[sims] Script to export PDOs for all records held in database

[EduDataPro]

I am working with a primary school who is moving away from using SIMs. The CTF files that will transfer to the new MIS are only partial data records and they don't include all historical data such as attendance data. Because of this the school should be able to access the full historical data records until 25 years from DoB (longer for SEN data). I am looking for a way of being able to access the historical data without them continuing to hold a legacy SIMs server and presumably have to pay for the license. How easy would it be to write a script to extract all users PDO reports and store them securely in accessible .DOCX format in case of any future SARs? Ideally the PDO filename would contain year of birth so they could be sorted into folders for future deletion.

[synaesthesia]

All the better MIS providers will be able to pull in all of this data, historical or otherwise - unsure why you would need anything separate. Have you spoken to the new provider?

[EduDataPro]

Thanks, I'll check with them again, I understood that not 'everything' was going to be transferred, I may have misunderstood.

[aicrd]

Also you don't need to pay for a SIMS licence to retain your SIMS server. You just won't get any updates or support from Capita ESS.

[EduDataPro]

Thanks both, useful information. I didn't know that about being allowed to continued to use SIMs without paying for a license, although there would be a cost and risk of hosting a legacy SIMs box for 10+ years and expecting it to power up in the event of needing to access historical data. In this event I was partially right about the limitations of the import. I spoke again to the new MIS provider, and they confirmed that they are using CTFs to transfer student records, and whilst it doesn't include all the raw attendance data, it does transfer a summary of historical attendance. For the purposes of GDPR and potential future SARs I consider this to be sufficient. They won't be able to confirm if child X was at school on a particular Tuesday 5 years ago, but they will be able to provide attendance percentages if required.