University of Missouri System

Academic Affairs

Planning for the Future

Information Repository:
Data Warehousing and Reporting
University of Missouri System

Minutes of Reporting Task Force Work Group

November 6, 2003

719 Lewis Hall

Attendees: Bob Mullen, Ben Phelps, Randy Wiemer, Cindy Martin, Larry Westermeyer, Art Brooks, Steven Winters, Pat Morton, David Saphian, and Carol Larsen

Review of Minutes for October 23, 2003

The minutes from the last meeting were approved with minor changes.

Announcements/Updates/Miscellaneous Items

• Bob distributed the article, “Data, Data Everywhere – Not a Report in Sight! (Six proven steps drive data into information)” by Wendy Norman from the Number 4 Issue of this year’s Educause Quarterly.
• Bob reported that the decision regarding the JumpStart proposal from PeopleSoft is still pending.
• The final webcast will be Wednesday (next week) in 719 Lewis Hall.
• Next week’s group conference call has been cancelled as not all members will be available to participate.

Review of Planning Documents

• Bob, Art, and Cindy have met previous to this meeting to refine the document “Information Repository: Reporting Working Group Charge, Plans, and Related Documents.” The various changes to the document were reviewed. It is desirable for this document to be posted to the web early next week.
• The timeline (“Analysis Environment Workplan”) will be a volatile document. There will be a hyperlink for users to access the Excel timeline. The group will add a legend to identify the “Who” column of the workplan before it is posted to the website.
• Bob asked that suggested changes or comments regarding these documents be sent to him by next Tuesday. If there are additional vendors to include on the vendor list, those are to be submitted to Ben. All Task Force members should be present for the vendor presentations. Obtaining an evaluation demo from the vendors would be desirable to use in the selection process. Once the group has the academic data, a demonstration of the output can be completed.

Update from Technical Team

• Ben indicated that, with regard to the tool selection, Brio and Business Objects have been the two most responsive and expressed the most interest in working with the University. Almost all of the vendors have demos on their websites; Ben suggested that group members take a look at these sites as it might help in terms of the questions to ask when the vendors come to do a presentation.
• Ben also suggested that, once he functionality list is updated, it could be forwarded to the vendors for their information.
• Randy suggested that the Task Force create the tables (rows and columns) including the contents of the tables and the definitions. Art’s (Rolla) tables were copied and distributed and the group discussed with Randy the necessary data. The group discussed table dimensions and how data can be pulled together.
• The remaining portion of the meeting was productively spent

Future Meetings

Following is a revised schedule of future meetings and cancellations through the end of December. The schedule for meetings beginning in January will be discussed at the next meeting of the Task Force on December 4.

12/04/03 Student Sub-group meeting in a.m.; Reporting Work Group p.m.

12/11/03 Reporting Work Group meeting

12/18/03 Reporting Work Group meeting

Respectfully submitted,

Carol Larsen