jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Hi everyone! Firstly I'd just like to say I'm new to the forum so I apologise if I'm asking anything that has been posted about many times before. I'm currently part of a team developing a school meal pre-order system. As part of that system we'd like to offer schools pupil data synchronisation from their SIMS service. We're not particularly keen to enrol in the SIMS partner program as it's way off cost for us as an early stage startup. With that in mind I was wondering if anyone could provide any information regarding how to connect to, and get data from the SIMS system (eg. do we have to connect directly to the MSSQL DB with a user that has access to relevant pupil tables)? Any help, or pointers would be much appreciated!
Steve21 Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Unless you're using their proper partner info or just using an exported report you shouldn't be touching the database at all really as can invalidate support/contracts. Steve 1
LosOjos Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Sounds like you only need read access to the DB. Don't try to access the DB directly. Aside from invalidating any support contracts for your clients if something goes wrong, you're also in danger of falling foul of the SIMS licensing agreement. No problem though, there's a safe and free way to access SIMS data that comes pre-installed with every SIMS instance - CommandReporter. This is essentially a command line tool for running any SIMS report (i.e. a report built using the SIMS.net reporting engine) and capturing it's output as either CSV or XML. It also supports programmatically setting filters/parameters in XML format, though results with that have been decidedly hit and miss. Here are a few threads to get you started with that: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/66215-sims-net-reporting.html http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/83623-executing-commandreporter-scripts.html http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/119999-command-reporter-filtering-reports.html http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/86701-clr-params-string.html 1
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 Thank you both for the speedy responses! Ok I'll definitely stay away from direct access to the DB. We'll probably go down the route of creating a 'sync script' the school can run to pull out the data as XML in a format our system can handle. I'll have a read through the links provided and see the best way to go about this.
matt40k Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 @jjjonny look up GroupCall, they'll be able to help. Personally I'm not sure you've done a lot of market research into the area - it's almost like you've read an article about Universal infant free school meals and thought, hey, what about the other years? How can they pay? Thing is, this isn't a new thing. Pupils have had school meals for years and years and there are a number of established suppliers with mature products that can improve a manual cash only process. So I guess my question is, what's your unique selling point?
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 We've done extensive research into the competition. Analysis of fees for 'typical' small and large school catering companies. We're able to offer significant saving to the caters, and a better user experience for parents. Thanks for the advice though @matt40k
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 @matt40k out of interest do you work for one of our potential competitors (wisepay, parentpay, parentmail, etc)?
matt40k Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Nope. Are you aware the school buys the integration?
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 SIMS integration is a 'nice to have' not a necessity within our system. We've already been advised by SIMS that the schools can export and provide the data to us. It would just be 'cleaner' to have an export tool that ensures a consistent data structure within the exports. When you say 'Are you aware the school buys the integration?' what do you mean?
LosOjos Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Nope. Are you aware the school buys the integration? You sure? Can't see how any charge can be applied to using CommandReporter... sure, it's not live but a scheduled task can be setup to run a script to update your system as regularly as you see fit. Been doing this with my own in-house systems for years.
Steve21 Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 You sure? Can't see how any charge can be applied to using CommandReporter... sure, it's not live but a scheduled task can be setup to run a script to update your system as regularly as you see fit. Been doing this with my own in-house systems for years. I assumed he meant the "licensing" for using the commands directly in DB is paid by customer on their server, not the "product" using it. Steve
LosOjos Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 I assumed he meant the "licensing" for using the commands directly in DB is paid by customer on their server, not the "product" using it. Steve CommandReporter is included with every SIMS installation, no extra cost, therefore "the customer pays" in this instance is for the SIMS installation, which they need anyway i.e. no extra cost... Just not sure what you're getting at @matt40k?
matt40k Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Sorry, School pays catering company, not the parents. All catering company knows is they deliver 30 hot meals, 1 being veggie, no idea who it was that ate it (or didn't). School collects money from parents, if they want to accept card payments, they buy in a solution. Make sense? 1
localzuk Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Sorry, School pays catering company, not the parents. All catering company knows is they deliver 30 hot meals, 1 being veggie, no idea who it was that ate it (or didn't). School collects money from parents, if they want to accept card payments, they buy in a solution. Make sense? That's only true of schools which use a catering company. Many have in-house kitchens, like us. 1
matt40k Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Your sir are missing my point again @localzuk, my point was catering companies aren't interested in integrating with SIMS. Schools are. Which was what @jjjonny unique selling point was (I think? Maybe I'm missing the point) Just to pick a few more holes, could you do it from a DPA point of view? Also, it'll be dangerous from a catering companies point of view (beyond DPA), if you have 1 parent order, you've got to deliver a meal regardless if anyone else orders, which isn't going to be profitable, can you imagine if you couldn't get hold of them to confirm you've cancelled their order? It'll be in the front cover of the newspapers with how you left this poor child hungry despite taking the money from some hard working single mother, you'd have Jamie Oliver waiting on your doorstep waiting to take you away to feed to his mate Jimmy's pigs.
