RETS client help

[pdizzle]

Hello,

I am a web developer contracted to make an MLS search engine for a realtor using MLSNI (Chicago area).

I have never worked with RETS (and would rather not).

I would like to find a solid client (pay or free) that will download the RETS database at preset times and store the data into a SQL db. Is there such a tool/product/program that you can recommend? Ideally I would be able to run this script on my server and pull the data at pre-defined times and only pull the differences between RETS and my local server. Also could this data delete data no longer in RETS? Basically something to synch my local DB to the RETS server...

any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[webmaster]

Does MLSNI not provide you with a RETS client? There is also an ftp option for MLSNI which is much more friendly to work with.

[pdizzle]

The FTP is only available for the IDX which does not include the full MLS.

Does anyone have experience with VieleRETS ? can it do what i am describing? has anyone used it on the MLSNI?

[Aaron]

The FTP is only available for the IDX which does not include the full MLS.

Does anyone have experience with VieleRETS ? can it do what i am describing? has anyone used it on the MLSNI?

I tried a few versions ago to set up VieleRETS with MLSNI ... It was not happy.
MLSNI's a TON of data and it's got some strange things going on in the data. Eventually I did manage to get VieleRETS to work, however it took like 16 hours to update the data ( not acceptable )
They do have a great mailing list and the developers are very quick and seem happy to help with any issues you might have.

[wotech]

As a current VieleRETS user, I feel i must chime in here

To answer your question, yes VieleRETS was made to do exactly what you're requesting.

As mentioned previously, to do an initial data download of ALL the listings in our MLS, it takes most of the day. However, after the initial download of all listings, you can download just the changes. For example, you could use vielerets to query the RETS server for all the listings that have changed since 08-17-2007 8:52am, or whenever you ran the last update. FYI...this can also be automated by VieleRETS.

If you're looking for a fairly "out of the box" solution to dump RETS data into a relational database, VieleRETS is the best that I found. Not perfect yet, but it achieves the goal for our clients.

[cormip]

Most of the day to download all listings?!? I'm curious as to how many listings that is? How much bandwidth is available to an individual downloader? pdizzle, you also need to take into account the specific things you want to do with the listing data. A straight mapping of the RETS layout to a SQL Database may not work for you. (i.e. attribute lists embedded in a single node)

Paul Cormier

[MyREALTY.com]

pDizzle - you may be better off going 3rd party w/MLSNI data - you can get a good integrate-able IDX w/VOW (your need in that market) capability and 'tweak' it to meet your clients needs /wants.

This is often a case of 'reinventing the wheel', we deal with this often in 800 MLS markets ourselves.

IF your client / contract has the wheels (budget) to justify it, then it may be worth it. For all I've seen, having a 3rd party system deal w/the data is a blessing - allowing us (you) to focus on the rest of deliverables critical to the project.

Best to you!
TM

[REW Reed]

Yeah, keep in mind that you will have to implement a full VOW to display the RETS data. Without, you will be looking at all of the RETS fields and only being able to display the FTP feed fields.

[tazz_ben]

As a current VieleRETS user, I feel i must chime in here

To answer your question, yes VieleRETS was made to do exactly what you're requesting.

As mentioned previously, to do an initial data download of ALL the listings in our MLS, it takes most of the day. However, after the initial download of all listings, you can download just the changes. For example, you could use vielerets to query the RETS server for all the listings that have changed since 08-17-2007 8:52am, or whenever you ran the last update. FYI...this can also be automated by VieleRETS.

If you're looking for a fairly "out of the box" solution to dump RETS data into a relational database, VieleRETS is the best that I found. Not perfect yet, but it achieves the goal for our clients.

Could you give an example of the extract that you are using for this incremental update. I've got VieleRETS working to download all the listings, but I don't know how to automate an incremental update.