deleted from the system.

Select Tools | Housekeeping | Delete Unlinked Persons to display the Delete Unlinked Persons page - click Search to display unlinked records

Select the check box at the top of the left-hand column to highlight all unlinked persons records and click the Delete button and confirm
The process may take some time to complete