CAM Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 You only need the name, year group and picture of a child along with any allergies and FSM status. None of this needs to be written back, so SQL access might actually be overkill. An automated transfer via CommandReporter on the other hand would be fine. EDIT - I'm a DM, not a dev though soooo licencing might say no anyway.
localzuk Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Your sir are missing my point again @localzuk, my point was catering companies aren't interested in integrating with SIMS. Schools are. Which was what @jjjonny unique selling point was (I think? Maybe I'm missing the point) Ah, I see what you mean. Indeed, catering companies don't usually have any involvement in the payment aspect - that's the school's area of responsibility usually. The school then pays the catering company for however many meals or whatever were made in the day. Well, except for BSF type schools where the entire process is outsourced. Just to pick a few more holes, could you do it from a DPA point of view? The DPA is not a block to this sort of data sharing. So long as the use is notified and necessary, a school can transfer data to third party service providers. Also, it'll be dangerous from a catering companies point of view (beyond DPA), if you have 1 parent order, you've got to deliver a meal regardless if anyone else orders, which isn't going to be profitable, can you imagine if you couldn't get hold of them to confirm you've cancelled their order? It'll be in the front cover of the newspapers with how you left this poor child hungry despite taking the money from some hard working single mother, you'd have Jamie Oliver waiting on your doorstep waiting to take you away to feed to his mate Jimmy's pigs. Not really sure what your point is here. That's not how catering for schools works. Many schools already operate a "pre order" system - my last school did with their primary school kids. However, this system was done in the form "parent pays for dinner, child gets asked at registration what meal they'd like that day". Pre-ordering from home seems somewhat pointless to be honest - if you want that sort of inflexibility, you'd just offer a set meal each day.
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 @matt40k that isn't our USP (please see my previous message). Your advice is interesting, but not relevant to our system.
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 Not really sure what your point is here. That's not how catering for schools works. Many schools already operate a "pre order" system - my last school did with their primary school kids. However, this system was done in the form "parent pays for dinner, child gets asked at registration what meal they'd like that day". Pre-ordering from home seems somewhat pointless to be honest - if you want that sort of inflexibility, you'd just offer a set meal each day. I'm not sure why home ordering is 'inflexible'. From our research parents of younger children would rather be in control of what they are eating vs the pupil picking for themselves. Picking in the school is also a waste of time and resources.
localzuk Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 I'm not sure why home ordering is 'inflexible'. From our research parents of younger children would rather be in control of what they are eating vs the pupil picking for themselves. Picking in the school is also a waste of time and resources. Its inflexible as it doesn't allow for change. Parent books their meal, child is ill, meal gets made anyway because the parent doesn't cancel it and the school doesn't pass the message on that the kid is ill etc... Or, child changes their mind about what they want to eat - they can't because its set in stone by a pre-order. If you want that level of control over waste, then don't offer a choice as a canteen, like they used to do (and still do in many schools).
matt40k Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 @matt40k that isn't our USP (please see my previous message). Your advice is interesting, but not relevant to our system. Sorry, must have miss understood who your customers would be, was thinking you were aiming at catering companies. Not sure how that happened. We've done extensive research into the competition. Analysis of fees for 'typical' small and large school catering companies. We're able to offer significant saving to the caters, and a better user experience for parents. Thanks for the advice though @matt40k
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 Its inflexible as it doesn't allow for change. Parent books their meal, child is ill, meal gets made anyway because the parent doesn't cancel it and the school doesn't pass the message on that the kid is ill etc... Or, child changes their mind about what they want to eat - they can't because its set in stone by a pre-order. If you want that level of control over waste, then don't offer a choice as a canteen, like they used to do (and still do in many schools). All of the above points have been factored into our solution - but I can see why it would appear that a pre-order is potentially inflexible.
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 Sorry, must have miss understood who your customers would be, was thinking you were aiming at catering companies. Not sure how that happened. Your making very specific assumptions based on the little information I've provided about our system.
localzuk Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Your making very specific assumptions based on the little information I've provided about our system. Not really, you specifically said you'd be making savings for caterers and catering companies.
jjjonny Posted January 30, 2015 Author Posted January 30, 2015 @matt40k is saying SIMS integration would be of no interest to a catering company - I disagree. Your saying it would only be of interest if we were selling the system directly to schools? correct?
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now