Client

Our client is a managed IT services provider offering a number of services to many schools and educational institutions.

Purpose

Our client required an interactive dashboard to monitor student performance for one of their school customers to better data analyse and identify students’ behavioural and academic patterns, upon which the school can devise effective corrective & pre-emptive measures.

Forecast worked with the client to build an operating dashboard stationed within client’s server to service the school customer. The generated insights from the dashboard would not only provide the end-user with effective reporting & analysis but also serve as a management tool for monitor and interventions.

The dashboard included:

• School View – A comprehensive panel of the student pool. This panel included a set of dynamic filters to help dashboard users to cut and slice the data through the dimensions that they want. The filter dimensions were Student Year, Student House, Semester, etc. This aggregated panel also had a risk metric to generate a list of high-risk students under selected filters.
• Student View – A focused panel of one selected student. This panel had multiple sections to help dashboard users to drill down into one student profile, and to make a comparative analysis of students’ attendance and academic grades across different subject groups, as well as to investigate students’ behavioural patterns.

Approach

Forecast worked closely with the client to develop a wireframe that was attuned to the school customer’s needs and calibrated the appropriate metrics and measures to rank the students.

We curated the data sources and optimised the data flow by sourcing relevant data from the upstream warehouses using MySQL connectors. Forecast re-designed relational schema and consolidated the data model using a centralised date table whilst maintained relational relationships via student ID.

Forecast then leveraged the model to translate data into meaningful insights by breaking them down via different dimensions. We also made use of readily available tools within PowerBI to illustrate a statistical distribution of students’ performances. Forecast also utilised exponential function to capture non-linear dynamics of student performances and to identify patterns.

Finally, Forecast worked with the client to deploy the dashboard stationed within the client’s server in order to run live data and service the aforementioned school customer.

Outcome

Forecast delivered an interactive and intuitive dashboard which assisted in monitoring students. The school customer benefits from having a compacted dashboard with data visualisation and analysis capabilities to enable them to make timely and appropriate corrective measures in terms of students’ performances.