Reporting Strategies Report

July 2001

In November 2000, the Institutional Reporting Strategies Project was approved by the Technology Priorities Group and was initiated. The project goal was "to put in place an institutional reporting strategy…to effectively mine the rich store of transactional data available in Banner (and other administrative applications such as Resource 25, Pinnacle, etc.), thus providing information that aids policy formulation, tracks activity patterns, and monitors critical strategic indicators." The near-term goal of the project was to provide information about the reporting tools currently being used on campus and their applicability in different reporting environments in order to assist departments in determining appropriate strategies to meet their reporting needs.

The attached document is the final report of the Institutional Reporting Strategies Team, incorporating the Team's first report issued in February, 2001 plus the five final sections:

• Introduction
• Recommendations for database reporting tool selection and associated training programs
• Wellesley College database reporting tools
• Reporting environments against which reporting tools can be run
• Recommended Guidelines for departmental Datamart Implementation
• Assessment of the Current Reporting Library and Development of a Plan to Reduce Institutional Dependence on FOCUS
• A description of Administrative Report Coding, Documentation and Datamart Standards
• Recommendation for an Organizational mechanism to Provide an Ongoing Assessment of Wellesley’s Reporting Strategies

Appendix A: Examples of documented code
Appendix B: FOCUS assessment statistics
Glossary of Wellesley Database Terms

The Technology Priorities Group strongly endorses the content of this report and supports the recommendations contained in it, including:

1. FOCUS will be retired as of June 2004. No new reports will be developed using FOCUS unless critical business needs warrant its continued use.
2. On a biennial basis, TPG will appoint a group, composed of members selected from Information Services (IS) and the Technology Support Group, to review existing reporting strategies, update documentation and make updated recommendations regarding reporting tools, etc.
3. The College will adopt standards (as detailed in the report) for report coding, documentation (web-based documentation recommended), and security.
4. The IS Database Systems group will maintain and update the Glossary of Wellesley Database Terms and the standards for administrative report coding, documentation and the datamart.
5. A common report library will be created by IS Database Systems to document all the institutional reporting occurring on campus.

The Institutional Reporting Strategies Team has provided a comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of the College's reporting needs and has made recommendations that will result in an institutional reporting strategy that is both durable and flexible.