The BI/DW team offers the following solutions for reporting, analytical, and data extraction needs:
| Solution | Description |
|---|---|
| Cognos Reports | Centrally developed reports that can be executed on-demand or scheduled. Reports are currently available for the current financial (KFS), security role (KSAMS), Office of Research, Office of Institutional Research, and student success (Compass) data. |
| Cognos Dashboards | Centrally developed interactive tool that provides visualizations such as a graph, chart, plot, table, and maps of key performance indicators, data points, metrics and other insights from aggregated data sets. |
| Cognos TM1 | Enterprise planning software that allows for planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Solutions are currently available for Planning and Budget. |
| Cognos Report Studio | Allows technical users the ability to author reports using existing Cognos content. |
| DWQuery | A new OIT-developed tool providing business users with a modernized query by example user interface for extracting data. This tool provides an intuitive user interface with advanced filter options such as auto-filled prompts, filtering on hierarchical attributes, and sorting and filtering of the query output. General ledger data is currently available in this query. Development is in progress for Banner Student, Financial Aid, Student Receivables, PPS Payroll Expense, PPS Employee Snapshots, and PPS Payroll Audit. |
| BLISS Adhoc Query Tool | An OIT-developed tool providing business users with a query by example user interface for extracting data. Queries are currently available for historical and current financial data, employee, payroll, purchasing and accounts payable data. This tool will be decommissioned in favor of DWQuery, with existing queries either migrated to DWQuery or decommissioned when applicable. |
*Direct SQL access to the data warehouse databases is not supported, due to security and performance concerns. The team is currently working toward a solution that allows users to connect their own tools to the data warehouse.
Use Cases
| Use Case | Solution | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Infrequent and/or non-technical users that need quick and simple access to predefined reports | Cognos Reports | Simple |
| Users that need frequent or scheduled access to standardized reports or reports with complex business logic, or with complex formatting and graphics | Cognos Reports | Simple |
| Executives and upper management that need high-level aggregate, summarized at a glance data with graphical representation of the numbers. Usually includes key performance indicators or trend analysis. | Cognos Studio | Simple |
| Technically advanced business users that require adhoc and customized reporting using existing Cognos pacakges | Cognos Studio | Moderate |
| Business users that require adhoc or scheduled access to data, using a flexible yet easy to use interface that would allow downloads to Excel or other application | DWQuery | Moderate |
| Technically advanced business users, with Cognos training, that need to build customized reports with complex business logic and/or formatting | Cognos Studio | Difficult |
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