dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Ola Hodne Titlestad <olatitle@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jason,

Could you tell us a bit more about the Zambian Excel reporting requirements?

There are a lot of talk about the use of Excel from different implementation
sites at the moment and it seems a bit of collaboration and consolidation
would be useful.

I would also be interested in knowing more about the use of excel reporting
in Vietnam. What are the main use cases?

There is a blueprint (actually two) on the use of Excel for remote
lightweight data entry (import) here:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/dhis2/+spec/import-data-from-excel
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/dhis2/+spec/spreadsheet-dataentry

I guess the use of Xforms (which Bob reported that is now working quite well
in OpenMRS) could be a better alternative for remote data entry?

I know India is already using Excel import, and I assume also some kind of
reporting to excel.

The DHIS report tables can be exported to excel as well, and if you use the
Display functionality in report tables the view can be edited (hide/show
columns etc). A bit more styling there and you have an Excel report I
guess....

Another related and very important Excel issue with DHIS is export to Pivot
Tables. There is a need for a much easier generation and update process
here, basically what we want is a one click process from within DHIS 2 to an
Excel Pivot table file. Bob and I had a chat about this last week and he had
some ideas on how generate pivot tables by writing directly to Excel's XML
format. An important related issue here (that I guess deserves a blueprint)
is the use of local Excel files when having a central server installation
(no local databases). Basically my key querstion is how to keep local Excel
pivot tables updated against a remote server without having to download all
the data on every refresh. The refresh operation empties the pivot table and
loads all data again from source. This is not what we want, as it could be
years of data needed to be downloaded from the server. In stead some kind of
local mirror of the data source (ideally without having to install a
database server) and a monthly append process is what we need, but not sure
how....

So lots of activity around Excel.... and scope for collaboration and sharing
of code and ideas I guess...

Ola Hodne Titlestad |Technical Officer|
Health Metrics Network (HMN) | World Health Organization
Avenue Appia 20 |1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland | Email: titlestado@xxxxxxx|Tel:
+41 788216897
Website: www.healthmetricsnetwork.org

Better Information. Better Decisions. Better Health.


2009/9/23 Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>

> Well, as soon as I can get it working, I would be happy to provide
> feedback. :)
>
> There have been some development here in Zambia that make this type of
> functionality more important for the potential deployment of DHIS2
> country-wide here, but I need to be able to give some semi-intelligent
> answers about whether DHIS2 can output to Excel. Currently, we have
> gone through BIRT for some simple Excel sheets, but being able to go
> directly from the application would be a big plus.
>
> Just let me know when you are finished, or at least at a state when it
> is semi-usable.
>
> Best regards,
> jason
>
>
> 2009/9/23 Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:09 AM, Jason Pickering
> > <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> OK. Let me know when the docs are ready, and I can have a look at them.
> >>
> >> Any idea when the code will be ready? I have had a request for this
> >> particular type of functionality, and would like to see if the Excel
> >> reports fit our requirements here in Zambia as well.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Jason, would as always be good to get your feedback on this. If this is
> > close to fitting your needs we can spend some time to accommodate it.
> >
> > Thuy, can you find out how many days you are from having this module in a
> > "working" state?
> >
> >
> >
> > Lars
> >
> >
>
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