I’ve been spending some time exploring what’s possible with the Reports module, and wanted to share an example. A school recently approached me about building a custom report card, so I put this together for them inside Gibbon. I’ve replaced most of the original names and wording, but the structure and logic are the same.
This report consolidates data from various Gibbon areas, including Markbook, Attendance, User Admin, Students, Staff, School Admin, and Form Groups, into a single layout. Once the data is entered and the template is set up, generating reports becomes a quick, straightforward process, even for an entire school.
I’m still learning and experimenting, and I’d really love to hear how others in the community are using the Reports module. If you’ve built anything interesting or found creative ways to combine data, I’d be keen to see it.
Hi Tieku, thanks for sharing! I like the addition of a chart, is that something you’re generating automatically or adding manually as a picture?
When working with markbook data, are you using a script or process to move the marks across into the reporting module, or are teachers entering this data manually? I have had requests in the past for a way to move markbook data into report criteria values. It hasn’t been a priority for my school, so it’s been low on the feature list, but I wondered if this was something that would benefit the schools you’re working with.
Chart:
The chart is generated automatically, not added as a static image. It’s all done in the report template using Twig + plain HTML tables/CSS, so it works nicely with mPDF. For each subject I re-use the same logic as the markbook table to calculate the CAT + Exam total out of 100, then convert that value into a bar height (in mm). The “bars” are just table cells with a background colour and variable height, with the score printed above and the subject label below. So once the markbook data is there, the chart builds itself for every student and every run of the report.
Markbook, reporting:
For this report I’m not asking teachers to re-enter anything into the Reports module. I created a custom report data source (Markbook.php) that pulls directly from the markbook tables for the chosen student/term/class. The numeric fields (Reflection, Classwork, Midterm, Project, Exam, etc.) all come straight from markbook, and the Twig template does the aggregation (CAT, Total, grade, average, etc.) on the fly.
Teachers only type the narrative bits (holiday focus, teacher comment, HoD comment) once, in fields that are also fed in via the same data source. So there’s no separate script to “push” data into report criteria values at the moment – it’s more of a live read from markbook whenever the report is generated.
That said, I can definitely see a use-case for a core feature that can move/snapshot markbook data into report criteria, especially for schools that want to lock values at a certain date, or do more complex workflows inside the Reports UI. The schools I’m working with are happy with this direct-from-markbook approach right now, but I’d be very interested in anything in that direction and would gladly test it.
Ross actually got me started a few years ago when he sent me a starter Reports module.
The process of generating custom report cards in Gibbon—using grades and comments from the Markbook—is what I’ve tried to outline above. The example I shared is just one possible setup.
If you have a specific type of student report you’re trying to generate, feel free to share it here (or describe the layout and requirements). I’d be happy to walk you through the steps in a more tailored way.
