College Software Development: Getting Data from Datatel / Colleague

Question

I work at a college in North Carolina. Our most central data warehouse is the Datatel software system, known as a colleague (I don’t know why it has two names).

In our case, the basic data warehouse is IBM Unidata. I am developing .net technology.

Does anyone have any ideas on data consumption from Datatel / Colleague? What about IBM Unidata?

Answer 1

Datatel is the name of the company ( http://www.datatel.com ), and a colleague is an ERP / SIS solution.

One way to use data from Datatel’s Colleague system is to bypass the application layer and directly query the underlying database. In your case, this is IBM Unidata.

Another option is to use one of the integration points that the Colleague application provides.

One is called EDX (Envision Data Exchagne), which allows you to create real-time data transactions based on XML. http://clients.datatel.com/uploads/9FF92652-B087-9615-48FF427AF8071E20/EDX_AdministrationR18.pdf

Another is called ELF (Electronic File Transfer), which allows you to create a batch process in the Colleague application to output data to a pre-designated location in a flat file format. http://clients.datatel.com/uploads/873EF32F-B799-11D5-AF510002A5070708/elf.pdf

Answer 2

Take a look at the Rocket U2 U2 Toolkit for .NET and their developer guide direct link to pdf

See: Where to get UniObjects for .NET?

Answer 3

Another option is to use the Visual Visual Schema Generator (VSG) and then connect to the underlying tables via ODBC

I suggest you download the personal version of IBM Unidata to familiarize yourself with the application and interfaces before trying to use this for live data.

Download trial versions here

Answer 4

Use Uniobjects for .NET - don't worry about VSG / ODBC as it does not scale well, especially for web applications.

Answer 5

I write tools directly from Envision, which allows you to enter data into DataMarts or hide EXCEL spreadsheets from data. Then I put these dumps directly on the menu in Colleague, and they provided them to end users. This allows users to access the data they need. I am also developing a tool that will allow users to retrieve their own data without having to write a screen or report for them. It is based on the collaboration of SECLASSes, DEPTS and access redefinition. It looks at the data available to you on the screens on which you have security installed, and allows you to create reports from this data.

DataMart and directcrt EXCELs are very useful for our campus users, and people like to be able to retrieve their data when they need it.