reltihmd Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Hi - We would like to send emails to parents letting them know that reports etc are available for viewing - obviously we would like to customise these as appropriate we already have parents email addys in CMIS, and an onsite exchange server, the email addys are not in the Exchange GAL Is there an easy way to send emails to parents through CMIS without exporting all the addresses and mounting them in exchange?
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Doesn't one of the SMS/Email Communication packages, such as Schoolcomms, link to CMIS? 1
reltihmd Posted June 10, 2011 Author Posted June 10, 2011 They certainly do - just spoke our SMS Lady in Admin - she's going to find out how to send emails with "Keep Kids Safe" Thanks Sivadam
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 As we are a SIMS user we use Schoolcomms. Every single group of pupils that is available in SIMS is present in Schoolcomms (including UDGs and DUDGs) so that you can SMS or Email to any combination that you can think of. Hopefully, you system will do the same! Good Luck!
pcstru Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 We have a little spreadsheet which connects to the database, pulls out parent & student details, sorts into who does have an email address and who might need to be snail mailed, then pops up a blank email with the bcc field populated with the relevant addresses. Latest version handles SMS via BulkSMS. Would no doubt need the VBA tweaking for other establishments - if there is any interest, I'll tidy up the code a bit and publish it.
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Hmmmmmmmmmm Not quite as user-friendly as our system then. Good Luck with it!
LosOjos Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Hmmmmmmmmmm Not quite as user-friendly as our system then. Good Luck with it! But much more budget friendly
pcstru Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Hmmmmmmmmmm Not quite as user-friendly as our system then. Good Luck with it! For the end user, it's just a matter of selecting the criteria from a set of drop down lists and pressing a button. The file itself would need to be tweaked by someone to point to the correct database and adjust the names of halls etc as appropriate for the school. Your system presumably pulls the information straight from the users brain?
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Not sure of that one! I suppose it depends on what quality house one wants to live in!
LosOjos Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Not sure of that one! I suppose it depends on what quality house one wants to live in! How do you know @pcstru 's utility isn't a nice, polished, easy to use little program? Almost all software needs some setting up by a techie before it's ready for the end user - it's not yet possible for PC's to read minds!
pcstru Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 How do you know @pcstru 's utility isn't a nice, polished, easy to use little program? Almost all software needs some setting up by a techie before it's ready for the end user - it's not yet possible for PC's to read minds! Quite. Obviously some schools aren't fortunate enough to have a level of technical expertise available that can grapple with VBA and database connections so one can easily understand why Sivadam might require something a little less demanding. ;-) 1
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 I don't! It may be lovely! It may be me that prefers the terrace house in the E end of Sheffield (sorry E end!) to the Beverley Hills mansion! I wonder how @pcstru's routine would pull out the Pupils or Contacts for the DUDGs that we have created in Discover .......... (although this ain't really relevant is it? As CMIS does not have Discover! ) Though maybe you can see my point! Is a nice little program needed for every group in CMIS? Or will the same one cope with all the different combinations?
LosOjos Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 Though maybe you can see my point! Is a nice little program needed for every group in CMIS? Or will the same one cope with all the different combinations? Without even seeing pcstru's utility, I can tell you now it would be very simple to make it pull whatever group you like from the database, might need a little tweaking sure but that's the advantage of having the know how to do so. In an hour you could even have a menu built in so the end user can select groups on the fly, much like SchoolComms. And in this particular instance, pcstru's program is 100% more useful than SchoolComms, as SchoolComms doesn't work with CMIS at all!
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 .....And in this particular instance, pcstru's program is 100% more useful than SchoolComms, as SchoolComms doesn't work with CMIS at all! Exactly what I thought!
Sivadam Posted June 10, 2011 Posted June 10, 2011 (edited) OOoooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! And there is me that always says I ain't technically minded! Everything is relative tho'! Edited June 10, 2011 by Sivadam
vikpaw Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 Without even seeing pcstru's utility, I can tell you now it would be very simple to make it pull whatever group you like from the database, might need a little tweaking sure but that's the advantage of having the know how to do so. In an hour you could even have a menu built in so the end user can select groups on the fly, much like SchoolComms. And in this particular instance, pcstru's program is 100% more useful than SchoolComms, as SchoolComms doesn't work with CMIS at all! The best benefit of CMIS is that you are allowed to access the database using SQL, so @pcstru 's utility is infinitely more user friendly, reliable and accessible for any number of groups if it needs to be. @LosOjos - do you think we should give @pcstru the password to access our scripting club
LosOjos Posted June 13, 2011 Posted June 13, 2011 @LosOjos - do you think we should give @pcstru the password to access our scripting club @vikpaw - why not? The more the merrier I say (PS - what is our password lol?)
themightymrp Posted June 13, 2011 Posted June 13, 2011 I wouldn't mind a copy of @pcstru 's little program. We use CMIS here and I'm sure I could tweak whatever is needed to pull out the relevant data. Any chance you could send me it? Of upload it on here whatever? Cheers
vikpaw Posted June 14, 2011 Posted June 14, 2011 @vikpaw - why not? The more the merrier I say (PS - what is our password lol?) id0nTKN0w!
pcstru Posted June 14, 2011 Posted June 14, 2011 I wouldn't mind a copy of @pcstru 's little program. We use CMIS here and I'm sure I could tweak whatever is needed to pull out the relevant data. Any chance you could send me it? Of upload it on here whatever? Cheers I need to remove some of our information before posting but I'll do that over the next few days then post it up.
pcstru Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Spreadsheet attached. This will not work for anyone out of the box! You will need to provide the server and database identifiers before you can pull data from CMIS. You may need to modify the SQL if your table owners are "dbo". There is a lot of code associated with sending SMS via the BulkSMS service (quite cheap if you buy in bulk) using the HTTP interface. Some of it is a little obscure - it's just the way it IS. One aspect of this that makes it less flexible than it could be (i.e. just being able to modify the SQL to control selection) is the processing of data to show which of the selection will need to receive postal copies (if necessary, i.e. they have no email address or mobile phone number) and also processing to minimise postage by trying to ensure that if letters are sent, only one letter is sent to each house (in cases where muoltiple recipients live at the same address).ParMail.zip 1
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