Introduction

This report was created in two stages. The first section ("Recommendations for Database Reporting Tool Selection and Associated Training Programs" and "Wellesley College Database Reporting Tools") were written in the fall of 2000 and delivered to the Technology Priorities Group in December 2000). The rest of the report was delivered to TPG in May of 2000.

In the first section of this report the Reporting Strategies Project Team has described six examples of identified reporting needs and made tool and training recommendations for each. Before you read these examples, it is important to understand that most offices have multiple needs and will probably require multiple solutions. In planning a strategy that will work for your department, you should decide which of your multiple needs is the most important and plan to phase in the tools and training in stages. Once you have decided which example best fits your situation, you can read more about the recommended tools in "Wellesley College Database Reporting tools".

This report makes use of three new institutional terms to describe staffs who are responsible for reporting. They are report viewers, report modifiers, and report developers. A complete definition of these terms can be found in the Glossary at the end of this report as well as definitions for many other technical terms.

The remainder of this report addresses the five additional areas looked at by the Reporting Strategies Project Team. They are:

1. The identification of reporting environments against which reporting tools can be run
2. The creation of guidelines for departmental datamart implementation.
3. Assessment of the Current Reporting Library and Development of a Plan to
4. Reduce Institutional Dependence on FOCUS.
5. A description of administrative reports coding, documentation, and datamart standards

A recommendation for an organizational mechanism or process to provide an ongoing assessment of Wellesley's reporting strategies, allowing the College to adjust to changes in the technical and academic environments.

This project and the resulting report should be seen as a snapshot in time rather than information that can be relied on for years to come. Already, some of the tools that we looked at five months ago have changed (e.g., Web DB, Discoverer) and new tools are being introduced to the campus. The recommendations in the last part of this report address an institutional need to keep our reporting strategy current.

The portion of the report that may be the most difficult for the non-technical reader is that written about reports coding, documentation, and report standards. The intended audience for this section is technical; non-technical readers should feel comfortable skipping over this section ("Description of Administrative Report Coding, Documentation, and Datamart Standards).

Although we expect most of this document to remain static, two parts of it will be reproduced as part of the Database Systems web page and will be maintained, modified and updated by Database Systems. We consider both of these sections or documents to be in their early stages. They are:

• the description of administrative report coding and documentation standards
• the glossary of Wellesley database and reporting terms

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