SIMS MIS Export

[Vanti]

Guys,

 

We're part of a development team creating a new room booking and issue tracking solution.

 

We could do with having someone who is from a SIMS based school to trial our software and the export function from SIMS - specifically timetable data.

 

The solution is based on a subscription model so we'd gladly give you some free usage for a couple of months, please PM us if you might be interested.

 

Cheers

 

Dan

[kjtranter]

Were a sims partner school and would be interested in helping you along although we'd be looking for a service that would be free for a year to make it worth our while. Pm me if you want to discuss further.

[Sivadam]

We are also a SIMS Partnership School and might be interested under similar arrangements. I just happen to be the Timetabler too!

However, I would only cooperate with legitimate SIMS Partners and I cannot find your name on any of the Partnership Lists. Can you please enlighten us a little?

Edited February 2, 2010 by Sivadam

[vikpaw]

We're NOT a SIMS partnership school and therefore don't have the limitations and conditions of the above.

 

However, we would be looking for a perpetual FOC deal post testing, providing that the system is found to be suitable for us. This would include the chance to work with an International School and the added value of our experience.

 

Fun being in the Dragon's Den isn't it!

 

It would be nice if the solution was Sharepoint compatible..

[penfold_99]

Guys,

 

We're part of a development team creating a new room booking and issue tracking solution.

 

We could do with having someone who is from a SIMS based school to trial our software and the export function from SIMS - specifically timetable data.

 

The solution is based on a subscription model so we'd gladly give you some free usage for a couple of months, please PM us if you might be interested.

 

Cheers

 

Dan

 

Hi Dan,

 

Have you though about support the SIF standard? This will allow you to support all the leading MIS's and only have to develop one insterface.

[Vanti]

Thanks for the replies gents, I'll be in touch shortly.

 

On the SIF front, we've looked at the standard but it appears more focused on the student data and not around the timetable data which we're more interested in looking at - unless of course we're wrong?

 

Thanks

 

Dan

[Vanti]

Fun being in the Dragon's Den isn't it!

 

Absolutely is! PMs sent to those who are interested.

 

However, I would only cooperate with legitimate SIMS Partners and I cannot find your name on any of the Partnership Lists. Can you please enlighten us a little?

 

We're not SIMS partners. I'll take this opportunity to make it expressly clear that we are in no way affiliated with SIMS, CMIS or any other MIS provider or partner programme so that we don't get called up on this later.

 

We took the opportunity to speak with both Serco and Capita at BETT. The Capita representative we spoke to recommended the course of action that we've taken in this post (ie. find SIMS school, run appropriate data extract) and Serco didn't have issues with schools extracting their data and using it with our system if they wished.

 

For people concerned about data protection - since we're interested purely in resource and timetable data, no pupil- or staff-sensitive information leaves your MIS. Whilst our developers love hacking about in databases, we'd much rather leave other people's alone and run clean, repeatable exports investing our time instead in features that directly benefit our clients.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[Sivadam]

Then rule us out Dan!

[penfold_99]

Thanks for the replies gents, I'll be in touch shortly.

 

On the SIF front, we've looked at the standard but it appears more focused on the student data and not around the timetable data which we're more interested in looking at - unless of course we're wrong?

 

Thanks

 

Dan

 

Hi Dan,

 

SIF does support Timetable data, we are working with the SIF Timetable Working Group on improving the timetable objects.

 

What information do you need for the MIS and i will double check that are avalible in the standard.

[Vanti]

SIF does support Timetable data, we are working with the SIF Timetable Working Group on improving the timetable objects.

 

What information do you need for the MIS and i will double check that are avalible in the standard.

 

One of the main features of our software is bookings. The school puts in major resources like rooms, vehicles, laptop trolleys and so on, and the software lets people book them out.

 

The key thing we want from the MIS is timetabled room usage. In CSV format we'd be looking for something like:

 

DATE, START, END, LESSON NAME, TEACHER, ROOM

01/02/2009, 09:00, 09:45, Year 8 Maths, Mr George, Room 12

01/02/2009, 09:45, 10:30, Year 9 Maths, Mrs Watson, Room 10

... and so on ...

 

XML would be a perfectly acceptable alternative.

 

Most lessons repeat every week or fortnight. Ideally we'd get some information about the repeats but we're not expecting to be that privileged. We're happy to infer all of that if we have to.

 

Our current plan is to get a complete dump of the timetable for a term, filter it for the rooms we're interested in, extract the lessons, and group them into Outlook-style repeated bookings.

 

We expect people will want to create and edit their timetables in the MIS rather than in our software, so we plan to make it as easy as possible to replace existing *timetabled* room use in our software with new data from the MIS.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Vanti