| dlobo_ | hey Lumiere: but are they any reviews / feedback on it? i'm trying to get an idea of how popular / deployed it is and what some of the other choices are | 00:36 |
|---|---|---|
| dlobo_ | i'm the lead developer of civicrm with school kids and wondering if i should build an extension in drupal to do some of the things my kids school wants (and a bunch of other schools) | 00:37 |
| Lumiere | dlobo_: there are the schooltoolers mailing list | 00:38 |
| Lumiere | dlobo_: but really, th1a is the one to ask | 00:38 |
| Lumiere | he organizes a lot of that stuff | 00:39 |
| dlobo_ | checked the feature list and realized the contact functionality is weak | 00:39 |
| dlobo_ | and not a lot of support for things like day care / extended care / summer camp registration etc | 00:39 |
| dlobo_ | things at which civicrm/drupal are quite good | 00:39 |
| dlobo_ | too bad its in python :( | 00:40 |
| Lumiere | dlobo_: contacts are something we've improved a lot | 00:40 |
| dlobo_ | yeah, but i suspect schooltool will never become a contact manager :) (which civicrm basically is) | 00:41 |
| Lumiere | it isn't meant to be a contact manager | 00:41 |
| Lumiere | it's meant to be a SIS that has enough contact information to satisfy basic users | 00:42 |
| Lumiere | then we add what people need | 00:42 |
| dlobo_ | Lumiere: yes agreed | 00:43 |
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| replaceafill | yvl, ping | 09:58 |
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| yusuf | Can anyone help me print a report showing attendance of the pupil in shool tools? | 16:29 |
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| th1a | Hi yusuf. | 16:41 |
| th1a | yusuf: As far as I know, you can only do that by class at this point. | 16:49 |
| th1a | More reports need to be written. | 16:49 |
| th1a | And *will be*. | 16:49 |
| Lumiere | yusuf: what we need is detailed example reports of what people need | 16:53 |
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| yusuf | Lumiere: th1a thanks, I will try to draw up a sample report in xls | 17:41 |
| th1a | perfect. | 17:41 |
| th1a | And I'll try to get to the point in the SchoolTool Book where we explain the report card system. | 17:42 |
| yusuf | how does the current format work, i think i read that it works with point system | 17:42 |
| yusuf | what I want is minutes, but once i draw up the sample report it should become clear hopefully | 17:43 |
| th1a | Basically, what you can do (which isn't what you want) is create a special sheet that goes in every teacher's gradebook where they can enter the grades or other data that ends up in the report card. | 17:45 |
| th1a | So right now it is both flexible and kind of manual. | 17:45 |
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| Lumiere | yusuf: what is possible, is looking in the attendence system for the number of periods absent and then calculating minutes from that | 17:53 |
| yusuf | so is a pupil is 5 minutes late, where would you record it | 18:04 |
| yusuf | Lumiere: ^^ | 18:04 |
| th1a | I don't actually remember for sure if that is logged. | 18:05 |
| th1a | Or, would you rather have that manually recorded than automatically. | 18:05 |
| th1a | That is, if a student is not there, record an "a" until they arrive, at which point it becomes a "t" and the amount of time tardy is stored. | 18:06 |
| * th1a wonders if the journal/gradebook and journal/attendance functions are going to have to part ways. | 18:07 | |
| yusuf | will play around | 18:07 |
| yusuf | once i get some time, i will try to make that xls report | 18:07 |
| th1a | Thanks. | 18:08 |
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| dlobo | hey tom :) | 18:27 |
| dlobo | this is lobo from groups.drupal.org | 18:27 |
| yusuf | th1a: you from South Africa | 18:40 |
| yusuf | ? | 18:40 |
| yusuf | I'm from South Africa | 18:41 |
| th1a | I am in the US. | 18:41 |
| th1a | Hi dlobo. | 18:41 |
| yusuf | oh, ok | 18:41 |
| dlobo | hey th1a | 19:02 |
| dlobo | have time for a few questions | 19:03 |
| th1a | dlobo: We're going a little asynchonous. | 19:22 |
| th1a | asynchronous | 19:23 |
