duncanb

Hi all, Just a short note to say that the schools.bi project is now open on GitHub! Link to repo: https://github.com/mgregson-vldb/schools_BI Let me know what you all think, we'd love to hear some feedback. Ben

Yeah I've used Wonde in some schools and it seems useful for a lot of applications. We've chosen Groupcall's Xporter to develop initially as that seems to be generally used most (at least in this area), but when the repository is made public there's nothing stopping someone developing a version to work with the Wonde API as well.

Hi Tony, thanks very much!

Hi David, the way it works is we use Groupcall's Xporter to take data from an MIS system, and then basically populate the data into a PostgreSQL database, which can then be queried and visualised using something like Superset (or if the school has a prioprietary BI tool they can use that). The code could run locally on a machine as long as the user has relevant permissions, however it may be best running on a server, where the authorised user can log on and query data, it's really up to the school how it can be implemented. With what you're trying to do, you could run the code from a server and host the database in the same place. You can then set the permissions at the database level for each user/group, and have them connect to the server via their local machine using Superset, Power BI, whichever tool they use, and they can then access the data authorised to that user based on the permissions set at the DB level. You could also script the import to run on the server at a set time, say once a day, so the users always get fresh data.

I like it! I've not used Google Data Studio before but I'll check it out, ditto with Command Reporter.

Noted! Thanks for the feedback. You can follow the project on GitHub here: https://github.com/SchoolsBI -- Xporter provide a nice sandbox for us to test the code in, which we're doing now, and we've coded for a number of endpoints so far.

For sure, it's understandable that schools might not want students to have access to school data, so in that instance they can just use test data from Xporter to assist in development, and the school can still use the software in a more restricted environment -- with the help of IT of course... Groupcall's Xporter works with most MIS systems, cloud and on-prem. The only one we've found that isn't compatible is EBS, which I think is more for colleges/sixth forms, as part of the functionality of the software is processing applications.

Hello there! Having worked in schools as a technician, I'm painfully aware of how much money they spend on IT licensing -- I've had many a business manager complain directly, so I was always keen to promote OS software as an alternative. Having switched jobs, I now work for a data company, and a project they have is an open source BI tool for schools. It uses the Xporter API to extract data from SIMS (and others) and populates the data into a PostgreSQL DB, which they can then visualise using something like Superset. Ideally this could be used in schools teaching A-Level IT or CS, so that students could work on the project as part of their coursework, and also provide some benefit to the school by giving them free access to their data. From my time working as a school technician, I can only see benefits to this, but I was curious if anyone had any ideas, feedback or can poke any holes in this, or even better, would like to contribute to the project? Ben P.S. http://www.schools.bi