To support the broad and complex reporting needs of the University community, often people need information that spans these different areas to effectively do their work. It is through the services of the Data Warehouse team that these needs are met. The data warehouse enables authorized users to create their own reports from many different types of information and print them on demand. Users can extract information from various sources, organize it, and generate reports or download it for use with other productivity tools, such as Excel.

The data warehouse is a set of reporting databases which are accessed with the business intelligence reporting tool Impromptu.  Data is routinely extracted from various production databases that support day-to-day business operations and organized for optimal reporting ease of use. The data warehouse data contains both current and historical, read-only data.  There are several data families which can be reported on.

An Impromptu Users Group meets to discuss data warehouse and data reporting topics. Attendance at these meetings does not require pre-registration. All user group meetings are held in the IT Training Lab.

Impromptu training classes are offered. These classes are "hands on" and typically focus on the University's financial data. All of the training sessions are held in the IT Training Lab.  The cost to attend an Impromptu class is $50.00 per person. This class can be paid for by completing a 312 Blue Requisition form. All attendees must have approved security forms in place before the class meets so they are prepared to learn by reporting on their own data. For information about scheduled classes and/or to register, send an email to brenda.howard@rochester.edu.  

The value of the University's data warehouse in supporting broad and complex reporting needs is proven by the historical use of the data, as well as its use in strategic planning. The data warehouse support team is committed to continuing to provide this service while working towards a new and improved data warehouse. To accomplish this, the team has taken on the challenges of exploring new business intelligence tool options, new strategies, new processes and a new architecture scheme.

A recent collaborative partnership to make student data accessible via the data warehouse provided opportunities to:

• load data into a different database using an Extract Transformation Load tool

• organize the data using state-of-the-art dimensional modeling techniques

• use a secure, web-based business intelligence reporting tool for data analysis and report creation.  No additional software was installed on users' machines - only a supported browser was needed!

Adding student data to the data warehouse satisfies the information needs of a large segment of the University community. It also builds a larger base of data from which data family combinations can be created. The student information pilot project has highlighted the benefits to be gained by further developing the data warehouse through use of a new reporting tool, a new platform, and the re-architecture of existing families.

As we begin to employ new data warehouse concepts overall, we will be sure to alert all users to upcoming changes and include them in transition plans so the data warehouse still continues to meet all of our needs.