iceman

Localzuk I've had no end of hassle with different microsoft office versions / invalid registry values / unregistered components / changed or incorrect folder and user permissions preventing me from doing what I want to do with my programs. Consequently I have re-coded (am in the process of re-coding) all my analysis systems from a mixture of Access and Excel with some VBA thrown in to stand alone, fully compiled programs written in Delphi. As you can see from my earlier post, once again folder permission reared their head when I wrote out the xml file to the same folder from which I was running my program and yet command reporter was unable to then read from that folder due to permissions and the credentials under which CR appeared to be running. Therefore I am trying to limit as much as possible any reading and writing of files that is not absolutely necessary. If I can get away with one single SIMS export (OK a few exports) and then do everything else via my program then I know I'm in complete control and not at the mercy of network changes and software upgrades performed by sombody else.

Arthur, Every second pair! I must admit that was one combination I didn't try. I'll try that out with the real thing and post back. Vicpaw The full line I would like to pass to CreateProcess to avoid making a file is below. It refers to a report based on student with a sub report of attendance marks and (following your comments from a much earlier post) with two parameters for the start date and end date with prompt names of MarkDateAfter and MarkDateBefore. I generate these dates using code, change them to a string and, at the moment, embed them into the short bit of xml that gets written to a file. What I have below is preferable though if I can get the format right. Oh, and the actual file paths will be full UNC paths containing double backslashes and Dollar signs, this example is from my development machine. "C:\Program Files\sims\sims .net\commandreporter.exe" /USER:"d" /PASSWORD:"x" /REPORT:"SITKA_Attendance" /OUTPUT:"K:\Howards Documents\SITKA\jobs\Attendance\Delphi version\delphi code version 2\init\SITKA_Attendance.csv" /PARAMS:" Mark date Date MarkDateBefore 2011-06-10T00:01:00 Mark date Date MarkDateAfter 2010-08-15T23:59:00 "

Sorted it. It was not Createprocess at all. the folder in which I was running my app and into which I was writing the xml file was hidden with read/write acces only to me. It appears that when CR gets run by CreateProcess it runs using different credientials. Moving everything to a different folder worked OK. However I'll leave a challenge to the community. As Vikpaw says, It would be better to use the /PARAMS: switch instead and place the xml directly after it (as one big quoted string) to avoid having to write an xml file at all. Problem is the xml contains spaces and quotes. Createprocess parses the line and does some quote stripping and so does the command line interpretor before it passess the arguments to commandreporter. Challenge Find the correct sequence of escapes to generate a command string that can be passed to CreateProcess() to run a report via commandreporter with the following argument ! /PARAMS:" Mark date Date MarkDateBefore 2011-06-10T00:01:00 Mark date Date MarkDateAfter 2010-08-15T23:59:00 "

OK I've tried runing it via the dos prompt with single quotes and even no quotes! both work OK However when I pass the same command line to CreateProcess it fails to run CR claiming a file handle error. Passing the same command line to createprocess but ommiting the Params parameter works OK. Putting the xml in a file also works OK from the dos prompt but once again fails when CR is called via createProcess and the filename is passed (Thats why I was trying this alternative approach) Howard

They are all escaped. As a debug I write out the parameters being passed to CreateProcess just before it runs. The relevant one is the whole thing is enclosed in single quotes as required by CR. I also wrote a dummy commandreporter.exe that simply wrote out the parameters it was being sent. Interestingly it claimed to get so its possible that either CreateProcess or the mechanism by which a program extracts its parameters is stripping out even escaped double quotes.

Vikpaw, You were right you can just use the bits from the to the - at least on the command line you can . I also doubled up the quotes just in case but it didn't seem to matter if I did or not it still ran OK. Thanks for getting it shorter. The odd thing is that I still cannot get it to run from a Delphi program using CreateProcess() . This function should run an external program and pass it parameters. It works fine when I use it to run CR with the user, pw and output parameters but fails if I pass the Params one as well, even though I copy paste the string that works fine on the command line. Something is very odd. Howard

Hi vikpaw, I tried it with just and this time got an unrecognised token on DDNzGLsaAUi8eGtd+3PIGw== Howard

