Apple ID Changes

For your information the following has been sent to schools who have Apple ID Users

Dear customer

We wanted to share some important information with you relating to the use of Apple ID to access SIMS satellite products. 

Action required on 10th of December by your staff, parents and student using Apple ID to access SIMS satellite products.

To support the ongoing security of the Apple ID and SIMS ID integration, the way Apple ID logins work with SIMS ID is changing and staff, parents or students using Apple ID to access SIMS satellite products will need to re-activate their account.

What does the school need to do?  
This change does not impact school access so there are no actions for you to take. We will be writing directly to all Apple ID registered users, however you may have some enquiries so we hope the information below will be helpful. 

What do staff members, parents and students need to do?
Staff, parents and students using an Apple ID to log in to SIMS satellite products such as SIMS Parent or Student app, Pay360 or Options Online, will need to reactivate their account. We will be emailing all Apple ID users directly on the evening of Thursday 9th December with instructions and a link to enable them to re-activate their Apple ID.

How many users does this affect?
Approximately 3% of users register using an Apple ID. On average schools have around 10 users registered using Apple ID. In some larger schools this rises to approximately 40 Apple ID users.

Can schools see which users are affected?
Yes, a new report has been created to enable schools to view which users registered using an Apple ID. The report will be available from 7th December - to access log into SIMS ID as an administrator and go to reports (https://id.sims.co.uk/reports), the report is called 'Users with an Apple ID'. 

What can a school do if a staff member, parent or student has a problem?
If the email being sent to affected users on evening of 9th December does not arrive promptly or the user fails to re-associate successfully then there are two ways a school can help to resolve:
1. You can access SIMS ID, logged as an Administrator and advise the user of their SIMS ID username and set up a password. The user can then re-associate their Apple ID manually https://id.sims.co.uk/support/wiki/8/my-profile#Manging-third-Party-Logins
or
2. You can un-register and re-register the user following the usual process providing the staff member, parent or student with a new invitation, which will allow the user to re-associate their Apple account.

Why are we making this change?
To support the ongoing security of the Apple ID and SIMS ID integration some changes are required to our infrastructure. All existing Apple ID associations with SIMS ID will cease to work once we have implemented the changes on the evening of 9th of December, therefore Apple ID users will need to re-activate their Apple ID from 10th of December to continue to access SIMS satellite products.

We hope this information is helpful but if you, your staff or your parents have any queries, in the first instance please log a case with your usual support provider.

Kind regards

SIMS Product Team