| dlobo | hey | 19:23 |
| dlobo | responding to your post on groups | 19:23 |
| dlobo | do u have a few mins | 19:23 |
| th1a | I'm on the phone atm, actually. | 19:24 |
| dlobo | no hassle | 19:28 |
| dlobo | ping me when u r off | 19:29 |
| dlobo | also responded to your post | 19:29 |
| th1a | dlobo: I'm off. | 19:30 |
| th1a | dlobo: The functionality you describe in the forum doesn't overlap much with an SIS at all. | 19:32 |
| dlobo | yeah thats what i suspected | 19:32 |
| th1a | Or, it does fairly indirectly. | 19:32 |
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| th1a | Which is good in a way. | 19:32 |
| dlobo | since i looked at the schooltool feature set | 19:32 |
| dlobo | and there did not seem to be any | 19:32 |
| th1a | CRM is definitely a big deal for private and charter schools, though. | 19:33 |
| th1a | An interesting thought is to make the CRM the parent-facing part of the system. | 19:34 |
| th1a | We haven't decided how we're going to implement parent logons. | 19:34 |
| dlobo | we use drupal for the login part | 19:35 |
| dlobo | and then work behind the scenes and will display the relationships etc | 19:35 |
| dlobo | and allow them to edit/update/create stuff | 19:35 |
| th1a | I mean, we haven't decided if parents will be full users or a special limited kind of account. | 19:36 |
| th1a | Actually having them access some SIS data through the CRM interface might be a nice idea. | 19:37 |
| th1a | Give them a single interface to deal with that. | 19:37 |
| dlobo | stupid question: is there a classic definition of an SIS | 19:37 |
| th1a | I say: demographics, gradebook, attendance, reporting. | 19:38 |
| th1a | That's the core. | 19:38 |
| th1a | Discipline, perhaps. | 19:38 |
| th1a | Standardized test scores. | 19:38 |
| th1a | Information about students ;-) | 19:38 |
| dlobo | so other than the demographics aspect, there is not a lot of intersection | 19:39 |
| th1a | Right. Which is much cleaner than when there is. | 19:40 |
| th1a | But in an SIS you wouldn't let parents enter their own info. | 19:41 |
| th1a | So we might be able to have a workflow like this: | 19:42 |
| th1a | parent comes to CRM, sets up account. | 19:42 |
| th1a | Goes through application process, | 19:42 |
| th1a | Is accepted, | 19:42 |
| th1a | CRM hook sends data into SIS. | 19:43 |
| th1a | Sends demo and contact info to the SIS. | 19:44 |
| th1a | The SIS would prefer not to have a lot of info about parents and students who are not admitted. | 19:44 |
| th1a | CRM does. | 19:44 |
| dlobo | yeah | 19:46 |
| dlobo | sounds quite reasonable | 19:47 |
| dlobo | with regard to schooltool, does it have pretty good api's etc | 19:47 |
| th1a | We have excellent separation of model and view. | 19:48 |
| th1a | And originally we had an extensive REST api, for arcane historical reasons, | 19:49 |
| th1a | but ultimately it was slowing down development to the point where we were going to have an incredibly correct interoperable application that would never actually do anything. | 19:49 |
| th1a | So we're focusing now on implementing the API's of other applications that people actually use. | 19:50 |
| th1a | In particular, talking mnet (XML-RPC) with Moodle, which has its own funding stream right now. | 19:52 |
| dlobo | cool | 19:52 |
| th1a | I mean, Moodle-SchoolTool has its own funding stream. | 19:52 |
| dlobo | also curious about your statement: "open source philanthropy is not the shortest distance between two points" | 19:52 |
| th1a | Well... inevitably when someone decides they're going to create an open source project with a philanthropic mission, | 19:53 |
| th1a | it takes on grandiose and wide ranging goals. | 19:53 |
| th1a | Mission and requirements creep is hard enough to manage when you've got a paying customer. | 19:54 |
| th1a | When you've got a pot of money and an abstract global customer... | 19:54 |
| th1a | it is difficult to go in a straight line. | 19:55 |
| dlobo | civicrm is in the same boat, but i think we've been quite focussed and nose on the grindstone etc | 19:56 |
