SIMS Timetable Module for Moodle

[Hightower]

Has anybody had any luck with this:

 

Integrate Moodle, LDAP and SIMS.net - MoodleDocs

 

The guys at BETT (Synergy Learning I think) told me to check it out. Install looks pretty lengthy but before I start playing with the Moodle setup I just wondered if anybody had successfully (and easily) managed to configure it.

 

If so, were the instructions spot on or were extra measures needed?

 

Cheers

 

P.S. The link to the module is at the very bottom of that page.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Hightower
Missed some info off

[TechMonkey]

search around, I think Gatt was going through this beginning of the week. Plus the person who has created that or who has a hand in it is on here. Think it might be apearson or penfold. One of them who I am sure should appear suddenly like the shopkeeper.

[CyberNerd]

yes, it works here

[CyberNerd]

search around, I think Gatt was going through this beginning of the week. Plus the person who has created that or who has a hand in it is on here. Think it might be apearson or penfold. One of them who I am sure should appear suddenly like the shopkeeper.

 

penfold_99 is the shopkeeper

[apeo]

Theres a thread about it.. Gatt had a problem.

 

SIMS Timetables & Moodle

 

You might find that you may need to do some work for it, depend on how your timetable is setup. Over here for example, I need to make quite abit of changes as it doesnt work at the moment.

[Hightower]

yes, it works here

 

How easy was it to set up (by following those instructions)? It's things like this I'm sure will get the SMT to change their mind over choice of VLE.

 

Shame there's no 'full' SIMS.net modules at the minute though.

[Hightower]

Thanks for your help so far - but think I'm gonna put this on the back burner until I can see how another school has set this up.

 

Gonna contact a few of the local schools that might have done this to try and see it in action

[penfold_99]

search around, I think Gatt was going through this beginning of the week. Plus the person who has created that or who has a hand in it is on here. Think it might be apearson or penfold. One of them who I am sure should appear suddenly like the shopkeeper.

 

Bing and i'm here.

[CyberNerd]

How easy was it to set up (by following those instructions)? It's things like this I'm sure will get the SMT to change their mind over choice of VLE.

 

Shame there's no 'full' SIMS.net modules at the minute though.

 

For us the choice of VLE was simple, the LA system did not meet the expectations of the school, and it was more simple for us to integrate SIMS with the VLE of our choice, than be shoehorned into using an inferior product (university).

I think the difficulty will depend entirely upon your existing setup. Certain assumptions were made when the scripts/documentation were written. The integration does work, but like apeo, Gatt, penfold_99 and I found, changes need to be made because integrating something as complicated as SIMS Active Directory and Moodle is technically difficult to accomplish - running on heterogeneous operating systems, written in different languages with different databases, compounded by capita's secrecy when it comes to technical information. no doubt the reason that there is no other .net integration.

 

The scripts and the documentation are open, so hopefully we can all contribute to help others.

[FN-GM]

Im going to have a go at getting this up and running in the holidays. Looks very complex./

[penfold_99]

Theres a thread about it.. Gatt had a problem.

 

SIMS Timetables & Moodle

 

You might find that you may need to do some work for it, depend on how your timetable is setup. Over here for example, I need to make quite abit of changes as it doesnt work at the moment.

 

I will updating the documentation to include the requirement to edit the timetable labels in the module.

 

Hopefully if people can post the labels they use, i will try can write the module to auto detect the the required label configuration.

[penfold_99]

Im going to have a go at getting this up and running in the holidays. Looks very complex./

 

If you have any issues, please post them and i will try and iron them out.

[apeo]

I will updating the documentation to include the requirement to edit the timetable labels in the module.

 

Hopefully if people can post the labels they use, i will try can write the module to auto detect the the required label configuration.

 

Mine requires more work then just reassigning the labels. We operate on a by weekly cycle here so the period_name comes out as ' ' eg today would be '1Fri 2' where 1 is week 1, Fri is friday obviously and 2 is the period. I also have a problem with my reg showing up, with the current query it only pulls out lesson timetables but not my am reg. Anyway I'll sort it and let you know when i have. In the middle of building an SQL Server for testing.

 

Its alway me that causes problems

[penfold_99]

Mine requires more work then just reassigning the labels. We operate on a by weekly cycle here so the period_name comes out as ' ' eg today would be '1Fri 2' where 1 is week 1, Fri is friday obviously and 2 is the period. I also have a problem with my reg showing up, with the current query it only pulls out lesson timetables but not my am reg. Anyway I'll sort it and let you know when i have. In the middle of building an SQL Server for testing.

