Gdn

@matt40k yeah, you missed the bit where I get paid to give my bosses an in-depth analysis of the alternatives, complete with working examples purely because they want to look at that information - because that's what they're paid for - and not just swallow the Capita-Is-The-Best story without having all the alternative options in-front of them - no matter how true the Capita-Is-The-Best story may or may not be.

@rpwillis Hey Richard. I was actually aware that you'd done what you have by using their API. But I was thinking of getting in touch about it anyway, as it's another avenue I'll have to explore in order to come up with a decent report. And what you've done for Twyneham looks awesome. ---------- @penfold_99 Cheers dude. Someone dropped your name to me a week-or-so back saying that you might be the guy to speak to. And I knew there would be some way around all this Capita support/contract/legal rights nay-saying crap. My LEA have told me as much, and no one, not even the people at Capita, have been able to give me a difinitive answer on the subject, including pertinent quotes from the support contract or Terms of Use. It all seems very hazy at best. the If We Break It We Fix It approach seems perfectly reasonable to me. Can I get in touch later today to pass you some stuff in greater detail?

@jamesb Right, so I gave a bad analogy. Thanks for pointing that out. Look, I know there might be problems. I expect there will be problems. But it's my job to explore what those problems might be and to present them to the Powers. People have done this already, with varying degrees of success. I'm just exploring options. Can we maybe get a little more positivity here?

@matt40k Technicalities, my friend. And that's for the legal gremlins to worry about - not me

@localzuk Yeah, we're aware of that. But I just do waht I'm told My workaround idea for that is to generate my SQL queries on the fly, using the data extracted from the SQL Profiler logs. The information we want to pull isn't that extensive, so if I could use SIMS to run a specific function every day, then use SQL Profiler to log the queries SIMS passes to SQL Server, I can run a script to extract the correct schema data from the logs and build my own SQL queries at runtime. It's still early-doors yet, and the whole project might fall on its arse; but part of my job is to try and come up with these kinds of workarounds and try to see how feasible they are. So, although the schema might change during SIMS updates, at most (touch wood) the downtime of our own application would be, what - A day or two - while we do the remapping. For the kind of information we want to pull from the database, that sort of downtime isn't really a problem. Just an inconvenience for the users, really. None of the stuff we want is *needs* to be accurate at the time of the request. When you ring up your bank, you only ever get information correct as of the previous close-of-day. Thanks though - because you might be right. until I look at it in much more detail, this might actually turn out to be a pretty big issue. I'll just have to wait and see though.

Hey. I know this topic has been covered ad nauseum, but I'm building a web gateway that extracts information from SIMS's SQL Server database; but I don't want to go through SIMS to get it. That means no SIMS SDK or anything of that kind. I don't see the need for those extra levels of abstraction. I just want to connect directly to the database, run some queries, then do whatever I want with the information. I've already had some success, and the project is going pretty well. Our LEA has given us its full support. Now, we only want to pull data from the database - there will be no writing back to it. Capita are aware of our intentions, and their response was: "We don’t support the schema as that implies direct connection to the database. We would rather the school use IMS or the Command reporter." So, they would rather we do things their way - but why wouldn't they? From what my LEA has told me, much of the talk on here about Capita rescinding their SIMS support if we circumvent their software is just so much scaremongering. Anyway, regardless of the Capita issues, we've been given the go-ahead by the LEA to look into this. It's going to happen. So, I know a lot of folks have had some success in this area already (penfold_99, I believe, with Moodle integration; and the chaps at SalamanderSoft who did a lot of work for Twyneham, to name a couple); and I was wondering if anyone has managed to do any extensive mapping of the SIMS/SQL relationships, perhaps using the SQL Server Profiler or something similar to log the requests that SIMS is sending to the database. We're really looking for people to collaborate with on this; and we would be massively appreciative to anyone who has already made substantial headway into mapping the relationships who might be willing to help. I know you're out there Thanks in advance, -Gdn