[sims] Updating student records in Bulk - NOT Bulk Update

[ICTLady]

Hope this isn't a stupid question!

 

We've got CTFs now for most of our Y9 and Y12 starters for next year. We use the information from these to mail merge an application form on which they can confirm that the information is correct, mark any changes, plus provide us with extra information, permission tick boxes etc.

 

Is there a quick way to load in changes and extra information without having to manually go through each student record? I know the Bulk Update will cover some things, and I'm looking at @matt40k 's utility for updating our UDFs, but am I missing a trick here (or several tricks maybe?!)

 

Thank you

[vikpaw]

The short answer is no.

If you used the admissions module, that would be the ideal place to import an application form if it was filled in online, but i don't even think the SIMS admissions module can do that.

[matt40k]

Currently it only imports single line of text UDFs. I've been looking at adding more as part of the next release which is pretty much a complete overhaul, but I'm losing motivation with it if I'm being honest. Is it just UDFs you want to import and what are they defined as in SIMS .net? If it's boolean \ true\false I think I can add that quickly enough and do a preview build for you.

[ICTLady]

Thanks both for your replies. Un fortunately it's one of those things that sounds really simple but isn't possible - "can't we just export the pupil data into a spreadsheet, update it, then load it back in?"

@vikpaw, importing application forms that have been filled in online is another thing I've been asked about. We don't have the application and registration module. I was wondering whether we could use the inputted data from the web form to build our own ATF files for import into SIMS. Do you know if anyone here has tried something similar?

[vikpaw]

There is no custom import facility for pupil data, so unless it's in a standard format, not gonna happen. However, @LosOjos did some work on creating a CTF from a spreadsheet, so, so long as the fields you want to update are included in the CTF specification, perhaps that would be one avenue, but i wouldn't think it's easy. Plus he's only gone and lost his files on it

 

Importing from a web form would be great, but i don't think SIMS does this, i know other software can. We don't have the full module. We just manually input all data from our forms.

[LosOjos]

As @vikpaw said, I did have a utility to make a CTF out of a spreadsheet which I'm trying to find on my HDD at the moment but I don't think that would help here. The problem is, a CTF will never overwrite data, so although they're great for adding missing data en masse, you can't use them to update existing data I'm afraid