I am trying to use CR with parameters to limit dates. If I make the paramdef xml file using the \PARAMDEF switch, alter the dates in it and use a batch file to run CR with the \PARAMFILE parameter pointing at the file it works OK. However, (trying to avoid using the file) if instead I take the contents of the xml file and simply pass that entire string as a \PARAMS parameter CR gives me this error. That corresponds to the first part of the xml where it states the version i.e /PARAMS:" Has anyone used \PARAMS sucessfully? BTW I would prefer to do it with a \PARAMS instead of PARAMSFILE as in my real application I use a Delphi program to call CR, not a batch file. However that seems to fail if I use either the /PARAMFILE or /PARAM swich, but works OK if I dont use parameters at all. Howard

I pass parameters to a report using the /paramfile switch. However I have a question that I am unable to test out using just one copy of sims. A relevant set of lines in the paramfile looks like this... - Mark date Date MarkAfterDate - 2010-08-30T09:21:30 What I need to know is will this file still work if I give my reportdef and this paramfile to another school or is the part specific to my copy of sims? Howard

Philip, Thank you, I can see that makes sense given the dos line limit. But I don't see why we need to jump through so many hoops to get the paramdef file in the first place, then have to duplicate nearly a page worth of text exactly right except for the small bits that need to change. I can see why you cannot use positional parameters but even using a file to pass the parameters they could be done as simple named parameters - even typed ones. But parameters are not even mentioned in the report design. It appears one has to provide a textual prompt to a user that will never exist and then that prompt is used as the identifier for the parameter, at least it serves to identify it to me if not to the SQL. It all seems a very unusual way of doing it. Howard

Thanks for your help VikPaw. Using parameters opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Might even get sims to do something useful for me . Shame SIMS has to go about it in such a convoluted way. What's wrong with simply '/MarkBefore:2011/02/20' on the command line like other DOS programs? Nevermind; I will be using a program that I wrote in Pascal to actually run the CR line so I guess I simply use my code to rewrite the param file with the dates I want (don't care about the time so I will leave that as is) and all will be fine! I'll try that when I get back from the mountains. Thank you very much. Howard

Sorry I've not replied earlier but I've been away. VikPaw - that seems a very clear example, thank you. I'll try these suggestions again and post my results (may be a few days as I'm not around again for a while). I appreciate the efforts being made. It would be good to get this sorted as although my current system works - exporting everthing after august 2010 - the output file is getting unnecessarily bigger and bigger! - got my paramdef file now, looks like below. will try editing it and running it with CR. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark date Date MarkBeforeDate - 2011-02-21T08:55:23 - Mark date Date MarkAfterDate - 2010-08-30T09:21:30

My report already had an output file (as a csv not xml). I'm still unsure what you mean by parameter. I know what a parameter is - (I've taught computing for 25 years!) - but I'm not sure what how SIMS lets us refer to them. In case its any help this is what my report definition looks like. You can see that I am setting default dates in the filter (also tried ticking the 'prompt at runtime' box but I don't really want to do this as these reports run overnight. I can see no mention of parameters or how to define them anywhere in the report designer. There is nothing under 'filter students' as I'm not filtering the students, I'm filtering the date in the attendance sub report. (although even the word 'filter' is a bit odd. I'm used to using 'select' in SQL.) Interestingly this time when I ran it with /paramdef I got no output (well, only that shown below the report definition shown here. Howard Report Name: SITKA_AllSessionAttendance effective on: 05/02/2011 Data area: Student - Population: On roll Data Fields: Admission number, UPN, Surname, Forename, Legal Surname, Legal Forename, Gender, Reg group, Year group; for attendance marks of each student where Mark date is after 30 Aug 2010 and Mark date is before 05 Feb 2035: Mark, Mark description, Mark date, AM/PM, Session, Day of week, Month, Statistical meaning Filter Students Use the default sort order: Surname, Legal Forename Default Output: Text Report Title: the output with the /paramdef switch SIMS.net Command Line Report Exporting Utility 7.136.29.0 Copyright ¸ Capita Business Services Ltd 1984-2010. All rights reserved. Logging into to SIMS.net as user hom-it Getting reports for user hom-it Report 'SITKA_AllSessionAttendance' found. Generating Report Parameter Definition file Generating Complete

Losojos, I can see what your script is doing but , like you say, I can't see the parameters I need in the output I get with /PARAMEF

