geekulike

LEA hosting the ZIS is obviously best. SSL to move data around is a no-brainer...would anyone seriously move data between schools/LEAs etc any other way??? Thx.

Thx...so would each school need to run a ZIS server to adopt SIF?

Very interesting...questions: 1. How much awareness is there is the UK of SIF? 2. How is an analytic app (using data from SIMS or an equivalent) developed/deployed using SIF? 3. Do UK schools demand SIF-certified products? Thx!

Good idea. Would that shed light on SIF?

There is nothing specific at the moment. It's more about ensuring we don't make a decsion we regret and find we can't access the data as we desire after we've spend a lot of money on an app we can't trial. Where can we find out what's available in SIF?

The key issue is would we be locking our data into a repository that dictates how/if we can retrieve that data, for whatever purposes take our fancy, such as custom reporting/analysis? Guided reporting interfaces lack flexibility and demand time and effort to learn skills that are not transferable (the 'Business Objects' interface in this case). The unload 'API' is not an API at all, it's a client application to export data. What should be available with any data capture application is a documented schema and the ability to query it to your hearts content. Go and ask any big company if they would accept restrictions on querying/unloading data from their big ERP systems...all of which are no doubt orders of magnitude more complex than SIMS!

OK, but I don't want/need access to an 'API', just SQL access to my data in my database running on my server...is that too much to ask? It may be complex and undocumented, but at the end of the day it's just another SQL Server database. Yes, the schema might change, but that's a risk that's always in play when building a reporting/analysis application.

Ok, thanks. What is the idea behind the NDA on Business Objects?

SIMS has an NDA..whatever next! What does that cover...or is it a state secret?!?!?!

We're currently looking at various packages for our school, including SIMS. As SIMS runs on SQL Server, which is licensed to the school separately, there seems to be little Capita can do to stop custom report development or data extracts against the SQL Server database that SIMS requires. It's just a SQL Server database, after all. Writing back to the SIMS SQL Server database is clearly a no-no, but why would we want to? As there are no trial, demo, or crippleware versions of SIMS available, how do we assess the complexity of the schema to decide if it will hinder custom report development, without actually buying the product? This is a key deciding factor for us. Business Objects and the commandreporter 'API' are not the answers we're looking for ;-)