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In the spirit of trying to help colleagues in a similar position... When Advanced notified us that they were halting all development of the product, I saw the writing on the wall and started to look at alternative MIS systems immediately, with a view to having something set up by July 2023. Never did I imagine they would pull the plug so soon and I cannot imagine what schools must be going through right now. I did 3 months of research, meetings and investigation. We were a big user of Cloud School - I had developed my SSRS skills and we had a suite of widgets to support staff, students and parents alike. All students and parents used the portal, so getting a new system that allowed us to continue to build on this base was important. I have just signed a contract with a new MIS provider. If there are schools out there who would like to know more about what I looked at and the reasons for the choices we made, I would be happy to share them. If there is enough interest, I could host a Zoom meeting to prevent having to repeat myself over and over again. I have not really used EduGeek much before, but this is a place I do go to from time to time (usually when there is a problem), so I am guessing some of the schools affected may be looking for guidance. If others know of other forums that may find this helpful, do let me know!

Hi, I apologies if this has been covered but I cannot find any reference to it. We are moving from one parent contact system to another. The new system will read data directly from CMIS and so I want to import the email addresses of parents into CMIS from a CSV. Is this possible? If so how do you import the details ensuring the correct email address imports to the correct contact. Is there a quick way to do it or do I have to tell the office staff its a manual job. Any help appreciated...

One of my summer jobs (lucky me) is moving FacilityCMIS and ePortal onto a new virtual 2k8R2 server from the creaking heap of crap that it currently sits on. FirstLine has no guides on installing from scratch, conveniently, and support didn't have any either when I asked... So: is it just a case of going through as if it's an upgrade? Install SQL Server, configure IIS as per the guide, then install Facility & ePortal and import data from the existing server? As well as copy over various XML files etc. Any gotchas I should be aware of? Anything in particular I need to test to destruction? We don't use behaviour, DocStore or SMS, just Facility & ePortal (inc. API). No LEA support. I've done upgrades for the last three years so I'm familiar with that process, but this is the first time I've started from fresh.

Hi Looking through the old comments, no-one seems to have asked recently whether CMIS can be automatically backed up. The IT Department back up the server, but have told me that CMIS still needs backing up from within the system daily. This is getting to be a pain so any help in automating this would be appreciated! Thanks K

I've setup a grid in CMIS with addition student data columns that I would like to display in eportal. I've added the grid to controller and restarted the services but only assessment columns are showing. Cheers.

Really need cmis experience for this one but will look at senior admin or technicians who want a career change CMIS Data MIS Manager required for prestigious Education establishment. This is a crucial role supporting the schools collection, input and extraction of important data to aid its educational outputs. Experience within assessment analysis is essential, exams, eportal, timetable scheduler etc is also highly advantageous. Being part of a large cluster means this role is well supported and has a career path. CV’s also welcome from cmis experienced senior administrators. SQL, CMIS, Facility, Serco Learning, sims, mis, ims, database, templates, students, census. CMIS Data MIS Manager ? North Surrey [email protected] or pm me

Hi all, I am looking at the possibility of publishing CMIS to admin users externally. This will form part of the thin clients roll out planned for the school and to have external access to a desktop; the same desktop the user sees when they are at school and external to the network which would include MS Office, their work area, shared area etc. The questions; am i allowed under the DPA to allow CMIS externally? if not then why not? if yes, what are the measures which need to be in place? Anyone else been able to do this for their management system? Staff have ePortal access externally, would publishing CMIS be allowed also? Apologies for the blunt questions; I need to make doubly sure before I do anything Thanks for any responses, have a good break all Regards STariq

any one know how to edit a CDB file? Is there a program I can use to make minor changes? I know have to make a new one, just being lazy really. Cheers Dave

We use CMIS and teachers register their classes every lesson. At the moment we don't have a simple way of finding out if students have been present for part of the day, but absent for one or more of the periods. In other words, have they nipped off for an unscheduled break during the day... As an example, I'd like it to find Bob, who was present periods 1, 2, 3 and 5 (missing p4) and Fred, who was present p1-4 but absent 5; however I'm not interested in Bill, who didn't get to school until later and was present p2-5 but missing p1. I did set up a spreadsheet for one of the office staff to export all the data to, then press a button, but I can't believe there isn't a ready made report for this. Does anyone know how to do this "at the push of a button" rather than going and looking at individual student records? I'm even happy to use an SQL query if someone can point me at the right tables (yes - I've had a brief glimpse under the bonnet and wept at the prospect). This seems like such an integral feature of lesson by lesson registration that I just know there must be a simple answer...

Just a quick blue Skies debate for you all. The current MIS situation in UK means we have 3 big players 1) Sims 2) Integris 3) CMIS First an interesting tidbit the market share is order above as Integris has more installs and usage than CMIS (that one surprised me when I found out) Is there room for small MIS system to take off or best they can hope for is that they get brought out by one of big players or a big player looking to get a quick injection into the market. Russ

Hi, Does anyone know if there is a way of automating/scripting a Facility backup rather than having to do it manually through the CMIS interface? Is a SQL backup sufficient? Thanks very much.