Yes I do. I tried it with the dates simply set as part of the filter and then again with the filter ticked to say prompt at runtime (but with the same dates in the boxes, so these ought to be the default?). I am assuming that the dates I set as my filter are my parameters. Unless there is somewhere else where I should be explicitly naming parameters? The report is correctly filtering with the dates set in it but the earlier one is set to 30 Aug 2010. Obviously as time goes on the amount of data is going to become huge. Howard

Please could you explain what you did to make it work as I am having the same problem. I have a report focussed on student with a subreport on attendance. I filter attendance to be after a certain date and before another one, currently very far apart. These are what I want to set via parameters. I ran the report with the \PARAMDEF switch but couldn't see any reference to my dates in it so don't know what to change (or even how to format the date if I did!) I even set the repoprt to prompt on running but got the same paramdef output. At the risk of boring you my paramdef output is below. Howard SIMS.net Command Line Report Exporting Utility 7.136.29.0 Copyright ¸ Capita Business Services Ltd 1984-2010. All rights reserved. Logging into to SIMS.net as user hom-it Getting reports for user hom-it Report 'HOM_ExportAllSessionAattendanceMarksXMLS' found. Generating Report Parameter Definition file attributeFormDefault='qualified' elementFormDefault='qualified'> Generating Complete

Here I go again with another question about SIMS (although so far I have never had any replies to any of my questions - anyone out there know about SIMS?). Our school, for reasons best known to the ex head of sixth form, does not agregate any GCE AS results into grades. Hence SIMS can do little with them. Is there a simple way to get AM or PM to add up the UMS marks and work out the equivalent grade without me exporting all the results and doing it myself in Excel? Howard

OK fixed this as well myself. You can't. You have to create a new group containing all the short course people and another with all the full course . Then you have to select these groups separately with PM. Very labour intensive! Howard

OK, found out myself. Yes, you need to export them from AM6 and the import them into AM7. Shame AM7 can't read them directly! Howard

Using SIMS.net ver 7.95. I have lots of group analyses done in performance manager 6 (which I access through a link in the left hand panel of sims .net). Now I have been told that I should instead be getting there via Focus|AssessmentManager|Group analysis (which I believe uses assessment manager 7). However when I gi via that rioute :?: I cannot see any of my saved analyses. How can I access them? Do I need to import them or something? Howard

Producing a subject/grade analysis in PM seems to ignore short courses, treating all the results as if they were full courses. Hence the statistics produced are misleading. e.g. if a (very small !) school got 30 out of 60 students achieving 5 grade A*-C passes then PM reports the school as having 50% 5 A*-C. However if say 20 of those students achieving 5 grade A*-C passes were following short courses in all their subjects then each grade counts for only half a grade meaning that these 20 in fact only had the equivalent of 2.5 A*-C grades each. In this rather extreme example it means the true % 5 A*-C for the school is only 10 out of 60 or 16.6%, not 50%. I my school some subjects are entirely short course, some entirely full and some subject have some students following short and some following full How can I get SIMS to correctly show me the true % 5A*-C achieved without going through each result by hand and doing it manually? Howard (incidentallly a similar problem exists with double science but this time SIMS reports twice the number of enties)

Thanks, sorry for the delay in replying, I've been away in the mountains to relax. Thanks for the offer of contact, When we start back and I start thinking about work again I might well take you up on it. Howard

Thank you GrumbleDook, Thats a very good start, at least I know where to start looking. So if I understand correctly you only have one aspect, say 'effort', that you then attach to different results sets that define which particular effort you are talking about is that right?. Will it be possible to translate my inherited aspects into these better ones? Do you know if you can use these result sets in queries (or whatever passes for them in SIMS)? (I get nervous when I see menu items called 'focus'. It looks too much like an old fashioned hierarchical database.) Three people doing it! The head told me that he had underused my potential and would I do it - as well as running an ICT faculty with nine staff - on my own, in a school with 1800 pupils. He said I could take a couple of days off if I want. Fine but I've got A level classes to get through exams, he hasn't. Cheers Howard

Hi, I have the task of data analysis, tracking and target setting. The guy that set up Assessment Manager seems to have made hundreds of aspects for similar data e.g. 'Spring Y11 Maths Effort', Spring Y11 English Effort, 'Autumn Y11 French Effort'. This makes analysis a nightmare. I'm used to building proper relational databases where, using this example, an single effort grade would be identified by a compound key comprising Season, Year & Subject with each grade in a different row, not in a different column with a different name. How is this sort of thing achieved in Assessment Manager 7? Howard