Bromcom > Moving documents from SIMS to Bromcom

[garethEds]

Dueing our move to Bromcom from SIMS, we wondered whether our linked documents - such as previous years reports would come over as part of the migration and link to the Pupil record in Bromcom. This hasn't happened. Documents are referenced as having being created, but they are not linked to the pupil.

 

Has anyone managed to export - for example - all Year 11 reports last year and then import them in bulk to Bromcom with them linking to the correct pupil?

 

I'd love to hear from you

[DrCheese]

Hello,

 

Unfortunately there's no way for them to come across but you can export them all to folders using the Salamander document exporter

 

https://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/products/ess-sims-student-document-exporter/

 

You would then need to manually readd them at least, but it gets you part of the way!

[garethEds]

40 minutes ago, DrCheese said:

Hello,

 

Unfortunately there's no way for them to come across but you can export them all to folders using the Salamander document exporter

 

https://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/products/ess-sims-student-document-exporter/

 

You would then need to manually readd them at least, but it gets you part of the way!

 

This would do the job - but it's £500 - end of year and we do not have that.

Gareth

[supportman]

It is preferable NOT to try and migrate them since Bromcom works very differently and Doesn't need attachments or linked documents as its all inbuilt in the MIS.

 

We exported with Salamandersoft and put into a SharePoint folder. The tool was free at the time we did it.

 

Saying that, nobody has ever looked at the data I think 😂

[garethEds]

1 hour ago, supportman said:

It is preferable NOT to try and migrate them since Bromcom works very differently and Doesn't need attachments or linked documents as its all inbuilt in the MIS.

 

We exported with Salamandersoft and put into a SharePoint folder. The tool was free at the time we did it.

 

Saying that, nobody has ever looked at the data I think 😂

 

Annoying that the tool is £500 per school and then another £250 for staff data export. Silly pricing when an LEA has 13 secondaries and 100 or so primaries. The SIMS inbuilt document export (Housekeeping) is ok but doesn't to quite everything.

[DrCheese]

I don't think it's unreasonable, £500 for a school isn't...tons in the scheme of things (Yes I know we're all virtually broke, but still)

Considering how much time is saved, which has a financial impact as well (Paying staff per hour to do manual exports) - I don't begrudge them for charging.

 

If already have the main salamanader package it's free as well. 

Edited March 6 by DrCheese

[Homer]

You'll need to export them as others have said. I am currently making a tool to do it based on what is published for the SIMS7 APIs

 

I'll be testing it next week, and if it works OK then I'll be happy to share. Warning though I'm not a pro developer and I am using AI to help.

 

[garethEds]

44 minutes ago, Homer said:

You'll need to export them as others have said. I am currently making a tool to do it based on what is published for the SIMS7 APIs

 

I'll be testing it next week, and if it works OK then I'll be happy to share. Warning though I'm not a pro developer and I am using AI to help.

 

 

We can export profiles and reports - but other stuff like exam results. Salamander version converts everything to pdf. 

 

I'm happy to try and feedback to you. 

[Devaleth]

Exam results come over in the migration from SIMS to Bromcom as data on the student record. There's no need to export/import this data.

 

Teacher assessment data is the main thing you'll need to have a plan in place for.

[DrCheese]

Noticed this earlier

 

https://docs.bromcom.com/knowledge-base/how-to-import-student-documents/

 

The salamander tool can be set to export documents with the admission number at the start, then you feed the folder into the bulk bromcom import - Job done.

 

Ran it on a few test students (We're in the middle of our test migration) and seems to work fine.

[garethEds]

@Homer - Did you get your app out there? I'm quite happy to test for you if you need it.

[Woteot]

I've done this many times.

It's manual, but quick and easy, to export all linked pupil documents from SIMS.

 

You then need to modify each report's filename by prefixing it with the pupil's UPN. A PowerShell script and a CSV containing Admission Number and UPN can do this.

 

Finally, you can batch import the prepared files into Bromcom, matching on UPN in the filename (I've not tried using admission numbers because I would expect the Bromcom adnos to differ from the SIMS ones.)

 

[Homer]

Hi all

Got an application for this, made it myself with a fair bit of help from Claude. Will upload the source to Github for all to use. 

 

Just need to confirm if you can dump the compiled .exe into the SIMS.net folder so it can use the SIMS .dll files or if you'd need to do some additional setup steps.

 

I've used it to export *all* linked documents for every student ever on roll with no drama.

 

Cheers 

[garethEds]

23 hours ago, Woteot said:

I've done this many times.

It's manual, but quick and easy, to export all linked pupil documents from SIMS.

 

You then need to modify each report's filename by prefixing it with the pupil's UPN. A PowerShell script and a CSV containing Admission Number and UPN can do this.

 

Finally, you can batch import the prepared files into Bromcom, matching on UPN in the filename (I've not tried using admission numbers because I would expect the Bromcom adnos to differ from the SIMS ones.)

 

 

I'm interested in seeing how you have done this - if you would be willing to share the files?

[Homer]

On 08/04/2026 at 11:04, garethedmondson said:

 

I'm interested in seeing how you have done this - if you would be willing to share the files?

Yes mate will be sharing it on Github later, not at work this week so just need to find a few minutes to remote on, grab the files and make the documentation make sense 😁

[CyBeRkId2002]

Did you ever get around to putting this on Github... would be very keen to take a look.  We have Salamander but struggling to get out documents stored under Fees Communication (unless anyone can advise otherwise)

[Homer]

Yeah but I did hide it thanks to ESS... drop me a pm 

[kinch]

sounds great please DM me