[sims] exporting timetable data with commandreporter

[JElliott242]

Hello,

 

I have been reading this forum for a number of years now and have never had the courage to actually post a question. I work in IT support employed by a Multi Academy Trust (i don't work for any other companies nor have any vested interest in any MIS related products).

 

I already think that the answer to my question is that "it can't be done with commandreporter" but I thought it was worth asking anyway. I also understand that there are a number of third party solutions out there that can do this, though I imagine that that they use the BOs or the other APIs.

 

So, we want to facilitate putting user's timetables into their exchange online calendars. I understand completely how to interface with microsoft graph, and exactly what information I want from SIMS to accomplish this, i just can't seem to get the last piece of the puzzle from CommandReporter. Also, the problem I'm having isn't really a problem at schools with a single week timetable, but those that have a 2 week timetable and understanding which Period/TimeTableDay(1Wed/2Wed) matches with a specific calendar date (well, the other way around. a list of dates and getting an understanding of what their TimeTableDay is).

 

I have successfully run reports to get term times and holidays from the diary in SIMS, so I know which days are actually school days, but i can't link those days to how they're reflected in the timetable from the "Apply Timetable" tool in the Academic Management tools.

 

I have seen vague references that this is available from Business Objects and even one or two vague references to reading directly from a view within the SQL database, but I'm not sure I want to go down either of these routes especially the "reading from DB" route, as I know it's unsupported even when just reading. We're not really averse to using business objects or other APIs, just feel a bit let down if I can't read necessary data from the usual CommandReporter source.

 

What I'm really hoping is that there is some obscure focus that I've missed in the report builder than can give me the link between an actual calendar date and the timetable day/periods that apply to it.

 

Whatever the responses I get, thank you for all the help you've given me over the years just from reading the content that's already in this forum.

 

Thank you

 

John

[bobsmith]

I used to do a lot of this with Facility CMIS where if you knew what you were doing you could get away with going straight to the SQL DB using a read only user and pull exactly what you want/need. Also the reporting tree was a bit more comprehensive...

 

I've not seen the day/week mappings in the reporting tree for SIMS so guess you would be forced to go down the API route for this.

 

Of course if you're just interested in getting the job done then salamander does this for a very reasonable amount of money.

[Meldrew]

The way I do this is i maintain my own list of which weeks are A and B. I can then calculate for any specific date if I need week A or B's timetable. Its then just a case of filtering by the Period Name you are interested in.

[JElliott242]

The way I do this is i maintain my own list of which weeks are A and B. I can then calculate for any specific date if I need week A or B's timetable. Its then just a case of filtering by the Period Name you are interested in.

Thanks for this. I had thought of doing this, and it wouldn't be much overhead now as the MAT isn't that big, but I could see it getting out of hand or forgotten about, suddenly wrong information showing up etc. not sure I could convince all of the data managers to keep it updated with changes when they are reapplying the timetable after changes.

 

Thanks for the responses though, Capita have been in touch to say that I will need to use the business objects for this.

 

Cheers,

 

John

[vikpaw]

@JElliott242 , congrats on your first post

I guess you have to weigh up using the BO against a manual solution. @Meldrew 's answer reminded me that I did present Week A / Week B on an intranet once and we just manually hard coded a few fixed start dates and then flip-flopped in between. This only works if you've got an even pattern, and no random catch-up days forced in which would break the pattern.

 

Edit: Actually, +1 for Salamander, worth the investment and saves you learning / coding with the BO, plus, for a MAT, you might find lots of other useful things they can do for you.

Edited December 9, 2019 by vikpaw