Identity Management Data Validation And Error Reports

If your school has NSIX accounts on our IDM (Identity management system) then you will receive account details files via Anycomms along with any pupil and staff errors. If you send in tab files from your MIS then you will receive these export files each time you send in new staff or pupil tab files. If you don't recieve export files within 2 hours of sending in your tab files then there has been an error processing your files. Please check that your tab files are in the correct format, named correctly and are the correct file type (.txt or .tab). If you believe your files are correct then please contact us and we will check what the issue is. If you are connected to our IDM via Xporter then you will receive these export files every Monday morning.  You can also request a new set of account details files via https://password.nsix.org.uk/sso/webcall.aspx .  

When our IDM synchronises staff and pupil data with your school’s MIS data ( either via Xporter or tab files ) errors can be generated.  This page provides further information about the data validation and errors which can be generated and reported in the staff and pupil error reports. If you receive staff or pupil error files via Anycomms then it is important that your review these and if you can not resolve these error then please contact us. If accounts are left in error then they will be suspended and then deleted. 

Data validation error messages

*Items with an asterix require manual intervention. Please contact ICT Solutions and request assistance if you receive these errors.

UPN (Pupils)

Pupil accounts require a valid UPN, so a pupil account will not be set up if you receive any of the following UPN errors:

• Temporary UPN (Letter at the right hand side)
• UPN Incorrect length (should be 13 characters long)
• No UPN

Teacher Code

Teacher Code is not a mandatory field. As a result, if an invalid teacher code is passed then it is ignored and an error is not reported back in the export file.

Teacher code validation rules:

Must be one of following formats:

RP12/34567

12/34567

1234567

• Other than leading ‘RP’ and ‘/’ all characters must be numeric.
• Must contain 7 digits.

Note: If an account doesn’t have a teacher number on our IDM and their surname changes then this can result in a new account being set up instead of the existing account being renamed. However, if there is a match with an existing staff account based on forename, date of birth and school affiliation but not surname then this will be reported back to the school in the form of the following error message:

Staff details matched with existing account on forename and date of birth and school affiliation but not surname - probably a surname change. Needs confirmation. 

If you receive this error message then you will need to contact ICT Solutions to confirm whether this account requires a name change.

Date of Birth

• Not a valid date of birth ( invalid date )
• Date of birth more than 100 years ago
• Date of birth cannot be in the future
• Staff must be at least 16 years of age
• Blank date of birth

DfE Number

• DFE number is blank
• *DFE does not exist in database (The DfE code is not found in our database. This may be because the school’s DfE code has changed )

Year Group (Pupils)

• Year group is too long (more than 2 digits)

Names

• Bracket found in name ( Alternative names should be stored in a different field on the MIS. Our system uses legal name and does not have the option to use a preferred name )
• Slash found in name
• Illegal character found in name, use A-Z, a-z, period, hyphen or apostrophe only
• Forename missing
• Too many characters in forename, (limit of 255)
• Surname missing
• Too many characters in surname, (limit of 255)

Role

Must be ‘Staff’ or ‘Pupil’

• Not a recognised role

Workflow Error messages

Staff only

• *Teacher number matches but different date of birth found. - If date of birth has been changed then you will need to notify us so we can update our system. 
• * Staff details matched with existing account on forename and date of birth and school affiliation but not surname - probably a surname change. Needs confirmation.  - Please contact us to report this error. If a staff member has a surname change then you will need to contact us to confirm this. 
• Cannot create a new staff user as default date of birth 01/01/1970 not accepted.  - All records on your MIS should always detail the correct date of birth. If the default date of birth 01/01/1970 is used then this will be rejected by our system. If you don't key the correct date of birth for a staff member and then correct this at a later date, this will result in an error on our system. If this error is not corrected then the staff account will eventually be suspended and then deleted. 
• *Staff name matched with existing account with date of birth=01/01/1970. Probably a date of birth correction. Need confirmation. - Some older accounts were allowed to be set up with the default date of birth of 01/01/1970. If this staff member's date of birth is then corrected to their actual date of birth then you will receive this error. Please contact ICT Solutions.
• *No match by Date of Birth Surname and Forename. Staff details matched with existing account on forename and surname and school affiliation but not date of birth - probably a date of birth change/correction. Needs confirmation.  - If date of birth has been changed then you will need to notify us so we can update our system. 
• *User details matched with existing staff account. New affiliation can not be added. Please contact ICT Solutions. - Existing staff accounts can no longer have new affiliations added if that staff member moves to a new school which also has NSIX accounts. If you receive this error then you will need to contact us to discuss the options.

Pupil only

• *UPN matches but different date of birth found - A match has been made by UPN but the account on the IDM has a different date of birth than the school MIS data. This is usually a result of the date of birth being corrected on a school's MIS. To resolve this error we will need to correct the date of birth on our system. Please contact us to report this error. 

All

• *Too many matching accounts by name and date of birth
• *Cannot create new user
• *User details matched with existing account but matched account is suspended. Please contact ICT Solutions. - If a staff or pupil's details match an existing account on our system which has been suspended then you will need to contact us to discuss the options.

If a unique match is found with an existing account on our IDM then the surname and forename are checked. If they are different a name change is carried out and the account will be allocated a new username.  The associated Google nsix email account will be allocated the new username and the previous username/email address will be set as an alias address for one month. This means that the original email address will still be valid and emails sent to that address will still be received for a month but after that time only the new address will be valid. The email account will not change, just the email address.

Name changes for staff accounts: 

For staff, if an account doesn’t have a teacher number on our IDM and their surname changes then this can result in a new account being set up instead of the existing account being renamed. This is because our system will be unable to make a unique match with the existing account based only on forename/date of birth. However, if there is a match with the staff member's current account at the school based on forename, date of birth and school affiliation then this will be reported back to the school as an error. If you receive the following error in your staff error file then you will need to contact us. If this is a known surname change then you will need to confirm this with us and we will then apply the name change to the staff member's account:  

Staff details matched with existing account on forename and date of birth and school affiliation but not surname - probably a surname change. Needs confirmation. 

If a new duplicate account is created you will need to contact us if you want to retain the original account otherwise the original account will eventually be suspended and then deleted. If an account has a name change applied to it then it will retain the same password. However, if a new duplicate account is created then this will have a new password. 

Pupil accounts:

There have been cases where the same UPN has been used for different pupils so even if there is a match on UPN the pupil’s date of birth is also checked. If the date of birth is different then the system takes no action aside from returning an error to the school: "UPN matched, but different date of birth."

Staff accounts: 

Similarly, if there is a match on teacher number but not date of birth then an error is returned and no change will be processed: “Teacher number matches but different date of birth found”