1. Reporting on your XML Field Data
Will Trillich <will.trillich@serensoft.com>
Sean Keesler <sean.keesler@threecanoes.com>
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2. The Agenda: REPORTING
• A discussion of the problem
• A demonstration of our approach
• Starting the brain-storming dialogue
July 2009 10th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA, U.S.A. 2

3. So We Begin By Discussing
The Problem
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4. Reporting
• “Pulling patterns out of your data”
• How many A’s, B’c, C’s?
• Who’s our top student?
• What’s the average eval score?
• Without reporting, why even have the data?
• Reporting requires that you can get to the data
• In OSP, form data is buried in XML
• Reporting tools need SQL field-level access

5. Form Data Entry
content-grade (0-4)
quick-evaluation
form
style-grade (0-4)

6. Form Data Stored as XML
• After the data is entered it’s stored as a
monolithic chunk of XML
<structuredData>
<quick-evaluation>
<content-comment>Nice work</content-comment>
<content-grade>4</content-grade>
<style-comment>A bit less passive voice should have been used</style-comment>
<style-grade>3</style-grade>
</quick-evaluation>
</structuredData>
• How would we report on content-grade?
Can’t get to it 

7. Reporting Tools Require
Data Access at the SQL level
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8. Reporting Tools
• Crystal Reports
• Cognos (Impromptu, Series 8)
• Pentaho
• BIRT
• Etc…
They all use SQL-selects to pull data;
monolithic XML chunks are opaque unless
you tack on XSL to navigate the tree

9. Parsing Report Data Via XSL
• You could use XSL to navigate your XML
data (viz. standard “Reports” tool)
• But it’s painful/costly to set up
• And it’s slow to run
• (Yuck!)

10. Wouldn’t it be nice if…
• Imagine pulling a report like this on OSP
data using an off-the-shelf reporting tool

11. Introducing Serensoft’s
Reporting Gizmo
Built with help and guidance from ThreeCanoes and Agilearn
July 2009 10th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA, U.S.A. 11

12. The Sizzle
• Here’s a Cognos Impromptu report:

13. More Sizzle
• Another Cognos report

14. Even More Sizzle
• We’ll show you live reports from live form
data, changing before your very eyes
• (…if the network cooperates)

15. Admin Interface Needs Attention
• This is the first iteration, don’t forget 

16. Caveats
• It’s brand-new so there are lots of decisions yet
to be made (this is where we’re asking for your
feedback)
• Security
• SQL Schema
• etc
• It’s an “admin” tool only
• It just parses the XML and puts the data where
you can “SELECT” it

17. Not it’s time to
Begin The Dialogue
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18. What Issues Are Important To You?
• Now we open the floor to start the dialog
• We’ll continue this on-list (sakai-dev?) in
the future
• Your feedback will help us shape this
gizmo to provide the functionality you
require
• Let’s start brainstorming!