| th1a | dlobo: It is a somewhat easier case because you're much closer to scratching your own itch. | 19:58 |
| dlobo | yes | 19:58 |
| th1a | We've gotten much better at it over the years, too. It has just taken a few more years than I would have hoped. | 19:59 |
| th1a | You can say that about a lot of software development projects, though. ;-) | 19:59 |
| dlobo | yes | 20:01 |
| dlobo | in case u have not read the chandler book | 20:01 |
| dlobo | u should | 20:01 |
| dlobo | dreaming in code | 20:01 |
| dlobo | or something like that by the salon author | 20:01 |
| th1a | I've read it. | 20:02 |
| th1a | And lived it. ;-) | 20:02 |
| th1a | dlobo: I'm going to go get lunch. Let's keep this discussion going. | 20:04 |
| dlobo | cool. chat later. thanx for the feedback | 20:04 |
| th1a | Thank you. | 20:04 |
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| th1a | dlobo: My friend who is the IT guy for a charter school says "It's a very cool idea" | 21:11 |
| dlobo | excellent | 21:12 |
| dlobo | ask him to get involved | 21:12 |
| dlobo | :) | 21:12 |
| dlobo | i'm meeting the head of school etc on thursday | 21:12 |
| dlobo | and we'll come out with a plan | 21:12 |
| th1a | Ah. Where is this? | 21:12 |
| th1a | What kind of school? | 21:12 |
| dlobo | a bit dismayed as to the lack of open source software for schools | 21:12 |
| dlobo | http://sfschool.org/home/index.shtml | 21:12 |
| th1a | Schools have moved *more* slowly than other areas, which is the opposite of what I thought would happen. | 21:13 |
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| dlobo | but i dont think there are lots of options either that they can use easily | 21:14 |
| th1a | Right. | 21:14 |
| th1a | I would think they'd like a CRM if they don't have one. | 21:14 |
| th1a | I don't even know how common it is. | 21:15 |
| dlobo | but civi does not match their needs nicely, i.e. need better relatioship management and handle families more seamlessly etc | 21:15 |
| dlobo | which we'll do :) since i want to scratch that itch | 21:15 |
| th1a | Yes. | 21:15 |
| th1a | It shouldn't be too hard, if you already have custom relationships. | 21:16 |
| dlobo | it matches a lot of stuff they need though | 21:16 |
| dlobo | yeah, we have the pieces and the data model, not just got to do it | 21:16 |
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| th1a | dlobo: Do you know what they use for an SIS now? | 21:38 |
| dlobo | th1a: not sure, i'll find out. if i had to guess some custom / proprietary stuff | 21:42 |
| dlobo | but the goal would be to convert the school and its fellow group of liberal schools to using open source :) | 21:43 |
| th1a | For a smallish private school, there's a pretty good chance they're just running some custom thing. | 21:45 |
| th1a | Filemaker FTW! | 21:45 |
| dlobo | the admissions stuff is in filemaker | 21:46 |
| dlobo | most of the other stuff is in a oracle db! | 21:46 |
| th1a | Ah. | 21:47 |
| dlobo | th1a: r u fulltime on schooltool | 21:55 |
| th1a | Yes. | 21:55 |
| th1a | Me and two developers. | 21:55 |
| dlobo | cool. thats a small team :) | 21:56 |
| th1a | There are also CanDo developers, who just work on the competency tracking part used in Virginia. | 21:59 |
| th1a | And a few others who can do contract work when it comes up. | 21:59 |
| th1a | What's nice is that we've hit enough maturity that schools are starting to include us in their grant proposals, which seems effective. | 22:01 |
| th1a | Particularly compared to trying to figure out how to just write SchoolTool grants. | 22:01 |
| dlobo | yeah, thats cool when the community steps up and helps push the project forward | 22:06 |
| th1a | It is difficult in this niche where schools don't have much development capacity themselves. | 22:11 |
| dlobo | hey i think non-profits have even less development capacity :( | 22:12 |
| dlobo | at least most private and soem charter schools have some money | 22:12 |
| th1a | True. | 22:17 |
| dlobo | th1a: some more discussion on the groups mailing list | 22:49 |
| dlobo | mailing list == forum | 22:49 |
| th1a | dlobo: Thanks. | 23:06 |
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