SIMS to Booking System - URGENT

[01hanstu]

Hi We are looking for a way of exporting room timetables into our booking system i.e. MYSQL reads MSSQL, so that the booking information is correct.

 

Or does anyone know of a booking system, thats free, and can be incoporated into SIMS??

 

HELP!!!

 

Stuart

[danrhodes]

I think Meeting Room Manager integrates with SQL?? Meeting Room Manager Software, Room Scheduler | NetSimplicity

 

D

[matt40k]

Few things out there, David Hicks will know a few of them. Just make sure they don't dip into SIMS SQL directly.

[dhicks]

Hi We are looking for a way of exporting room timetables into our booking system i.e. MYSQL reads MSSQL, so that the booking information is correct.

 

As pointed out, you aren't supposed to interact directly with SIMS' SQL database, and there's no real need, the CommandReporter tool is just fine for dumping data out of SIMS to be read by something else. This recent thread might be some help:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/50704-sims-extract-timetables-file-form-use-vle.html

 

User Penfold_99 on these forums might be able to help you, he works for (or owns, not quite sure) SchoolsICT:

 

SchoolsICT - enabling 21st century learning

 

Which makes a product that can extract data from SIMS. This isn't free, but I'm sure it's very reasonably priced.

 

Or does anyone know of a booking system, thats free, and can be incoporated into SIMS??

 

Do you have an existing room booking system at the moment?

 

--

David Hicks

[01hanstu]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for the replies, will have a look at a few.

 

We do have our own custom room booking system, but part of the problem is that the Timetable Manager keeps changing all of the timetables and not telling me.

 

As it stands we have to keep adding bookings manually (.ie. populate the timetables per day per period)

 

Thanks

Stuart

[LosOjos]

If your comfortable with XML, use CommandReporter. All you need to do is create a report in SIMS.net that contains all the info you need, set output as XML, then run it from CommandReporter to get updated data whenever you need it, it's very quick for small reports too, particularly if you use a Paramdef file to only extract the data you need at that time rather than the whole timetable.

[Sivadam]

.... but part of the problem is that the Timetable Manager keeps changing all of the timetables and not telling me ....

 

As a timetabler of long standing (... very, very longstanding), I have great sympathy with the Timetabler. If your school is like ours then the Timetable changes very regularly. The changes may be major (due to Rotations) or simply the odd room change.

It is virtually impossible to inform everybody of the changes that are made - apart from the staff that are affected (say via a Subject Selection or Individual Timetable). To do so would take a great deal of time and/or lots of paper! A general notification to all staff is probably the best that can be achieved in view of time constraints!

[dhicks]

To do so would take a great deal of time and/or lots of paper!

 

Or, of course, you could have an electronic version that all staff can get to as needed. This, obviously, imples enough computers around for easy staff access.

 

--

David Hicks

[Sivadam]

There obviously is one.

It is called NovaT4 at the moment .....

..... but this will no longer be required when the NT4 Reporting etc finds it's way into SIMS.net - some of which is arriving by COB 31/03/2010 (sheduled!).

 

Personally I prefer the staff not to use this as very few understand it - especially with all the TAs, PSAs, Year Support Staff etc. etc. being on the timetable! Invariably staff look at the wrong line when trying to find something.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Sivadam

[01hanstu]

Our current system is a custom made in-house application writen in php using a mysql database.

 

If we have to change what we use, if we find a solution, i guess we can.

 

I use Nova-T6 to view timetables, have tried to export to csv, but this means writing a php csv import script and we dont have time (besides the data doesnt export the way i wnted it to)

 

Thanks

Stuart