Importing Data into SchoolTools

Hi Brian,

At this point, it might be most helpful for both of us if you would describe what data you want and what format you've got it in.

Thanks for your quick response.

I don't want any data, I have oodles of my own. My aim is to build a school-tools system and see if it can replace our current system. I realise that this is not a project for the faint hearted. We have long experience of using linux on our school systems and although we usually have used Redhat/Centos/Fedora I found ubuntu server perfectly familiar for an install and configuration.

Currently we use a MIS from an outsourcer. They are a well known provider of a large scale college system. I looked at school-tool when we decided to dump the previous MIS. I spoke to someone at a Linux conference in London and even spoke to a developer about it on the phone. Unfortunately It was in no condition at the time to meet our needs.

The current system provides a web based front end for teachers to enter marks, reports, and registration. There is also a desktop system for administrators. This can be installed on their desktop PC but we use Citrix to publish that application to whichever desktops need it. The system is based on a SQL database (MS SQL server is the server that the outsourcers provide).

The database is huge, complex and badly normalised. As I understand it, the whole system uses java servlets to do all the processing.

We are confident we can pull out timetable data; student data; teacher data and groups using sql and starting from there, get the data into whatever format is needed to construct the objects to put into school-tools. I gathered from somewhere or other that this could be done via xml.

So, the current format of the data is inside a set of rdbms tables which do not have a format that can easily be described here.

As a starting point in seeing whether we could move to school tool, I thought I would try to transfer the students timetables to schooltools and see about running the calendar side of things. I also have a technician looking at the resource booking system as a replacement for a system called mrbs we use currently.

I have installed the system on a decent server and it is working fine.

Hi Brian,

OK, for starters, you're using the packages from our PPA, right?

To import persons, go to Manage then Persons then Import Persons. This is not going to be completely satisfactory yet, as it will only import names, id's and passwords. Now would be a good time to let us know what other demographic fields you need.

Similarly if you go to Manage > Groups > Import Groups you can... import groups.

This should work for courses and sections, too. Let us know if it does.

OK I will get our students, groups and staff in and then work from there. I will let you know.

 However what about timetables, would I need to generate them within the system by scheduling or can I import them a well?

Brian

Thanks Tom Hoffman, that solved my question.