The evolution of Penn State

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The evolution of Penn State

• From the Data Warehouse and EIS to Business
  Intelligence

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Penn State University
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Agenda

• The Data Warehouse
• The Enterprise Information System
• Business Intelligence

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Yvonne Riley (ymr1_at_psu.edu)Penn State
Information Technology Services

• Data Warehouse

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The Beginning

• Created in 1995.
• Started with student data. Quickly grew to
  include financial, human resources etc.
• Was initially designed for power users, people
  who already understood the data.
• Users access the data directly by using any tool
  that is ODBC compliant.
• MS Access, Excel for PC Users
• FileMaker Pro for Macintosh Users

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Responsibilities

• Steward office responsible for developing the
  extracts sending data to the warehouse.
• Business logic is responsibility of the Steward
  office and is done on the mainframe.
• Little to no data cleanup is done, but is slowly
  changing.
• Responsible for actual data training.
• No identified governance.

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Data Refresh

• Refresh cycles vary by database/table.
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Yearly
• Once a semester/fiscal year
• Most databases contain both current information
  as well as historical information.

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How is the data used?

• To develop detailed reports, track trends, data
  analysis.
• To develop Cognos EIS summary level reports.
• To provide data for many University wide
  applications.
• Download data from the warehouse, add their own
  data and use this information internally.

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Advantages

• Easy access to data.
• Results in minutes.
• Interactive approach to creating and customized
  reports.
• Programming ability not required.
• Less dependence on the steward office.

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Challenges for Users

• Users need to understand the data.
• Users must be familiar with query tools.
• Can be overwhelming for new users.
• Managers dont understand the complexity of Penn
  States data, and sometimes have unrealistic
  expectations.

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Training

• MS Access Training.
• Introduction to the Data Warehouse EIS.
• Specific database training provided each month.
• Online tutorials.
• Data Warehouse Listserv users can post
  questions.
• On-line documentation describing each database,
  table and field.
• Data Warehouse web site.
• Steward office BI group offer assistance with a
  query.

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Statistics

• Number of Users 1,400
• Number of Records 275 million and growing
• Number of subject oriented databases 28
• Number of subject oriented tables 400
• Number of queries 1,000 per day
• Most frequently used information student

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Shelley F. Gette (sfg1_at_psu.edu)Penn State
Information Technology Services

• Enterprise Information System

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History

• ? Procured Cognos client-based software (1996)
• Impromptu and PowerPlay
• ? Established Executive Information System (1996)
• Reporting for executives and administrators
• ? Purchased new Cognos Web-based software
• (1998) PowerPlay Web
• (2001) Impromptu Web Reports, Cognos Query,
  Visualizer
• ? Name change - Enterprise Information System
  (2001)
• University-wide reporting
• ? Purchased Cognos alert agent - NoticeCast
  (2004)

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Governance/Stewardship

• ? Executive Support and Sponsorship
• ? Planning Committee - comprised of three
  sponsors along with the chairs of the
  Coordinating and Review committees charged with
  continued system growth. Advocates the purchase
  of all application software needed to support the
  system and future applications required to enrich
  EIS services to the University community.
• ? Coordinating Committee - develops, documents,
  and enforces established standards. Makes
  recommendations regarding new/expanded EIS
  models/reports. Participates in the
  investigation of new features of the Cognos, Inc.
  software and recommends implementation
  strategies.
• ? Review Committee - provides consistency and
  standardization within EIS by creating rules,
  standards, and suggestions for development.
  Approves models/reports prior to publishing to
  the production environment. Reviews of site
  content.

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Service

• ? Web-based information and reporting tool
• Summary data primary usage
• Multi-dimensional analysis
• Analytical processing
• ? Detail data
• Drill through from OLAP cubes
• Pre-defined reporting
• ? Unrestricted cubes
• ? Restricted cubes and reports
• ? Information delivery

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Usage

• ? Widely dispersed
• Provost down to staff
• ? 10,000 site visits per year
• ? 1,800 users
• ? 290 OLAP cubes
• ? 135 cube views
• ? 167 reports

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Training

• ? Basic Cube - summary level. This course will
  provide hands-on experience with the most
  commonly used features. Topics Overview of EIS,
  Personal NewsBox, Customizing Reports,
  Calculations, Exporting and Saving Reports,
  Security.
• ? Advanced Cube - summary level. This course will
  provide hands-on experience with the more
  advanced features. Topics include Ranking a
  Selected Set of Data, Custom Exception
  Highlighting, Custom Subsets, Charts and Graphs,
  Creating an Agent.
• ? Impromptu - detail level. The Impromptu
  training is currently the responsibility of the
  development office due to the nature of the data.
  This will change in the near future with a drill
  through of official data, which is the data
  utilized for training.

