Has anybody used KDE/Calligra's Kexi for this kind of thing?
On 5 November 2012 14:53, Zane Gilmore <zaneli...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Nick Rout <nick.r...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Roy Britten <roy.brit...@gmail.com>wrote: >> > <snip> > >> A spreadsheet is capable of producing reports, and if there are only a >>> few changes for kid X then a cut and paste from last term's spreadsheet >>> line to this term's is pretty damn simple, and not really time consuming at >>> all. >> >> >> We all know spreadsheets are not databases, despite the fact many people >> use them as such, but is their existing solution just being badly managed? >> I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would not just print out a >> report from last term and say "change anything that needs updating and sign >> it" - then do a c&p and make any necessary changes >> > > These are really good points. Spreadsheets could probably do the job but > they require a lot of discipline, a lot of patience and a lot of technical > expertise to make them work for a job that could blow out in size and > complexity at any time. > > >> >>> They have a budget to implement a "proper" solution for tracking kids' >>> details. They've been quoted five-figure sums for American >>> off-the-shelf solutions which seems a bit much. >>> >> > "Off the shelf" (read proprietary) solutions aren't much better, they cost > a huge sum just for an installation and the you *still* need to get it > going for the business. If you pay for an outfit to develop it from OS > technology stacks then you will save them money in the long run. > > >> I reckon this list is a good place to discuss suitable OS/Linux >>> solutions. Go! I'll start with: can OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, or >>> whatever) be customised up to support this sort of thing? >>> >>> >> Open/Libre have database hooks - there is a menu for LibreOffice Base in >> my Linux Mint system. However I would have thought a LAMP based system >> would be a possible answer. >> > > Using something like Rails,Django or Cake someone should be able to put > something together reasonably quickly. > > >> >> There are libraries for producing pdf reports from databases or other >> data, reportlab for example. >> >> Whether the costs of setting something like that up and maintaining it is >> any less than 5 figures, I don't know. >> > > To get someone who actually knows what is required to do this will almost > certainly cost into the 5 figures. even if it is low 5 figures. > From your description (disclaimer: I am hazarding an educated guess from > your description) to write this shouldn't be much more than a week or 2 of > work but the main thing is the maintenance and ongoing tweaks. > You will need to talk to an outfit who wants this kind of work. Try > talking to the guys at Egressive ( http://egressive.com/ ) It's a local > Open Source development company. If they don't want the job, they might be > able to point you at someone who does. > > HTH, > Zane > > > > -- > ------------------------------------------- > Zane Gilmore > > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-users mailing list > Linux-users@lists.canterbury.ac.nz > http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users > > -- Sincerely, Christopher Sawtell
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