Importing Email Addresses into Sims.NET

[Geoff]

I've become more involved in the Sims/PARs side of things lately. I've noticed that PARs can Email Pupils/Staff about various incidents and I'd like to implement it. However to do so requries that the Email field is filled in for the Staff/Pupils in question. I'm new at this, but is there any way to bulk upload this sort stuff into Sims?

[penfold_99]

hi geoff,

The simple answer is no.
If you were able to use SIMS.net business objects to writeback SIMS.net then it's possible.

The easiest way is to ask for the parental email as part of your data collection process in september then your admin staff can update all the records in the same process.

On a side note where are you parental emails currently stored?

We are currently testing a email parent system i have created in moodle that also allows parental access.

[apeo]

So annoying I've looked into trying to import data into SIMS .Net before and the short answer is I can't.

[Geoff]

Darn. So manual data entry is the only way to do it then?

[enjay]

If you could persuade Capita to let you have a database map, you could presumably script a bulk update - doubt they'd give it up though...

[penfold_99]

If you could persuade Capita to let you have a database map, you could presumably script a bulk update - doubt they'd give it up though...

Just get them to release plain English documentation with an example on how to get data when using there business object, that would be great!! but this is even less likely than the above option

[TimH]

Just get them to release plain English documentation with an example on how to get data when using there business object, that would be great!! but this is even less likely than the above option

Coincidentally I created a supportnet ticket with SIMS on Friday 19th, asking about the rumoured "Business Objects", and received what I assume is the stock reply, that they would not want any of their customers editing the database directly.

We are a school completely new to SIMS having used an in-house system for years and I was looking at a method for getting SIMS to email (sets of) students, which our old system could do. I managed to create a report which uses Outlook to send mails, so now need to get all of the student email addresses into SIMS.

I used student email address as an example of what we want to enter but there are several other bits of data that need to be entered.

We have basic student info entered via ctf, assessment data via csv but lots of stuff has no magic method for import, we are having to do a heck of a lot of manual data entry.

If anyone know of any shortcuts to entering anything, I'd love to know - when I try to find out about such things google usually leads to the various threads on edugeek !

[matt40k]

RE: Business objects:
SIMS partners introduction - Capita Children's Services

[dhicks]

If anyone know of any shortcuts to entering anything, I'd love to know

Spare dedicated workstation dedicated to running SIMS tucked away in your server room somewhere running an AutoIt script to fake mouse moves and keyboard entries to enter data.

--
David Hicks

[TimH]

RE: Business objects:
SIMS partners introduction - Capita Children's Services

Thanks for that, trying to make contact and find out more.

Anyone, as a school, using this ("business objects")?

[webman]

Spare dedicated workstation dedicated to running SIMS tucked away in your server room somewhere running an AutoIt script to fake mouse moves and keyboard entries to enter data.

Twenty-first century educational software at its best.

[TimH]

Spare dedicated workstation dedicated to running SIMS tucked away in your server room somewhere running an AutoIt script to fake mouse moves and keyboard entries to enter data.

<Snigger> bit scary, would it really work (reliably) ?

Tim

[dhicks]

I've noticed that PARs can Email Pupils/Staff about various incidents and I'd like to implement it.

You could take the opposite approach - get SIMS to export a report about incidents, then have a script parse that report and send emails off.

--
David Hicks

[Geoff]

That doesn't work because we're using PARs. There is insufficent space allocated in the SIMS database for PARS to record all the incident data. Thus it uses it's own fields and tables. So if I do an incident export from SIMS, stuff is missing.

[localzuk]

Thanks for that, trying to make contact and find out more.

Anyone, as a school, using this ("business objects")?

I had a look at it, but decided the NDA was far too restrictive and didn't use them in the end.

I would advise looking at it from the angle mentioned by dhicks - export and use your own software to do what you want.