Appendix B: FOCUS assessment statistics

Description of the Information Gathering Process

The Reporting Strategies Project team developed a spreadsheet with fourteen columns of information we thought we needed to make decisions about FOCUS retirement. We filled in the names of FOCUS programs found in the ten departmental directories and sent the appropriate spreadsheets to each directory owner. The columns of information we asked for are listed below:

1. Name of Report: These names were delivered to directory owners

2. Number of Users: Some reports are used by one or two people, some are used by large numbers of users

3. Name one key User: Should we have questions about the report, we needed someone to talk with

4. Frequency of Use: Annually, Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, Daily, or not used

5. Impact on Business: Hi, Med, or Low

6. Complexity of Report: Hi, Med or Low

7. Does it use FOCUS Windows: Yes or No

8. Does it Create Hold Files Yes (Name of Program) used by other programs

9. Desired Output/Web: Yes or No

10. Desired Output/Download: Yes or No

11. Desired Output/Paper: Yes or No

12. Is it already being converted Yes (Name of Software) or No to other software

13. Does the program behave Yes or No (If Y Please explain) invonsistently or demonstrate any other problem

14. Department Name For sorting purposes

The directory owners were sent the spreadsheets on February 7, 2001 and were asked to return them completed by March 30^, 2001 (7+ weeks). We received the final spreadsheet of information back on April 18, 2001.

Of the 1162 FOCUS programs sent out, we found that 349 were no longer being used and that 101 were in the process of being or had already been converted to another reporting tool. That left 712 reports to analyze.

CHART 2 Total FOCUS Report Inventory

Of the remaining 712 reports, the team then looked at which reports were considered to have a high impact on the business. In total, there are 238 reports ( or 33%) which are considered high impact. 256 reports (35%) are considered medium impact and 20 (3%) are considered low impact. Of particular concern to the project team is the number of reports of unknown impact (198 or 28%).

As can be seen on the chart below (CHART 3), not only do Finance, the Registrar’s Office and the Resources Office have the highest number of total reports to convert, they also have the highest number of high impact reports. Of these three offices, only one (Resources) currently is using the datamart. The Registrar’s Office will be converting three functional areas to the datamart over the summer of 2001 which we expect to take care of many of their high impact reports. The other office that maintains a large number of high impact reports is Database Systems which is responsible for all General reports as well as all Central Systems reports.

CHART 3 C Reports to be converted, by Impact (descending by High Impact)

From the questions about report output (Questions 9, 10 and 11), the project team was hoping to get some advance indication of the reporting tool that would require the most training and preparation by Information Services. We now realize that this question was premature. As can be seen by the chart below (Chart 4), departments did not indicate what output they wanted for over half of the existing FOCUS reports. Without clearly understanding the possibilities, many departments were not able to answer the questions.

CHART 4 C Reports by Desired Output

There was confusion about what was meant by question 3, "Number of Users". We believe that most departments answered the question based on what number of people actually run the report (i.e., log into FOCUS and execute the FOCUS program). This question was important to the team because high usage reports would be good candidates for early conversion. Reports that are run by large numbers of staff frequently require high levels of Central Systems support because the staff who use them are often less familiar with the FOCUS environment. This question does not in any way reflect the importance of a report. There are a number of reports that are only run by one or two people but are then given to many others in hard copy form. These reports can have a very high impact on the business of the department. Our survey delivered the following results.

Most FOCUS reports are used within a department by a few number of staff. Of the twenty reports that are used by large numbers of staff, many reside in the General area supported by Database Systems. They comprise reports like "WHOIS" which produces web directory information and "LABELS" which produce many varieties of labels on campus. The other notable high usage reports are the Budget Reports, used by many department administrative assistants and Residence Reports used by heads of house.

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