Manage Data App | Abl Schools
Abl works with school districts of all sizes across the United States to provide software and services that lead the operational evolution – turning scheduling, resource allocation, and academic programming into a strategic tool for transformation. Through partnership with Abl, districts gain the ability to analyze, visualize, and change the trajectory for postsecondary success with proactive and real-time strategies, providing more equitable academic acceleration and career and college preparation.
Problem Statement & Explanation
In order for Abl to scale, users will need to become increasingly autonomous in providing data to use with Abl’s products. Manage Data App was designed for users to autonomously ingest their data into Abl’s systems and verify that data ingested as expected.
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Data Ingestion refers to the process where school district data is transferred into Abl for use in Scheduling and Data Analytics. In order to be usable, the data must be correct and complete. It must ingest properly with no errors, and it must accurately represent your school district.
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Previously, an Abl employee was responsible for the transfer, or “ingestion” of school district data into Abl’s system. As a necessary change for the company’s ability to scale, the District IT person will in the future be the one doing the data transfer as well. This app is a tool for them to do that data transfer, troubleshoot errors in their data, and automatically create a report showing visualizations of the ingested data for QA purposes.
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The Manage Data App has been in the works for more than a year at this point, and after the next release we plan on visiting the project again to evaluate further rewrites and other improvements.
Users & Audiance
The primary user is the District IT person. They are responsible for preparing school district data for use in Abl Analytics or Scheduler, and will eventually be able to ingest their own data into Abl.
Roles & responsibilities
Responsible: Hillary (Design)
Consulted: Product Strategist, Client Support and others previously responsible for data ingestion, customer interviews and user tests with School District IT
Design Overview
The user is informed which files they need to prepare and upload for ingestion.
Currently, after ingesting the user can access errors by clicking on the '1 Type of error' link.
Errors in the error report, however, frequently look like this. While informative, they are long winded and not easily accessible for each file ingested.
We are working on an update that will consolidate the error report to make data issues easier to troubleshoot.
After ingestion is complete, the data is QAed using a Data Verification Report. It is an interactive visualization of the ingested data. A user is then able to evaluate if the ingested data accurately reflects their school district.
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If the data looks good, then Abl is notified and the school district can move on to the next part of their journey in Abl Analytics or Scheduler.