Troubleshooting & FAQ

"Why can't my student open Simu?" (or any app)

App access has three layers — check them in order:

1. Subscription — does your school include the app? If it's greyed out on the Apps page, it isn't in your plan; contact Simusim.
2. Role — on Apps, is the app ticked for that role (Student / Parent / Teacher)?
3. The individual — on the person's user page, the App access panel must have the app ticked. New users often need this.

"The login card prints •••• instead of a PIN"

PINs are never stored in readable form, so a card only shows the PIN within about 15 minutes of the account being created or the PIN being reset. For an older account, reset the PIN first (Users → Reset PIN on the row), then print — the card comes out complete. See PIN resets.

"A parent or student is locked out"

After repeated wrong PINs an account locks. A school admin can clear it: open the user and use the Unlock account action, or simply Reset PIN to issue a fresh one and print a new card.

"A list is empty, or a screen says to set the academic year first"

Almost always the current academic year and term aren't set. Open Settings, set Current academic year (2025/26) and Current term, and Save. Classes, gradebooks and imports all key off this. See the setup walkthrough.

"SMS announcements aren't going out"

Check, in order:

• Wallet balance — below GHS 5.00 you'll see a Low balance badge; press Request top-up.
• Quiet hours — messages composed between 21:00–07:00 are scheduled for 07:00 next morning unless you override.
• Sender ID — until your school's own sender name is approved, messages go from the shared "SimuSim" sender (that's normal, not a failure).

More in SMS & announcements.

"The term won't publish"

Two reasons. If you see "Term calendar missing", add the term in Settings → Term calendar first — that's a hard block. If it's complaining that students are missing grades, conduct or comments, that's advisory: finish what you can, then tick Publish anyway. Full flow: Report cards & publishing.

"My CSV import was rejected"

The upload step rejects files that are missing the required columns (given_name, family_name), have more than 500 rows, or are over 2 MB — and the message says which. Fix the file and re-upload. Per-row problems (e.g. an invalid phone) show on the preview step with an error you can correct. See bulk import.

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