About Shuleni

Background

In 2015, I was approached by my school headteacher with a request to help with report card processing and generation. Back then I didn't know anything about programming. I used the available technology I was conversant with - Microsoft Office Excel. I designed a report card template in Microsoft Office Word and used the Mail Merge feature to access the students marksheet from Excel. That was the begining of my journey in report card software design.

The Excel-based Report Card generation program worked well for some time but it eventually became difficult to manage and maintain. The first problem manifested in the fact that Excel formulas were difficult to maintain and follow up. In case number of subjects, number of students, or grading scales changed, the formulas had to be manually changed. There was also a challenge that since Excel formulas are exposed, they can easily be tampered with by mistake or maliciously.

The other challenge was that the program relied on Excel and Word. An expired Ms Office would mean the report card system wouldn't work. Finally, Excel and Word had many distracting functionalities that were not required for our school report card software.