Migrate Facility CMIS to MS Access

[PMagee]

We are about to move from Facility CMIS to SIMS. Advanced Learning have offered us a Right To Use (RTU) license for 5 years at an extortionate price.

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to export the data out of CMIS into an MS Access Database so that we don't have to pay them any more money? If necessary, I would rather pay someone to do the migration for us if it's beyond our capability.

[Ditto]

From another thread I saw @Banjo mentioned backing up Facility into an MS Access DB enabling looking up student records.

[Banjo]

From another thread I saw @Banjo mentioned backing up Facility into an MS Access DB enabling looking up student records.

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - Facility came on an Access Database by default after the conversion process from Derby.

 

Open up Facility create a new connection and point it at a blank access database. Facility will build the tables and then ask you for your licence. Restore you templates/datasets and away you go. You can then point Excel etc at the database to look at any reporting you need.

[pcstru]

We are about to move from Facility CMIS to SIMS. Advanced Learning have offered us a Right To Use (RTU) license for 5 years at an extortionate price.

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to export the data out of CMIS into an MS Access Database so that we don't have to pay them any more money? If necessary, I would rather pay someone to do the migration for us if it's beyond our capability.

 

As I understand it, there is nothing to prevent you keeping it in the MSSQL database. It is YOUR data. What you can't do is retain and use the application to access that data.

 

Whether it is in access, M$SQL, Oracle or MySQL or whatever, the schema will be the same. If you do want to convert between engines, there are programs you can buy that will do the job - I've used DBConvert products successfully although some years back. If you are competent programming in some language that can talk to both engines, it is not too difficult to use the engines dictionaries to drive a straight 1:1 migration, (YYMV if the products are (say) from different decades). You should even be able to do it using T-SQL on the MSSql server or whatever Access uses (I've always managed to avoid Access - odd).

 

The difficulty with any of that is the schema. At the database level, the CMIS schema is large and in places reasonably complex. IMO it might be more sensible to identify the data you actually want to keep and use reports from the application to export that in a way that is easily put to use (a compromise between being machine digestible and ease of understanding by people who will need to deal with in in future). That course might also be wise with GDPR looming because it leaves you in the position of knowing precisely what you have and why you have it.

[Banjo]

As I understand it, there is nothing to prevent you keeping it in the MSSQL database. It is YOUR data. What you can't do is retain and use the application to access that data.

 

Whether it is in access, M$SQL, Oracle or MySQL or whatever, the schema will be the same. If you do want to convert between engines, there are programs you can buy that will do the job - I've used DBConvert products successfully although some years back. If you are competent programming in some language that can talk to both engines, it is not too difficult to use the engines dictionaries to drive a straight 1:1 migration, (YYMV if the products are (say) from different decades). You should even be able to do it using T-SQL on the MSSql server or whatever Access uses (I've always managed to avoid Access - odd).

 

The difficulty with any of that is the schema. At the database level, the CMIS schema is large and in places reasonably complex. IMO it might be more sensible to identify the data you actually want to keep and use reports from the application to export that in a way that is easily put to use (a compromise between being machine digestible and ease of understanding by people who will need to deal with in in future). That course might also be wise with GDPR looming because it leaves you in the position of knowing precisely what you have and why you have it.

 

Facility works with both Access and MSSQL it's just a matter of backup and restore. I would also export all the core student level data to Excel files before the move.