penfold_99

Will it integrate with OpenZIS? and what is the cost?

Sounds like the office open and open office document standard happening all over again. Capita should have built on to the defined standard as it is now before going off on a tangent!! well £5000 just to allow you to properly integrate internal system using a common dataset is a lot of money.

I'm trying to find out if there is definitely is a SIMS.net ZIS Agent that is available without having to purchase partnership xchange? I have found OpenSADK library to interface with the ZIS, i would prefer to use OpenZIS as partnership Xchange is about £5000. Can anyone shed any light? Phil Neal perhaps?

I belive there is OpenSADK. It's available on launchpad. Grumbledock, continuing our conversation yesterday, am i right in staying to get infomration from sims via SIF/ZIS the setup would need to be SIMS.net <-> SIMS.net ZIS Agent <-> ZIS Server <-> Moodle ZIS Agent <-> Moodle? All i would need to right is the Moodle ZIS Agent?

Your just in need of a big stick to fight back with.

Hi ICTNUT, I'm currently in the process for testing a new version of SIMS2MOODLE integration that doesn't use direct db access. direct db and support from capita is a gray area. With the new version there will be the opportunity to have official support contacts. The new version also doesn't have the technical barrier to implementation that direct db access has. What's your time frame for implementing this?

As the question has been answered. i thought i would ask how you getting on with uniservity?

You could create a report that exports the timetable as csv.

This is something i ahev been talking with a colleague about. You can export any report in sims as a csv file. It would just be automating the import into mbrs.

Just to make everyone aware there will be a third option for moodle users who require SIMS/Moodle/AD Integration. I will be release very soon SIMS2MOODLE - Enrolment and SIMS2MOODLE - Timetable with SIMS2MOODLE - AD Account Creator, SIMS2MOODLE - Parental Access and SIMS2MOODLE - Parental Email System to follow. The cost will start from £250 per year for support, the price will increase dependant on the number plug-ins. On-Site Installation will be available. The code will be GPL but only available for download with a support contract. The reason behind this to have a revenue stream that will sustain the project. This plug in uses Capita approved data extraction routines so no direct db link.

@geoff and localzuk Do you run moodle? do you have integration with sims.net?

The question is how many people will want support as it's currently looking like there wont be enough interest to sustain the project.

If the project was released GPL. I could distribute the code for £X or free. I could then offer paid for support packages. Where do updates fall only to paid for support users or free users? or free users after a time delay?

MIT licence is compatible with GPL and can be used in proprietary software.

What moodle code will i be using? you talking about calling moodle functions? My code will be used by moodle.

From the GPL Site.

Do we have any licensing experts here? I'm after some info on what is the best licence to release my new moodle and sims.net modules under. Currently the old version is issued under a gpl lience. For the new version i would like to sustain the project with a revenue stream. What is the best licence to issue it under as gpl allows third parties to resell the code without any income filtering back to the developers? I'm thinking of releasing the new version under a different licence. An education licence for schools who sign up directly and a commercial one for companies that resell the modules. I would like to allow schools it modify the code for internal use but not the commercial licence as supporting a large number will be a problem. This will allow an income to be generated and keep the project going not to make large about of money.

just to update this post. I have tested the plugin at another school and it ran into an issue when using IE6 and IE7. I am current integrating browser detection to avoid this issue.

ok will rephrase a sql database thats not sims

If you are thinking about tying moodle and sims.net via direct db connection, watch out for the problem with freetds on ubuntu. AFAIK its still broken.

Who ever advised you to move to IIS can i take them outside and shoot them? I would move to a linux (centos or Redhat) box instead of a windows server, in the long term you will have more flexibility.

@dhicks I will be at unconference also. (that reminds me i need to register a place) I'm in the proccess of turning my integration bits in to a commercial offering while still being open source. The idea is a co-op membership subscription, everyone pays the same low price (compared to other offerings, ie hundreds not thousands). The goal here is to sustain the development time with the lead of to 2010 and meeting the becta requirements.

Hi David, What is you speed like with using a web service around commandreport.exe. Is there any caching invloved? as some reports can take a while. I went with csv as it's less fiddly than a direct DB connection (but does remove some of the possible features) and there wasn't any speed issues.

Hi, Do you use moodle? I will be finished my moodle block that handles this in the coming weeks.

Hi Witch, It is possible to automate this from sims.net, it currently has to have a live db link, i am in the process of rewriting to allow for a csv import for parnetal data. It component creates a parent account based on email address, which is stored in sims.net. This will allow parents to see what their child(ren) see with the exclusion of the list of enrolled students. There need to be a careful setting of permissions as once parent is enrolled incorrectly it can cause havoc.