 

Its alway me that causes problems

 

i will have a look at the code and re-write to allow for a 2 week timetable over then next couple of days.

[Gatt]

@hightower - Although we run a weekly timetable it works a treat once installed - but the install is a nightmare

 

Big issue was just connecting to the SQL Server - found out later it was due to it being on a non-standard port (2155 IIRC.)

 

If you get stuck give me a yell and i'll try and help..

[Hightower]

Thanks Gatt - appreciate all the help guys and to the shopkeeper for making something like this available in the first place.

 

Anybody got a screenshot of it in use?

[penfold_99]

@hightower - Although we run a weekly timetable it works a treat once installed - but the install is a nightmare

 

Big issue was just connecting to the SQL Server - found out later it was due to it being on a non-standard port (2155 IIRC.)

 

If you get stuck give me a yell and i'll try and help..

 

Given your problems Gatt, any suggestion for the documentation so i can reduce the pain?

[Gatt]

Here you go...

Edited January 16, 2009 by Gatt
Remoed Pupil Name from Screenshot

[Gatt]

Given your problems Gatt, any suggestion for the documentation so i can reduce the pain?

 

Off top of my head ..

 

Dont need port in the Moodle enrol_dbhost

Check what Port SQL Server is running on (1433 = SQL 2000 default, 1427 is SQL 2005 Default)

FreeTDS - Version number of SQL 2005 is 9.0

How to amend labels for the timetable periods

 

Would also add in how to use the employeeID field in AD if you dont want to import them from SIMS.. - I had to

 

Enable employeeID field/menu in AD Schema - info found via google

Run SIMS report to export all kids names and the UPN

Export pupils from AD

Match Kids from AD to UPN - did this manually in excel - will get further info on that though -

Import UPNs to AD - various ways - I used Dovestone's Bulk User Import

 

Emphasise that you need all the views, but dont need to export/import from SIMS to AD (see UPN info above)

[penfold_99]

Dont need port in the Moodle enrol_dbhost

Check what Port SQL Server is running on (1433 = SQL 2000 default, 1427 is SQL 2005 Default)

FreeTDS - Version number of SQL 2005 is 9.0

How to amend labels for the timetable periods

 

I have added instructions for above.

[apeo]

i will have a look at the code and re-write to allow for a 2 week timetable over then next couple of days.

 

BTW for me to get it to work i duplicated the table and made the following changes:

 

From

$days = array('Mon' => 1, 'Tue' => 2, 'Wed' => 3, 'Thu' => 4, 'Fri' => 5);
$periods = array("" => 1,"1" => 2,"2"=> 3,"Reg"=> 4,"3"=> 5,"E4"=> 6,"L4"=> 7,"5"=> 8,"TWL"=> 9);  

To

	$days = array('1Mon' => 1, '1Tue' => 2, '1Wed' => 3, '1Thu' => 4, '1Fri' => 5,'2Mon' => 6, '2Tue' => 7, '2Wed' => 8, '2Thu' => 9, '2Fri' => 10); 	
$periods = array("" => 1,"1" => 2,"2"=> 3,"3"=> 4,"4"=> 5,"5"=> 6,"6"=> 7,""=> 8,""=> 9);

 

From

$periods_labels = array("","1","2","Reg","3","E4","L4","5","TWL");

To

$periods_labels = array("","1","2","3","Lunch","5","6","","");

 

From

	$parts = explode(":", $row['period_name']);

To

	$parts = explode(" ", $row['period_name']);

 

The following changes are made in the duplicated table.

From

	echo '';
echo ''.$lessons[$i][$ii].'
';
echo $teachers[$i][$ii].'                               '.$rooms[$i][$ii];
echo '';

To

echo '';
echo ''.$lessons[$i][$ii+5].'
';
echo $teachers[$i][$ii+5].'                               '.$rooms[$i][$ii+5];
echo '';

Edited January 16, 2009 by apeo

[penfold_99]

Thanks apeo,

 

I have had a look at your changes and i think I will be able to incorporate into code quite easily so the module supports both 1 week and 2 week timetables.

 

does anyone else have a use case of a timetable setup?

[Gatt]

This was something out Deputy Head asked - on the STAFF timetables so they can click on the class code and get a list of the pupils in that class?

 

Not sure how feasable that would be...

[penfold_99]

Hi gatt,

 

it could possible as the class code will be the same as the course code/name in moodle, it could be linked to the page with the class members in it.

 

i will mull it over next week and let you know,

[Gatt]

Thanks penfold...