Moodle integration with SchoolTool

Some of our districts are using SchoolTool.  A student information system based from Fairport NY, from Mindex.  There are lots of SIS's, SchoolTool another in a long line of them.  I had a request from a customer asking if it poss. to sync grades from moodle with schoolTool.  Well, turns out that is not a trivial response or request.

Upon discussing with my co-worker Jeff H, a SchoolTool support person, there is no existing solution to automatically pull grade data from moodle and copy it into SchoolTool.  A couple immediate questions that came to my mind where

yes - Moodle can share its grade data, no problem.  I have actually written similar code a few years back for another moodle customer.  That customer is now using a different enrollment and authentication system, called Genius SIS, but I digress.

Some SQL to pull grade data from the moodle instance.

SELECT u.firstname AS 'f name' , u.lastname AS 'l name', c.fullname AS 'Course',
       CASE WHEN gi.itemtype = 'Course'   
       THEN c.fullname + ' Course Total' 
       ELSE gi.itemname
       END

    AS 'Item Name', ROUND(gg.finalgrade) AS Score, ROUND(gg.rawgrademax) AS Max,    ROUND(gg.finalgrade / gg.rawgrademax * 100) AS grade,
       
       IF (ROUND(gg.finalgrade / gg.rawgrademax * 100 ,2) > 65,'Yes' , 'No') AS Pass
       
       FROM mdl_course AS c
       JOIN mdl_context AS ctx ON c.id = ctx.instanceid
       JOIN mdl_role_assignments AS ra ON ra.contextid = ctx.id
       JOIN mdl_user AS u ON u.id = ra.userid
       JOIN mdl_grade_grades AS gg ON gg.userid = u.id
       JOIN mdl_grade_items AS gi ON gi.id = gg.itemid
       JOIN mdl_course_categories AS cc ON cc.id = c.category
     
      #WHERE  gi.courseid = c.id AND gi.itemname != 'Attendance'
       ORDER BY `Name` ASC

I conceptualized these steps as 'proof of concept'

1. create a php page that pulls the data and writes it to a CSV file
2. Use the cron script to call the php file
3. Send the CSV file to a shareable space

These steps are doable - to be sure, even a little interesting. Moodle can share the data.  SchoolTool has an API that includes two functions, each of which says it would allow gradebook related data for assignments.  Called ImportGradeBookAssignment/POST and ImportGradeBookAssignmentScores/POST.  But - I do not have a SchoolTool RD server to test how this is working.  I probably could get that set up, but the OTHER REASONS not to do this are

Reasons not to write a plugin or custom code to automatically write data to the schooltool gradebook.

1 - Its creates an inverted pyramid - where I may be the only one who can support the code.  Not ideal.  And Jeff said  the the teachers in SchoolTool must still manually review and import data that has been sent by API calls - which makes sense.  Before it appears in the gradebook.  If the API changes - the database tables change their schema, at all, even a little, crash!! Boom !! - your tight little app now needs maintenance.  I guess its like a lot of other situations, a customer wants something, you want to deliver it for them, its good service.  BUT, should you?  Is it a smart thing to do?  Know the implications of building something like this.  Think about 12 months from now, will it still work?  Will you still be around to change and update - maintain it?  Could someone else come up to speed on it?

Hmmm, always such an emphasis on the Gradebook.  We could set this up and get it working, if we followed the API and if the API was realiable - there is not alot to it.