Integrating Moodle with TASS

Integrating Moodle with TASS

by Jo Oreo -
Number of replies: 3

I'm hoping that I'm posting this message in the right place.

I was wondering if it is possible to integrate Moodle with TASS.(http://www.alphabus.com.au/index.cfm). TASS is an on-line reporting system that our school already uses. I have been trying to convince our school to use the FANTASTIC MOODLE big grin, however, they are now looking at using EduKate, just because it integrates with TASS. In my opinion, Moodle is far more superior in functionality and friendliness. I was hoping if anyone would know if it is possible to integrate the recorded grades from moodle directly into TASS.

Hopefully someone out there is familiar with TASS  mixed

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In reply to Jo Oreo

Re: Integrating Moodle with TASS

by Mark Stevens -
Anything is possible because Moodle is open source and plays well with so many systems smile 

First, can you find out answers to some general questions: 
Do you know what kind of database TASS uses? 
Do you have read access to the database?  (if not, can you get a snapshot of the database to put on a computer that you do have access to?) 
Do you have anyone who can write code? smile  (If you don't, then you can use some of your Moodle savings to hire someone to write the integration for you.)

(Probably not the answer you were hoping for, but the only mention of TASS on moodle.org is your posting and the TASS web site is closed to guests.)
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In reply to Jo Oreo

Re: Integrating Moodle with TASS

by Oliver Jackson -
I'm a network manager at a QLD/Aust highschool which runs TASS. My co-worker recently discovered Moodle after having been asked to look at the potential use of EduKate. The significant capital cost difference and possible feature advantages have lead us to invest some time towards attempting to "integrate" TASS and Moodle.

I'd obviously be very intertested in conversing with anyone else who has looked at such integration.

It's been a short affair to date, but so far we've managed to write php code to automatically populate and update the Course_Categories, Course, User, and Teacher data in Moodle from the Timetable and Enrolment information within TASS. This will eventually result in a "foolproof" script that can be either scheduled or run by admin staff whenever a timetabling or enrolment change is made in TASS.

The systems used here to arrive at final grades have always been too complex for us to setup fully within TASS. We simply enter final grades and reports into the TASS Webbook module. This should hopefully make it easy for us to push grades back from Moodle to TASS as there will only be one field per student's subject record to be populated. Though extending this far will definitely be a low priority for the time being.

To answer Mark's question, TASS uses an IBM Informix database. We query it using php's standard ODBC funtions and the IBM Informix ODBC driver. In my experience it's a pretty complex set of tables and most of our development time so far has been spent finding where all the useful data hangs out.

I'm happy to consider sharing our scripts with anyone who's interested in them.
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In reply to Oliver Jackson

Re: Integrating Moodle with TASS

by IT Services -
Dear Oliver,

I would definately be interested in these scripts as we also use TASS at our school and the scripts I wrote a few years back to automatically enrol students, staff and populate course information no longer work with the latest version of Moodle.

My email address is jgramp@somerville.qld.edu.au.

If you are able to contact me about this I would be very grateful.

Jessica
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