Hello everyone,
I am new in using moodle and i just installed the dataform plugin. I have created a form with some fields and now i want to export an entry. I have enabled portfolios as it is required in the documentation but i cannot find the ##export## view.
Any help or instructions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
-Thanasis
In the current version there is no export view. With portfolios enabled you can add to the repeated entry section the tag ##export## and it should display an export button depending on permissions.
If you use the ##select## tag in the entry, you can also add the general tag ##multiexport## or ##multiexport:icon## for bulk export of selected entries.
If you need CSV export, the portfolio export make not work very well, but forthcoming is a designated CSV view for CSV import/export.
hth
Thank you Itamar for your answer, it was very helpful and i understand what i have to do
Thanks again
- Thanasis
I finde Dataform a very good module.
I could not export multi records.
I took the Tabular view
1. in the section General purpose section
| ##addnewentry## works | ||||
|
##pagingbar## ##multiexport## ##multiexport:icon## ##multiexport:csv##
|
2. In de Repeated entry
I tried too
##multiexport:icon## in the Header row and ##multiexport## for each line.
nothing appears.
If I put in ##export## for each entry the button appears. If I will export one record I have the error message.
"You tried to repeat the export of some information, or start an empty export. To do that properly you should go back to the original location and start again. This sometimes happens if you use the back button after an export has completed, or by bookmarking an invalid url."
portfolio export is enabled. And set one portfolio: File Download
Hi, Jurg. I'm getting the same thing on my 2.4.1 site (and I know technically it is released for up to 2.3), but not on my 2.3.4 site. I, too, did all of the things you outline above for settings prep.
I'm able to dowload multiple entries in both HTML and xls/csv formats on my 2.3.4 site. I tested using the same preset that worked on my 2.3.4 site on my 2.4.1 site. I can see no differences in export portfolio or other settings.
Soooo...I'm thinking I just need to wait for the 2.4 update from Itamar. At least that is what I'm hoping. I'm anxiously awaiting the CSV view and the PDF export developments I've been seeing discussed in the forums, here, but I'm not sure when they might be released.
Which version are you using? Is it possible the version might be the issue?
Hi Lesli
Thank you very much. You are right must be the issue, I am using moodle 2.4.1.
Jürg
Hi, Itamar.
This tool, particularly the concept of having views, has been extremely useful for exploring ways for developing multi-layer assessments. Thanks!
I saw a post for a different thread saying you were going to do an update for an error someone is getting in 2.5. I'm hoping this also means you'll be updating in general so that export works past 2.3? It worked great through 2.3.x but as soon as I upgraded my test site, I started getting the error Jurg describes in this thread. I'm not sure if there is already a tracker item for this, so if you need that posted there first, let me know. I'll post more details there for what I'm seeing in 2.4.4.
I think I have the latest version installed from the plugins database, but I am not yet seeing an export view option in place of just having the ##export## field in the entry itself, if that is the way you are going with this functionality.
Thanks again. I REALLY like this tool.
Lesli
Hi Lesli,
The Moodle Plugin repo doesn't have the most recent Dataform version. I will push it there when I have time. In the meantime try the git repository of the plugin at https://github.com/itamart/moodle-mod_dataform. The version there contains the csv and pdf views.
The csv view has a fairly simple interface that allows you to specify the csv columns with or without headers. The view displays the entries in a simple table and the export link sends the view content into a downloadable csv file.
I will be releasing very soon an update with some interesting features such as a label setting for a field, PDF table of content, and a Dataform View field that allows interlinking between dataforms based on entry values.
If you upgrade to the latest version from git, please backup and test the upgrade first.
Testing on my site now. So far, it looks as if the PDF export view works in 2.4.4 IF I remove the old ##export## tags I had been using prior to the availability of the pdf view.
Some of the table html that had worked in the grid views is not working in the pdf view very well, so that will also need adjusting. But on the whole, this will be VERY useful for teachers. My goal is to give them a way to print or download nice-looking and detailed progress reports for specific assessments in pdf that they can use during parent teacher conferences while using the same info they entered for that progress report in that dataform activity to give themselves the option of a roster overview report that they can download as a CSV spreadsheet for their own self-assessment of where the class is as a whole on that particular benchmark/skill assessment. Still working on that part.
Thanks for the pointer to the latest and greatest version!
Stay tuned to the next version coming soon. It includes, among other things, some bug fixes and enhancements of the PDF view.
When porting existing view templates into a PDF view you need to take into account that the downloadable pdf is done with, and constrained by, the tcpdf library (included in standard Moodle). There are some limitations with respect to css and html that the tcpdf recognizes and or the way it interprets them. For instance, to separate content by empty lines you need to use line breaks (<br /> (shift+enter)) rather than paragraph breaks (<p></p> (enter)).
In the next version the view adds the css from the Dataform CSS tab in the pdf file and makes possible styling with classes rather than inline rules.
Okay. Will stay tuned for the update. The new version looks very promising, but the add entries tool broke on upgrade as did the ratings. That add entries for each student tool alone was one of the reasons I started looking at Dataform. I can't even tell you the number of times it comes in handy to be able to have a structure populated for students ahead of time (whether it is an activity they will be doing or whether it is just somewhere for me to track what they are doing in front of me f2f). Having the ability to attach a score that reports to the grader report is also key, so I put everything back as it was for now.
I wasn't super happy with the table designs that are breaking in the pdf view, necessarily. I was just trying to create near carbon-copies of the doc versions going out to teachers in their curriculum packets, which had the hard-line tables as part of their design, to show teachers how that paper version could translate, possibly, into an electronic version that comes with all of the access-anywhere benefits of using Moodle versus using a doc stuck on one's laptop.
Long story short: Since I have to go back to the drawing board, in terms of simplifying many of the designs anyway, I will wait until I know for certain what I'm able to do or not. Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback Lesli.
I suppose that saving Word docs as clean html files and copying the html into the editor could make it more tcpdf friendly.
Both the add entries tool and ratings are fixed for the next version. I'm very much dependent on feedback from the community for detecting bugs in a module that by now is fairly complex. Any feedback is much appreciated!
"I suppose that saving Word docs as clean html files and copying the html into the editor could make it more tcpdf friendly."
Okay, I'll try that. Though I've come a bit late to the OpenOffice party, and those types of translations seem to be hit or miss most of the time with OpenOffice. I've tried to stick with html created in Moodle's html editor for that reason (meaning I looked at the table design in the Word doc and re-created it in Moodle from scratch using the html editor in Moodle).
"Both the add entries tool and ratings are fixed for the next version." Awesome. I figured that, so I'll just wait for the full update. It is worth the wait, if I can manage it pending other deadlines, since you have made creating new fields so much easier and have made it so it isn't quite such a make or break deal if I figure out somewhere in the middle of building the form that I forgot this or that really important field. So thanks for that!
Hi, Itamar. I just wanted to double-check that I am reading your release calendar correctly in the tracker roadmap. Is your goal for the next update to have it out on 8 July ? Thanks!
Ignore this last post. I was looking at the tracker pages for Dataform and had clicked on the Roadmap tab (which I hadn't noticed before). The page was titled Dataform and had a bunch of release dates on it. I was kind of delighted and thought that you all (community developers) had now found a way to communicate your release dates plans with the community. It wasn't until I did the same thing on another plugin that I realized this page wasn't telling me planned release dates for updates for the specific plugin I was looking at but rather plans for the next versions of Moodle. Sorry!