Programatic data extraction from SIMS.net Data Base

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Originally Posted by MattMitchell

An uncertified agent or ZIS is not appealing, no! Essentially I was looking at SIF as a means of getting data in and out of SIMS effectively, but the SIFA website gives the impression that getting an agent certified involves joining the SIFA (costly) and paying to have the agent certified (costly) - have I got this all wrong?

Otherwise, it might be cheaper just to pay for the SIMS SQL partnership programme instead...

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Hi Matt,

I will be in a position soon to sell you MIS SIF Agent and a ZIS the can work with SIMS and CMIS. We are just waiting for some additonal ojects to be supported before doing so.

This will be a low cost alternative to the SIMS SQL partnership programme.

Just out of interest, could you post an idea of cost and what could be achieved?

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Originally Posted by PhilNeal

It will be interesting to see which of our partners select SIF for real-time access to SIMS; browser access to SIMS via SIF agents wouldn't exactly be responsive!

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SIF is not designed to used for real time access to MIS data, its design to distribute data to systems that require it.

for example a new students enroled, only their new data would be published and then any system connected could then act on it. All the other systems wouldnt need to query sims to get any new students.

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Originally Posted by PhilNeal

I'm not hopeful that in the current climate DCSF will be able to fund SIF - take a look at the estimated costs at:

https://www.sifassociation.org/uk/up...%20Summary.pdf

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I have had a look at the costs and they seem very high per schools. Is would be interesting to know how they came to this figure as they contradict themselves in regards to costs to primary schools.

The inital cost of £1600 for a MIS SIF Agent in primarys is very high, given i can get one for a few hundred. If there was a cost to access a ZIS then this would be paid to the Secondary for hosting it so would reduce there cost to the secondary as it would generate income.

The £4700 on going annual cost is very high for secondary, given that they will be generating income from the primary to support the ZIS.

If costs to schools could be reduced by 20% or increase benefits value by 26.6% £33 million will be saved.

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Originally Posted by PhilNeal

Just for the record Capita has served on the SIFA Board since it started; played a very significant role in devising the UK data model and has encouraged SIFA to address the security issues that would have been problematical in the UK. I'm pleased to say that most of our issues other than cost have been addressed.

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I have attended the last 2 SIF conferences, at the last conference Capita were proactive in helping us find a solution to a issue we found with the specification regarding timetable

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Originally Posted by penfold_99

SIF is not designed to used for real time access to MIS data, its design to distribute data to systems that require it.

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We already have a common basic data set and a common transfer file (XML ) and web standards like XML-RPC and AJAX, can someone explain to me why any system that needs access to data in a MIS could not just request an automated ctf output from the MIS to extract the data that has changed since the last output - ie. new students? It could then automatically import said data.
If the need is to write back, then the opposite could happen.
Or am I being stupid? :confused:


What about this:attached