I’ve just recently installed Gibbon on a test computer for evaluation for the school I work at. I’m effectively the schools DBA but one of my responsibilities is evaluating software for potential use.
Gibbon looks to be very will thought out, in particular the management of families and relationships.
I’m hoping I can get a bit of feedback on whether or not a couple of features exist at all:
automated data imports - in particular timetable
deep linking (direct url) to the class attendance page for teachers, i.e. for a given date/class/period
embeddable timetables
We have an existing LMS with user dashboards where we would like to present the 2nd and 3rd items.
Hi Rich, welcome to the Gibbon forums and thanks for your positive words.
There are CSV/Spreadsheet imports for many areas of the system, but these are not necessarily automated, especially in terms of the timetable. Gibbon has a quite flexible timetable, to help meet the needs of a wide range of schools, but the flexibility increases the complexity, so it may help to check out the docs to get a sense of how the timetable works: https://docs.gibbonedu.org/administrators/timetable/timetabling/
Yes, and the links in Gibbon all have identifiers in them, so you could parameterize the URL from the other side (eg: to always link to the current date).
This feature does not exist and isn’t necessarily on the roadmap. Our core development team is focused on ongoing refactoring and improvements to the underlying framework. One option for this is to look for a developer, or if you have access to a developer, to build this as a custom module. Some information can be found in the docs: https://docs.gibbonedu.org/developers/getting-started/module-development/ and examples of custom modules can be found on the Extend page: https://gibbonedu.org/extend/
To help explain what we’re trying to achieve, our existing environment consists of a timetabling package where we design/maintain the timetable, this is imported (synced) to our student management system on a 15 minute cycle - this allows for timetable changes. The student management system is where attendance is recorded. By comparison, I suspect Gibbon allows for the initial timetable import but timetable changes thereafter are made in Gibbon, does that sound correct?
Thanks! I will take a look.
I saw the custom modules option, I am a developer but predominantly in C# and MS SQL. Might be time for me to learn some new languages!
Correct, if you’re importing the timetable, then you’d likely only want to do that once and then make interface changes from there. As open source though, there’s always the possibility to develop systems to sync.
Sounds great. If you do find yourself delving into the codebase, we have a Slack channel for developers, feel free to email support@gibbonedu.org and we can add you.