localzuk Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 So, I am still crafting reports to use with commandreporter to get the data I want for a program I'm writing but I've hit a snag. Only Students seem to have a unique identifier that I can choose to export (UPN or Admission Number for example). Contacts/Parents don't. How am I supposed to link parents to pupils without duplication when this is the case? I can't generate one of my own via combinations of other fields as *all* those fields can change at any time. Ideas?
dwhyte85 Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Not a direct answer... You've said they're likely to change, that's fair enough... but if this is going to be more than just a report have a process to get latest data, input into a temp table and create a link this way? Home Tel & PCode are unlikely to change unless they change for both primary contact and child, of course this wont help when parents are separated...
localzuk Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 Not a direct answer... You've said they're likely to change, that's fair enough... but if this is going to be more than just a report have a process to get latest data, input into a temp table and create a link this way? Home Tel & PCode are unlikely to change unless they change for both primary contact and child, of course this wont help when parents are separated... That's the thing - we have a significant number of separations, name changes, number changes etc... So we can't rely on any of them. And the data needs to be handled programatically with no input from the users, so it can't prompt to check things either. We can't have the data we want being sent to the wrong places due to the system having the wrong details either. The only way I can think of at the moment is to not rely on the parent data as the key data, instead do everything in reference to the child, and store the contact details in a 'message sent' table with the details that any messages were sent to. Messy I reckon, but it may be the only way to do it.
dwhyte85 Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 It's frustrating as something that should be simple is made so difficult to do
Benji1 Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Have you looked at the Third Party Reporting stuff in the report engine? To see it you need to be a member of the CES Third Party Reporting Group in system manager. This gives you more info and it might be what your looking for. 1
localzuk Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 I shall take a look. Although it seems our SIMS admin has gone and removed my System Manager permissions so I've got to wait until they are in tomorrow to sort it for me. (Grr!!!)
LosOjos Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Haven't tried this one out, it's just off the top of my head, but if you create a contacts report does it not assign an 'external_id' to each one within the XML output? It will only be in the XML, you don't have the option to add it to your report in report designer. I know it does this with aspects and students but can't remember if it does with contacts.
localzuk Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 Nope. This is what each record looks like: Bloggs Fred 123456 [email protected] 1 006666 On roll
LosOjos Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 That's a PITA. Ok, only way I can think to do it, though it will vastly inflate the size of the XML file, is to create a student focus report that contains the admission number and a sub report containing all the contacts, then you have the admission number of any student who has that contact link. It does mean that a contact will appear as many times as they are linked to students though.
localzuk Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 That's a PITA. Ok, only way I can think to do it, though it will vastly inflate the size of the XML file, is to create a student focus report that contains the admission number and a sub report containing all the contacts, then you have the admission number of any student who has that contact link. It does mean that a contact will appear as many times as they are linked to students though. It still won't give me a UID for the contact though. Meaning duplication and no cross linking.
vikpaw Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 (edited) Have you looked at the Third Party Reporting stuff in the report engine? To see it you need to be a member of the CES Third Party Reporting Group in system manager. This gives you more info and it might be what your looking for. That's what i would do, there is an ID and an External ID field that look like this: ID | External ID 9018 | eed1b95b-66aa-4adb-9aab-5f05eeaa36be 10599 | 6f8470f3-5e9c-4323-a96e-a30331a4eda9 1645 | cd04456d-9743-40bd-8909-e566e46e59df 10429 | ef164ce7-e432-4dc8-b78f-fd58277ad528 1125e | f5a3a54-3e4b-4eed-933f-fe41a90f3e1e You can also dump to XML, you just need the permissions to access the CES ThirdPartyFields area: see attached. Edited February 10, 2010 by vikpaw layout of numbers got jumbled 1
localzuk Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 Right, I've just been up with the SIMS manager and we cannot find that group anywhere. Where is it?
localzuk Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 Scratch that, found it. We were looking in the wrong place
vikpaw Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I have a GOD group to which i add every single role and permission. Naturally i am in the GOD group. Great for testing
Tonyoung Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I have a GOD group to which i add every single role and permission. Naturally i am in the GOD group. Great for testing I am GOD and Spartacus
Sivadam Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 (edited) Do you mean Dog and Partascus? .... and I operate on a plane much higher than those two .... Edited February 10, 2010 by Sivadam
MattMitchell Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I operate on Nepal ;-) for the record, upn can't be used as a pk, as students aren't guaranteed to have one. The id field from the third party groups are what you want, although normally admission number works too.
localzuk Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 I operate on Nepal ;-) for the record, upn can't be used as a pk, as students aren't guaranteed to have one. The id field from the third party groups are what you want, although normally admission number works too. Indeed. Govt guidelines say that systems should never use UPNs. Its amazing how many companies do use them though. I use Admission numbers for pupils, and now will be using ID's from the third party groups for other entries (contacts etc...).
Benji1 Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Sorry localzuk should have said where it was it the list in system manager because its not alphabetical! Did it help ? 1
MattMitchell Posted February 11, 2010 Posted February 11, 2010 Indeed. Govt guidelines say that systems should never use UPNs. Its amazing how many companies do use them though. I use Admission numbers for pupils, and now will be using ID's from the third party groups for other entries (contacts etc...). One point of note with UPNs: they change, and can be temporary or permanent too! It's not unknown for FFT live to have different UPNs from SIMS; and sometimes these change there too. They're useful when they match though! I'm suspecting that ULNs will suffer the same issues too, but we'll see - still waiting on that new data dictionary they keep on promising! Someone's going to pop up and tell me the data dict is sat online for all to see somewhere now...
localzuk Posted February 11, 2010 Author Posted February 11, 2010 Sorry localzuk should have said where it was it the list in system manager because its not alphabetical! Did it help ? Indeed. It does exactly what I want
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