University Business - August 2007 - (Page 71)

A hands-on goal: Joanne Bossert in Oglethorpe U’s IT department hopes to get staff in other departments more reporting capabilities. “At other schools, people expected custom reports, but it’s not one of the big demands here,” she says. “Most of the focus here is in integrating with other servers, which is always a big goal when you implement new ERP systems.” Power to the People In order to share reporting access, some colleges and universities have been equipping departments with database applications such as FileMaker, Microsoft Access, and ACT, so that administrators and faculty can run their own reports and even tweak database sections to ﬁt diﬀerent needs. For example, at the Syracuse University (N.Y.) College of Arts and Sciences, the director of the Student Records Oﬃce, Ann Marie McGinnis, developed a system with FileMaker that allows the oﬃce to collect data such as student class preferences, schedules, and class times, and then create student demand reports that are sent out to other departments. Challenge Round Under the old system, which used PeopleSoft, ﬁnding open In creating reports, IHEs have been working to go beyond just spaces in courses that would ﬁt student schedules took about 75 compiling numbers and trying to track trends. To utilize the informinutes per student. With the FileMaker reporting ability, it takes mation to its fullest, institutions need to build business intelligence around 10 seconds. McGinnis has developed other systems from around database reporting, says Terence Atkinson, director of govthe application as well, including a tracking program for missed ernment and education solutions at Cognos. classes and a ballot function that lets faculty elect colleagues for “Business intelligence is taking information and turning it into committees. Reports can be run from all the newly developed applications, McGin- ‘We’d like to get it to the state where it’s more self-service. nis notes. “Basically, we’re looking at what report- But for now, we’re focusing on getting the data into the ing takes a long time to do and thinking warehouse in a way that can facilitate better reporting.’ —John Hooper, University of North Texas about how to build a system that reduces that time,” she says. “The IT department knows some of the things we’re involved in, but there are so many projects going on across campus that actionable insights,” Atkinson notes. “That improves the overall it can be hard to get support right way. So that’s why I look to performance of an institution, and reporting is a major component FileMaker instead, to do my own reports.” of that.” At Plymouth State, Fischer has given reporting ability to a Over the past ﬁve years in particular, Atkinson has seen more handpicked group of employees who use Microsoft Access so that IHEs investing in reporting systems and taking a hard look at their fewer people submit requests. Using pull-down menus, people information architectures in order to get more value from their universitybusiness.com August 2007 | 71 like the vice president of ﬁnance can ﬁnd information, such as all students who are majoring in business and are in their senior year, Fischer says. With that information, he can arrange in-person meetings with students and not have to go through the IT department for the data. Giving more reporting ability to departments sometimes comes as a result of upgrading systems and database applications. At the University of North Texas, the Information Systems department decided to move to enterprise application software PeopleSoft (which has since been acquired by Oracle) in 2001 from a legacy system, in part to get better data warehousing, but also as a way to deliver more value to end users by giving them more robust reporting. According to John Hooper, executive director of the university’s Administrative Information Systems group, the legacy applications had only allowed for printed reports. Delivering a stack of papers on the desk of anyone who asked for a speciﬁc report didn’t seem in keeping with the technology age, so administrators began adding data into the university’s new warehousing system and creating tables from which it could do reporting. The university allowed for some self-service reporting with a web-based system that established certain parameters and guided users through prompts. For now, the extension of reporting ability to departments is rolling out slowly, with more reporting being done by IT staﬀ, Hooper notes. “We’d like to get it to the state where it’s more selfservice,” he says. “But for now, we’re focusing on getting the data into the warehouse in a way that can facilitate better reporting.” http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - August 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
People Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Admissions
On the Hill
Future Shock
Independent Outlook
Facility Focus
Wanted: Foreign Students
Service With a Star
Beneficial Benefits
Addition By Subtraction
Report from EduComm 2007
Report Card
Internet Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - August 2007