This document summarizes a presentation about seven Wyoming community colleges migrating to a single statewide reporting system. The key points are: 1) The colleges previously had challenges with consistency, timing and accuracy of aggregate reporting to state entities due to using separate systems, so they migrated to a single SQL platform and reporting system. 2) The multi-year project involved migrating all colleges to the SQL environment, implementing Business Objects for reporting, designing a standard data set, and setting up a system for the Commission Office to report on behalf of the colleges. 3) Lessons learned included starting data preparation early, redesigning processes, rigorous testing, and later implementing additional business intelligence tools for real-time ad hoc

1. Presented by:
Kent Brooks and Dallen Griffith
Casper Wyoming Community College
Gayle Jaacks, Ellucian
Sr. Project Manager, Ellucian
April 7, 2014
Session ID 1610
Seven Colleges’
Journey to one
Statewide Reporting
System

2. Session Rules of Etiquette
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do so as discreetly as possible
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3. Session Rules of Etiquette
• Conference Hashtag #elive14
• @kentbrooks
• @dallengriffith
Thank you!
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4. Agenda
• State of Wyoming Commission Project
Goals
• Wyoming Environment
• Project Time Line
• Project Phases
• Describe Solution
• Lessons Learned
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5. Wyoming Community
Colleges and
Commission Goals

6. Seven Colleges’ Journey to One Statewide
Reporting System
Problem:
• State Commission Office provides aggregate
reports to multiple state, federal and regulatory
entities.
• Timing, consistency and accuracy were ongoing
challenges.
• Commission frequently wrote reports and
delivered to all colleges to run to attempt to gain
efficiency and consistency.
.
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7. Project Goals:
• Migrate all seven community colleges to SQL platform.
• Design a standard data set for each college to send to
the Commission Office.
• Design a reporting system to allow the Commission
office to report on behalf of the colleges to multiple
constituencies.
• Provide all Institutional Research Offices the same data
conventions for cumulative reporting and sharing
reports.
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8. Wyoming Community
College Commission
and Campus
Environment

9. Wyoming Community College System
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10. Wyoming Community College System
• Seven Community Colleges
• 20+ years on Colleague Unidata
• College’s historically attempted to maintain
the same validation and code file naming
conventions.
• Institutional Research offices worked
collaboratively to define a standard reporting
data set.
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11. System Solution

12. Solution
• Simultaneously migrate all colleges to Colleague
SQL Environment
• Implement Business Objects , ODS and
Dashboard for each campus and the
Commission Office
• Design a standard data set to accommodate
reports
• Develop data standards
• Design a system to transmit data from the
Colleges to the Commission for reporting.
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13. Solution Time Line

14. Planning PhaseI
Business Object Training
& Consulting
Business
Objects
Consulting
SQL Migraiton - Data Cleansing and
Custom Preparation
TIMELINE PROJECT TIMELINE
JulyMayAprilMarchFebJan.Nov.Oct.SeptAug Dec June
18 Month Project
ALL Campuses LIVE on
CROA and migrated to
SQL

15. Deploy State-wide Reporting
Commission
Warehouse Assessment
TIMELINE PROJECT TIMELINE
JulyMayAprilMarchFebJan.Nov.Oct.SeptAug Dec June
18 Months

16. Solution Design

17. CROA Architecture – Another Viewpoint
Colleague
Universe
Metadata
Crystal
Reports
InfoView
Web Intelligence
Dashboards
Operational
Data Store
SQL

18. Centralized ODS @ Wyoming CCC
ODS
ODS
ODS
ODS
ODS
ODS
ODS
CC
CWC
EWC
LCCC
NWC
NWCCD
WWCC
BU
BU
BU
BU
BU
BU
BU
Create State
Subset SQL DB
Back Ups
CC
CWC
EWC
LCCC
NWC
NWCC
D
WWCC
Back Ups Uploaded
to WCCC ODS Server
WCC
C
Secure
Transmission
to WCCC

19. Revision - Institution Research
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20. The Experience
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Kent Brooks and Dallen Griffith

