I work for a community college in North Carolina. Our most central repository of data is a software system called Datatel, aka Colleague (why it has two names, I don't know).
In our case the underlying data store is IBM Unidata. I develop with .net technologies.
Does anyone have any idea about consuming data from Datatel/Colleague in any way? What about from IBM Unidata?
Take a look at IBM's UniObjects for .NET and their developer's guide direct link to pdf
Datatel is the name of the company (http://www.datatel.com) and Colleague is their ERP/SIS solution.
One option to consume data from a Datatel Colleague system is to bypass the application layer and directly query the underlying database. In your case it appears to be IBM's Unidata.
The other 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 XML based real-time data transactions. http://clients.datatel.com/uploads/9FF92652-B087-9615-48FF427AF8071E20/EDX_AdministrationR18.pdf
The other is called ELF (Electronic File Transfer) which allows you to create a batch process within the Colleague application to push out the data to a pre-designate location in flat file format. http://clients.datatel.com/uploads/873EF32F-B799-11D5-AF510002A5070708/elf.pdf
Another option is to use IBM's Visual Schema Generator (VSG) and then attach to the underlying tables via ODBC
I suggest you download IBM personal version of Unidata to get familiar with the application and interfaces before attempting this on live data
Download trial versions here
Use Uniobjects for .NET - don't bother with VSG/ODBC as it does not scale well, particuarly for web apps.
I write tools directly from Envision that allows data to be put in DataMarts, or direct EXCEL spreadsheets from the data. I then put those dumps directly on the the menus in Colleague, ans secure them to the end users. This allows the users to have access to the data they need. I am also in the process of designing a tool that will allow users to pull their own data without me writing a screen or a report for them. It is based on Colleague SECLASSes, DEPTS, and override access. It looks at the data you have available to you thru the screens you have security for and allows you create reports from that data.
The DataMart, and the direcrt EXCELs are very useful for our campus users, and the people love to be able to pull their data when they need it.