[Portfolio] new reports tool ?

[David McPherson]

Hi Mike and John,

The tool is what is for right now.  It's not an easy tool to use at all and the documentation is non-exsistent.  It also requires in-depth knowledge of the Sakai DB.  This is spelled out in the wiki page for writing reports. https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/OSPDOC/Writing+Reports+for+the+OSP+Reports+tool

This is probably one reason why this tool has been dropped.  

On the other side, this tool is despairately needed by so many folks out there, that I picked it back up to get it running for VT and then for others.  The upgrades need to include a better way to write the reports.   A better way to specify which site the report is intended to run in, i.e. site specific reports.  I'd love any feedback or input on the tool as it will make for a better tool.

I'm still learning what is required to write the reports and struggling myself on getting a report written for us here at VT, but there is really no other option, at the moment.

There is another contender out there.  Will Trillich showed in Denver 2 years ago a tool he called the Report Gizmo.  Here's his slides http://www.slideshare.net/trillich/reporting-on-your-xml-field-data  This takes the xml data and stores it in standard sql tables.  Then you can attach a regular reporting engine to those tables and generate reports that way.  I think he's willing to share that code and I think a few others out there have it running.

Reporting is the elephant in the room as far as osp goes.  It's something everyone needs and very few are willing to tackle or focus on.  Any support is greatly appreciated.

Dave McPherson
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David McPherson
Assistant Director, ePortfolio Initiatives
2210A Torgersen Hall
Learning Technologies
dmcphers at vt.edu
540-231-8993









On Sep 13, 2011, at 8:27 AM, Mike Song wrote:

> I, too, am having a hard time dealing with the reports tool. It just doesn't work at all for me and I can't find anything online that can give me any insight.  I'd love to hear that someone has something up and running.
> 
> Mike
> 
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:20 PM, David McPherson <dmcphers at vt.edu> wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> The rumors are true.  I am working on getting the reports tool up into trunk.  I've got a 2.8-X version and I hope to commit be the end of the week.
> 
> Are you looking for something in particular?  Or just a general query?  Currently, it's just a "restart" to get the tool up and building with the latest trunk and then I'll be looking to add some features to it.
> 
> Dave
> --
> David McPherson
> 2210A Torgersen Hall
> Virginia Tech
> Assistant Director, ePortfolio Initiatives
> 540-231-8993
> http://eportfolio.vt.edu/
> 
> On Sep 12, 2011, at 6:08 PM, John Bush wrote:
> 
> > I've heard that someone is working on either a new reports tool, or
> > maybe mods to the old one?  Heard IU and Virginia Tech thrown out.
> > Does anyone know about this, and if so can they point me to more info.
> > Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > John Bush
> > 602-490-0470
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