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SIMS the MIS of choice supporting teachers, senior leaders and wider staff with the tools to efficiently drive improvement in their schools.
If we assume that the integrator’s software is installed on a machine then that machine also must have SIMS installed and running on it. If this criteria is not met, then please refer the customer to their SIMS Support Unit who should be able to get SIMS and SIMS Reporting running on the machine independently of the integrator’s software.
This is installed with every SIMS 7 installation and is typically found in the c:\Program Files (X86)\SIMS\SIMS .Net folder.
The file <WinDir>\SIMS.INI file should contain an entry SIMSDotNetDirectory which is the source of truth as to the location of SIMS on that machine.
Prior to executing the report, the report must be either imported manually or via command report importer. Obviously if the report does not exist then an error will occur.
ESS makes sample wrapper code available for contracted integrators which makes the execution of the import a single line of code (plus error handling) e.g:
SIMSReportingEngine.Reports.Run(<report name>,<Server>,<Database>,<User>,<Password>)
SIMSReportingEngine.Reports.Run(<report name>,<Server>,<Database>,<User> ,<Password>,<paramdef file name>)
Alternatively the executable can be called directly in a similar way.
It is far simpler for integrators to use the code provided because it handles various scenarios for them, however code samples include all of the exemplar code which can, if needed be modified to meet their specific requirements.
We recommend that unique names such as ‘Partner Product <Student> v1.00’ for example so as not to get confused with a report created by the school themselves. There have been a number of reported conflicts which are typically resolved by deleting the reports manually in SIMS; but the ‘versioned’ and ‘unlikely to copy’ model does save on support costs.