User IDs on Impact Catering System

[36Degrees]

Is there anyone out there who knows the Impact system quite well?

 

We need to change the User IDs for almost all of the pupils so that we can link Impact to online payments. The ID needs to be their UPN but when the accounts have been created each year a different format has been used every time! My theory is this:

 

1. Export all user data in a CSV file
   
2. Change the User ID of each pupil to match their UPN
   
3. Delete all records from the database
   
4. Re-import the users from the amended CSV file
   

 

Can someone confirm my theory and also tell me how to access the database to create / import the CSVs? I admit I only had a quick look but the only report options I saw are for printing only, not exporting.

[glennda]

Our's pull the admission number (and names etc) from sims using idgateway into IDmanager then into Impact cunninghams - sims is then synced with parentpay so they have the admission numbers and use this for the payments to come through.

[36Degrees]

Our Impact system is separate from the main network and ideally I'd like to keep it that way, plus I don't really want to install any more SIMS extractors.

[glennda]

Our Impact system is separate from the main network and ideally I'd like to keep it that way, plus I don't really want to install any more SIMS extractors.

 

which one do you currently use?

 

Should have said it uses groupcall to drop to a csv then the ID gateway picks it up

[36Degrees]

We have SIMS extractors running for Frog VLE / Website and keep Kids Safe text messaging system

 

I'd posted here originally as I hadn't been able to speak to anyone at Cunninghams (couldn't get past receptionist!) but I now have and the guy was really helpful so it should be sorted soon. Thanks for the response anyway.

[glennda]

No Probs - The senior guys there at cunninghams are really quite good once you do get past the receptionists and they call you back!

[howartp]

No Probs - The senior guys there at cunninghams are really quite good once you do get past the receptionists and they call you back!

Agreed!

 

If anyone else sees this thread, I use Free download ABC Amber DBISAM Convertor, convert DAT databases to XLS, XML, CSV, DBF, PDF, HTML, CHM, RTF, HLP, DOC documents (I use several of their convertors for various tasks) to convert the relevant tables to csv on a nightly basis. I then parse the CSVs with PHP to display student's balances (and shortly their meals) on Frog's Parent Portal.

 

Peter

[rh91uk]

Peter - im interested in what you say about grabbing the info from Impact - could you provide more details please? Do you do it automatically (scheduled task?)?

[glennda]

Peter - im interested in what you say about grabbing the info from Impact - could you provide more details please? Do you do it automatically (scheduled task?)?

 

Same here - would be good to know how - can then play with it a bit more!

[howartp]

Peter - im interested in what you say about grabbing the info from Impact - could you provide more details please? Do you do it automatically (scheduled task?)?

 

Same here - would be good to know how - can then play with it a bit more!

Certainly.

 

Firstly you need to know where your data is held - on a typical Cunninghams install, this will be your kitchen office PC, but it depends on your setup; we moved ours to the Bio server so it all got backed up and everything didn't go off when someone shut that PC down. This will be in c:\Impact\Data on one machine (the others shouldn't have a Data folder in that location). If you can't find it, open c:\Impact\Impact.ini and read the first few lines, which should say MEMBERPATH= which tells you where the data is.

 

I have a scheduled batch file which copies that data folder several times a day to a location on my internal webserver (not accesible outside or via intranet), so that I'm not working on the live data files. I then schedule the DBISAM convertor from processtext.com (the link in the previous post) to convert them all to CSV files.

 

I then have a PHP script to extract the balance and purify it. Presently this only works in school as it takes the currently logged on user ID (script is hosted on IIS) then looks up the user in those CSV files. If you want to display staff, you'll need a scheduled export from SIMS and/or AD, containing enough relevant fields to allow you to match a user from their login name. The balance will need purifying, as for some unknown reason their programming means that balances of £9.98999999999999, £2.21000000000 or even £-4.55191440096314E-17 are perfectly valid, despite only having items for sale at whole pounds/pence. You can safely round these to £9.99, £2.21 and £0.00 respectively. (The latter one is £0.0000....4551944... with a few extra zeros)

 

For this, I schedule CommandReporter (part of SIMS) to run a report which lists forename, surname and staff_code, and I schedule AD BulkExport (from Dovestones.com) to extract forename, surname and username from AD. Using these files, I can take the currently logged on username from IIS, use the AD csv to get a forename/surname combination, then use the SIMS csv to get a staff code, which we use in the userid field in Impact for staff. I do have a few manual-overrides in the PHP script for the occasions where someone's full name in SIMS (Pamela, Patrick) doesn't match their common name in AD (Pam, Pat) etc.

 

Looking to the very near future, from a Frog Parent Portal point of view, I am working on a widget which displays both current balance and recent meals. Before I do this, I am putting together a PHP library of user functions which takes various IDs and gives me useful data in return, which I can reuse in other widgets. This will include FrogIdToAdUsername(), FrogIdToUPN()*, FrogIdToMyChildren() etc. (*Please note that you cannot rely on the UPN field coming from Frog being unique, so if anyone follows this thread, always take a Frog ID and match it up with AdmissionNo from SIMS to ensure you have the right child!)

 

Once I have that PHP library, I will take a users unique frog ID (FRG_xxxxx in the toolkit -> users area) and turn it into either a student ID (if it's a student) or a set of children's IDs (if it's a parent) then use the same set of impact CSVs to display the right data. (Note, I will have scheduled an import of the csv into MySQL by the time I go live, as execution time searching MySQL is miniscule compared with parsing every line of the csv)

 

Hope that helps, and you can follow it all! Do ask if there's anything else you want to know / clarify.

 

Peter

[rh91uk]

Thanks Peter - will look at it and give it a bash at some point

[AlanHardy]

Peter

This DBISAM converter you mention appears to no longer be available to download from the ProcessText website and all links to purchase the software are now dead. I have tried to contact them via email and have received a bounce message and presume that the company have stopped trading and thus the software is not longer available to purchase. Does anybody know where i can obtain this software as i am completely stumped without it.

 

Alan

[howartp]

Peter

This DBISAM converter you mention appears to no longer be available to download from the ProcessText website and all links to purchase the software are now dead. I have tried to contact them via email and have received a bounce message and presume that the company have stopped trading and thus the software is not longer available to purchase. Does anybody know where i can obtain this software as i am completely stumped without it.

Alan

Hi Alan,

 

Unfortunately I've had the same problem with them for a year or two - their site is there but nothing works and nobody responds.

 

I'm just fortunate that I save all installers/setup apps on my network for future use so at least I can reinstall the same products if I need to.

 

I wonder if there are any other convertors available (or maybe seperate multi-step convertors, say DBISAM to XML, then XML to CSV) from other companies?

 

Peter