21. The Experience
• Phase I Uni Data to SQL
– Hardware/ Software
– Data Preparation
– Custom Applications
– Test Migration/ Testing
– Go Live
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22. The Experience
• Hardware/Software
– Hp 3000 Chassis
– We installed basics
• OS
• SQL
– Ellucian Installed and Setup Colleague
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23. The Experience
• Data Preparation
– Start as soon as possible
– Long Process
– Don’t Be afraid.
– Be Aggressive
– Get end users involved
– DMIG will still find errors.
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24. The Experience
• Custom Applications
– Re-think Processes
– Great opportunity
– CROA
– We failed to migrate a few key programs
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25. The Experience
• Test Migration/ Testing
– First Migration Took a Week
– Test Plan
– Held end users hand.
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26. The Experience
• Go Live
– Started Friday 5:00 PM
– DMIG failed
– Hyper links
– Phased Approach to releasing new system
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27. The Experience
• Phase II CROA Implementation
– Hardware/Software
– Training
– ETL
– Testing/Go Live
– State Reporting System
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28. The Experience
• Hardware/Software
– Same HP Hardware
– We Installed OS and SQL
– Ellucian installed CROA and Built DB
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29. The Experience
• Training
– Took Recommended classes
– Paid for extra consulting time
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30. The Experience
• ETL
– Built in to Ellucian
– Resolve errors frequently
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31. The Experience
• Testing / Go Live
– Run alongside Query builder
– Did this Migration during migration to sql
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32. The Experience
• State Reporting
– Test Site
– Most work was done by Ellucian
– Separate db
– Common IR universe
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33. The Experience
• Phase III
– Beyond CROA to Business Intelligence
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34. The Experience
“We don’t have enough data….the
sample size is too small”
-Moneyball
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35. The Experience
The Data Challenge (Part 1)
• We have Web Intelligence but are lacking
the ability to create reports from our whole
data set.
• SAP( for example) = good daily reports but
no ad hoc, no visualization no dashboards
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36. The Experience
The Data Challenge (Part 2)
• We are being asked to be wise stewards
of state resources about a field that is
brand new
• The skills we are being asked to learn to
do this right are in addition to all the other
things we must know
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37. The Experience
Overcoming the Data Challenge
• TDWI
• BI Scorecard = http://tinyurl.com/l6u76yl
• Higher Ed BI Conference = NKU
• HEDW = http://www.hedw.org
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38. The Experience
Observations for the BI Tenderfoot
• Getting a common set of definitions is
important
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39. The Experience
Observations for the BI Tenderfoot
• We are decent at collecting data but not at
turning data into useful and timely
information
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40. The Experience
Observations for the BI Tenderfoot
• Not one tool does everything
• Even if you say you have a Data
Warehouse you can only say you're doing
Business Intelligence if you have tools to
change data into useful information.
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41. The Experience
Observations for the BI Tenderfoot
• We need collect more data more rapidly
and turn it into information
• There is never enough resources allocated
to education
• The perfect is the enemy of the good
• People matter more than technology
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42. The Experience
Observations for the BI Tenderfoot
• Premise options give more options and
capabilities for customization than cloud
options
• This is all brand new, you need a data
scientist but they are not
common….yet
• The only KPI that matters is user adoption
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43. The Experience
After all of this…
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Source: http://thedoghousediaries.com/

44. The Experience
Our main discovery after this project:
Our immediate needs/gaps are still
real-time Ad Hoc Reporting and
analysis.
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45. The Experience
CROA for daily reporting combined with
other tools for:
• Data Visualization
• Charts/ Graphs
• Mobile
• Analysis
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46. The Experience
…is a very reasonable solution.
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47. The Experience
CROA for daily reporting combined with
other tools for:
• Data Visualization
• Charts/ Graphs
• Mobile
• Analysis
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48. Thank You!
Presenters
Kent Brooks, Dallen Griffith and Gayle Jaacks
Presentation Available on Ellucian Conference Site
or
http://bit.ly/1h8LfEI
Please complete the online session evaluation form
Session ID 1610
.
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