Powershell command which will query a CMIS database and produce a list of students that can be shunted along the pipeline. i.e. Get-DBStudent -MinYear 8 -MaxYear 8 -DataSet "2012/2013" | Export-Csv c:\tmp\yr8.csv -notype Will produce a list of students in Year 8 for the Dataset 2012/2013. <# .SYNOPSIS Retrieves Some Basic Student info from CMIS Database. Why? For increased integration with Active directory we can pipe user information from the database which is the master source of student and staff information. .PARAMETER MinYear, MaxYear, DataSet The Min YearGroup, The Max YearGroup, The CMIS 'DataSet' .EXAMPLE Get-DBStudent -MinYear 8 -MaxYear 8 -DataSet "2012/2013" | Export-Csv c:\tmp\year8.csv #> Function Get-DBStudent { [CmdletBinding()] Param( [Parameter(Mandatory=$True,ValueFromPipeline=$True,ValueFromPipelinebyPropertyName=$True)] [string]$MinYear, [string]$MaxYear, [string]$DataSet='2012/2013' ) PROCESS { # You need to set these appropraitely for your circumstances. SSPI means you will need permissions to # access the database. # $SQLServer="mssql.ourschool.org.uk" # $SQLDBName="CMIS_DATA" $SQLServer="" $SQLDBName="" $SQLConn=New-Object System.Data.SQLClient.SQLConnection $SQLCmd=New-Object System.Data.SQLClient.SQLCommand $SQLConn.ConnectionString="Server=$SQLServer;Database=$SQLDBName;Integrated Security=SSPI" $SQLConn.Open() $SQLCmd.CommandText= ` "SELECT st.StudentId, sp.Surname, sp.Forename, st.StudentId,st.Name,st.classgroupid, " + ` " sp.EMailAddr, st.CourseId, sp.LeftSchool, sp.DateLeft, sp.DateEntry " + ` " FROM STUDENTS st, NSTUPERSONAL sp " + ` " WHERE st.SetId = @dataSet and " + ` " st.SetId = sp.SetId and " + ` " st.StudentId = sp.StudentId and " + ` " (st.CourseYear <= @maxyearGrp) and " + ` " (st.CourseYear >= @MinYearGrp) " $SQLCmd.Connection=$SQLConn $SQLCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue( @maxyearGrp",$MaxYear) | Out-Null $SQLCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue( @MinYearGrp",$MinYear) | Out-Null $SQLCmd.Parameters.AddWithValue( @dataSet",$DataSet) | Out-Null $SQLReturn=$SQLcmd.ExecuteReader() while ($SQLReturn.Read()) { $obj = New-Object -typename PSObject $obj | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name ForeName –value ($SQLReturn["ForeName"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name Surname –value ($SQLReturn["Surname"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name StudentId –value ($SQLReturn["StudentId"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name FullName –value ($SQLReturn["Name"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name EMail –value ($SQLReturn["EMailAddr"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name TutorGroup –value ($SQLReturn["Classgroupid"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name KeyStage –value ($SQLReturn["CourseId"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name HasLeft –value ($SQLReturn["LeftSchool"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name DateEntry –value ($SQLReturn["DateEntry"]) –passthru | Add-Member –membertype NoteProperty –name DateLeft –value ($SQLReturn["DateLeft"]) Write-Output $obj } } } # Example Use (Uncomment to test in ISE) # Get-DBStudent -MinYear 8 -MaxYear 8 -DataSet "2012/2013" | Export-Csv c:\tmp\yr8.csv -notype

Hi, I'm posting to see if there are any schools in Leeds using the Facility CMIS Administration software that would be willing to speak to the East SILC Hospital and Home Teaching Service in Leeds. They are a split site teaching facility that do not currently have an MIS system in place, they want to find a suitable solution and are interested to know what the experience of other schools in Leeds is. If you are able to help out please let me know so that I can put you in touch with Penny Woodhead at the service. -Greg _____________________________ Greg Jones Data Manager James Brindley Hospital Special School Birmingham

I am having problems getting the Facility Connect API to work with the eSchools learning platform. I have updated the api.xml with the settings that were given to me by the eSchools learning platform and I keep getting the 404 error message. The api.xml settings have been checked and are correct. Can anyone help me to resolve this problem as Link2ict do not offer any support on this?

Does any one know if you can add qualifications gained elsewhere (ALAN, NVQ's etc) to CMIS and then have the results show on the students result slip? I know SIMS does it ( used it before and you can add results so you have an accurate performance indicator) but not sure if/how CMIS can do this? Thank you!

The SEN dept. within my establishment requires a means of tracking SEN provisions/interventions in greater detail which can then help with in depth analysis requested by our LA. To give you an idea of the sort of detail required please see below: - Creation of an inclusion register. - Ability for all SEN dept. to track their own provisions/interventions. - Automated review date reminders. - Linking of staff to specific intervention mappings, including time & cost allocation. We are currently trialling an option, whilst reviewing other 3rd party options that allow integration with CMIS. Do any schools out there do anything similar and if so, what? I have toyed with the idea of having a unique result entry template/UDFS to control the majority of the information, but due to the in depth features required, I'm not sure this is the best means. The current method used for the recording of this data is Microsoft Excel (whilst also maintaining the statutory SEN data required for Census). Thanks

Full info here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=98792