1. SIMS Agora April Release
Employees

2. Employees
We are delighted to announce that the latest feature in SIMS Agora will allow school employees to use SIMS Agora.
Employees includes all current staff in SIMS – which includes teachers, teaching assistants and support staff.
Employees are now able to view and make top ups to their meal balance through Agora.
Schools can benefit from Employee payments from Easter 2017.
In order to benefit from this new enhancement you will need: 
SIMS Agora setup on SIMS Services Manager (SSM) - see the below newsfeed for further information. 
Have the latest SSM packages installed.
Be on the latest SIMS Spring 2017 release.

3. Why have we delivered Employees
Change requests are an integral part of delivering solutions schools need and the ability for employees to view and top up their meal balances was a key deliverable schools needed.
Employees can manage their meal balance themselves, any time anywhere, rather than just in school – streamlining administrative processes and reliance on cash.
It’s quick and easy to get employees started.
Employees will no longer need to bring in cash to pay for their meals.
Just like parents, employees will receive notifications when their balance is running low helping employees and schools stay on top of debt.
It’s yet another step towards becoming a fully cashless school.

4. Product demo

5. Inviting employees into Agora
To generate invitations on mass select Manage Invitations
Select Employees in the Admin Users tab
To generate individual invitations find the Employee member you’re after and select the Actions button - use the Search facility if this helps.

6. Generating employee invitations on mass
A list of employees who have yet to register with Agora will be listed within the Manage Employee Invitations screen – streamlining the invitation process.
We’ve introduced 2 columns to help Admins understand the current reference generated status for all users.
References can be generated in bulk for the selected users. Once generated references can be downloaded in CSV format.
We’ve introduced checkboxes to make selecting users you want to generate references for easier. Simply select or deselect the users you want – all users are selected by default.
Use Remove References to invalidate created references for selected users.
If a reference needs extending these can be extended in bulk for the selected users
The following status bar provides an overview of employee invitation states

7. Generating employee invitations for the Individual
To generate individual invitations find the staff member your after and select the Actions button - use the Search facility if this helps.

8. Generating employee invitations for the Individual
Selecting Generate Reference – this will expose the reference and expiry here. Download to CSV is also available.
Select Generate Reference.
Once an account is registered an Admin can block the employee account or unlink the account
The account and Address will be exposed once the user signs in.

9. Adding Employee Links in Agora - Registering a new account
If you’re new to Agora you’ll need to create and register an Agora account.
To do so you’ll need to navigate to and sign in with your Microsoft Account.

10. Adding Employee Links in Agora - Registering a new account
SIM Agora will ask you to register the account you have just sign in with.

11. Adding Employee Links in Agora - Registering a new account
Following selecting Register Account you’ll be taken through a wizard to confirm details.
Enter the reference you have been provided and the date of birth as specified in your employee record within SIMS and continue through the wizard.

12. Adding Employee Links to existing Agora Accounts
If the employee holds an existing Agora account for their children, they can now add themselves as Link via the Add Link feature.
Enter the employee reference you’ve been given and your date of birth. Select next and confirm your details to complete the link.

13. Employee Meal Balances in Agora
Enter an amount and add to basket just like a parent would
Just like parents do – Employees will also receive notifications if their balance is below the threshold specified by the administrator.

14. Reporting Changes to Accommodate Employees
All person centric reports will now have an Employee and Student focus (see below example)
By default All Employees and All Students will be selected representing the previous ‘Everyone’ notion.
You can modify your focus by selecting the relevant tabs you’re interested in.
Students can still be filtered by pastoral or user defined groups.

15. Summary
Employees are now able to view and make top ups to their meal balance through Agora.
It’s quick and easy to get employees started!
Employees can manage their meal balance themselves, any time anywhere, rather than just in school – streamlining administrative processes and reliance on cash

16.
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