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Benefits / Rewards

• ? Mode of delivery - Web interface
• Ease of use
• Freedom from client based PC
• Provides a personal storage folder
• ? Central offices serve information
• Data is managed and standardized
• Reduces chance of errors
• Provides for consistency in reporting
• ? Unlimited user licenses
• No cost to departments

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Lessons Learned / Challenges

• ? Commitment from middle management - Sought
  high level sponsorship and neglected unit
  commitment, which is where resources are
  monitored and distributed. Failed to promote the
  system features adequately to these units.
• ? Marketing to users - Incorrect to assume
  development units will publicize their reports
  to the end-users.
• ? Keep it simple - OLAP cubes and reports can
  easily become too complex for the end-user.
  Better to separate data by theme or subject than
  to provide too much information.
• ? Limited resources - Central BI group committed
  one FTE to system.
• ? Lack of data integration - Discovered the
  importance of the meta data layer. Majority of
  time in development is spent preparing the data,
  which at times is difficult.

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Marta Miguel (mmiguel_at_psu.edu)Penn State
Information Technology Services

• Business Intelligence

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The Beginning

• The Data Warehouse and EIS have proven to be
  extremely valuable to the Penn State community.
  Both systems have a wide user base and play a key
  role at making institutional information more
  easily available. However, both systems are now
  more than ten years old, and Penn States
  information needs as well as technology have
  changed significantly since they were first
  developed. Even though EIS and the Data
  Warehouse continue to fulfill their purpose, Penn
  States needs for information have expanded to
  include capabilities not supported by either of
  the tools.
• The purpose of the Business Intelligence
  initiative was to re-assess Penn States current
  information needs and then to work cooperatively
  with the University Community to plan, design,
  develop and implement an infrastructure that will
  transform administrative data into information
  and that will make the right information
  available to right Penn State stakeholder at the
  right time and in the right delivery media.

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Approach
Spring 2005
OBTAINED EXECUTIVE SPONSORSHIP
ESTABLISHED BI ADVISORY COMMITTEE
EVALUATE AND ACCESS INFORMATION ACCESS AND
ANALYSIS TOOL
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS TO DATA WAREHOUSE AND EIS
TO ADDRESS ISSUES IDENTIFIED THRU THE INTERVIEW
PROCESS
CONDUCTED INTERVIEWS WITH MAIN PENN STATE
CONSTITUENCIES
ASSESSED EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE AND DETERMINED
KEY OPPORTUNITIES
DEFINED STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR BI AT PENN STATE
OBTAINED CONCURRENCE ON STRATEGIC PLAN
RFP OR RFPS FOR BI SOLUTION.
PLAN IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPLEMENT
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The Interview Process
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Findings

• Existing information systems are used
  extensively.
• Penn State has a large based of knowledgeable
  information users.
• Information is not easily available to all Penn
  State constituencies and significant number of
  academic leaders and administrators have very
  limited access to information.
• There is a widespread need for improved access to
  information on both students and overall teaching
  and learning activities
• Increased demand and pressure for accountability
  coming from public policy makers as well as the
  educational community.
• Changing internal operational environment and
  increased pressure for financial accountability.

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Current Environment

• Data are collected and stored in disconnected
  silos.
• Current systems focus on capturing data and not
  on creating information.
• Information inequality.
• Information inconsistency.
• Timeliness of information.
• Inconsistent security.

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Proposed Approach
Governance and Policy (Orchestration of people,
process and technology as to allow Penn State to
manage data as an Institution Asset)
Organizational Structures (Central unit that will
support the proposed infrastructure and lead
effort to implement a university-wide view of
data and information)
Software, Hardware, and Data Infrastructure (Centr
ally supported Institution Insight infrastructure)
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Value Proposition

• Improve Penn States ability to support students
  by
• Improving Advisors and Facultys ability to
  identify at-risk first-year students and to
  assess which proactive interventions have the
  best influence on their academic success and
  retention.
• Improve ability to identify those programs or
  services that need to be protected at all costs
  and thus focus on the programs that matter the
  most.
• Improve availability of the information required
  to support overall accountability and assessment
  requirements.
• Foster evidence-based decision making.
• Improve data security as a common, centrally
  supported security model will be available to all
  constituencies.
• Eventually reduce the number of local data
  repositories maintained throughout Penn State.
• Improve Penn States ability to manage risk and
  compliance requirements
• Improve productivity of Campuses and Colleges
  staff

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The Institution InsightSystem
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A Central BusinessIntelligence Unit?

• Cross-functional perspective that spans units to
  build a shared infrastructure, that addresses the
  needs of the institution as a whole.
• Will ensure that data and information delivery
  activities are closely aligned with Penn States
  core strategic objectives.
• Will facilitate priorities management for diverse
  (and sometimes conflicting) information needs.
• Will ensure that key core Penn State Data are
  available to all constituencies that need it.
• Will Define standards to be used across the
  institution (for example, dimensional model,
  business rules, tools and platforms).
• Capture and maintain the institutions data
  intellectual capital.
• Coordinating use and reuse of business metadata
  in the institution, and helping to define and
  integrate definitions of the relevant attributes.
• ....

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Data Governance
Organizational Awareness
Data Quality
Audit Reporting
Security, Privacy Compliance
Data Architecture
Metadata/Glossary
Risk Management
Policy
Stewardship
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Web Information
Business Intelligence http//ais.its.psu.edu/bus_i
ntelligence/index.html Data Warehouse http//ais.
its.psu.edu/data_warehouse/index.html Enterprise
Information System http//ais.its.psu.edu/eis/inde
x.html
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