Thanks Steve, that was very helpful. I might take you up on that, get 
our project sponsor to approach your Registrar.

Georgina


Georgina Spary
Business Intelligence Manager
SBPO, Corporate Affairs
Oxford Brookes University
+ 1865 484887



Chadwick, Stephen wrote:
> Hi Georgina
>
> Thanks for your considered response to this which I - for one - found 
> very useful.
>
> Durham ran a pilot DW project three years ago now and was totally sold 
> on the benefits. We have been holding off for various technical 
> reasons which I won't bore you with here but much of what you wrote 
> resonates with our experiences too. We will begin Implementation of a 
> full DW in august 2011 having spent a long time sorting out a whole 
> range of data issues identified during the pilot.
>
> As to your question about making your business case. Our Registrar 
> recently conducted a major exercise to identify the main barriers to 
> implemting our new Strategy. She visited every academic dept to talk 
> to the admin staff. The main conclusion coming out of that exercise 
> was that we have as many duplicate student or finance systems as we 
> have depts (despite having a very good student record system in 
> Banner). Consequently, her top recomendation to our Exec is that in 
> order to reduce duplication and cut costs we need to invest in IT 
> systems which are fit for purpose and which provide excellent 
> management information. I'm sure she'd be happy to share the 
> conclusions of that extensive bit of internal research with you if you 
> thought it would help your case. Give me a call or email me if you 
> want to pursue this.
> Steve
>
>
> Steve Chadwick
> Director of Satrategic Planning & Change
> University if Durham
> Office  +44(0)1013346885
> Home  +44(0)1388871966
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 11 Feb 2010, at 05:15 PM, "Georgina Spary" <[log in to unmask]> 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Jennifer & all
>>
>> Rebecca Mander passed this email on to me, and I thought I'd let you 
>> know where we're at and also ask the group a related question.
>>
>> I joined Brookes in 2009 with the task of developing a data mart plus 
>> university wide reporting tool to support our MI for the strategic 
>> plan (a subset of our KPIs around students). I started small with a a 
>> static prototype based on one source only. I would recommend the 
>> prototype route because it allows you to take the time needed to 
>> define the fields properly, sorting out user requirements and getting 
>> a complete and robust set of requirements and ETL definitions before 
>> you invest in external expertise. The prototype was delivered in Nov 
>> 2009 and we're now in the middle of an ITT to find a supplier who can
>> a) turn this into a 'live' data warehouse with data validation, 
>> automated refresh, slowly changing dimensions etc., using industry 
>> recognised ETL tools like BODI, OWB
>> b) provide a universally acceptable (!!!) reporting tool, again we've 
>> played it safe, major players (OBIEE, SAP BO, Cognos) only
>>
>> We are also considering an interim stage: buying just the reporting 
>> software, and polishing up the prototype so that it's at least auto 
>> refreshed. ie we would omit the super duper time trend data 
>> warehousing development, and just have something up and running. 
>> Bearable in the short term and much much cheaper. It would not be 
>> futureproof in the long term as we bring in lots systems, but should 
>> be a cheap way to start bringing some of the core systems together in 
>> the first year.
>>
>> So. First - my attempts to answer your questions
>> a) What products do you use? --- see above, procurement not yet 
>> completed
>>
>> b) What solutions have proven most cost effective? - well a staged 
>> approach starting small has worked for us (sort of). Every other 
>> person I've talked to who has got the full implementation to work 
>> from scratch has spent £100-250K up front + lots ongoing. I do see 
>> that your top priority is to bring several systems together (this is 
>> our long term priority too) - but I would start getting the thing 
>> working just from one system. Also, using a contractor for us was 
>> much better value for money than a consultancy - but maybe we were 
>> just lucky.
>> In the long term, to have a robust workable system from many sources, 
>> you should definitely go the full data warehousing route, but you can 
>> get quite far in selling in the idea with something less formal.
>>
>> c) Have there been many non-technical issues to resolve? -- some 
>> absolutely key things to get in place, which I have picked up over 
>> the years (iused to be a data mart project manager in the private 
>> sector):
>> --- commitment at the highest level, an evangelistic VC sorts the 
>> whole project
>> --- internal technical resource - 2 seems to be the minimum although 
>> possibly can work with 1 FTE, ongoing
>> --- internal business resource - a BI reporting team, strong user 
>> representation
>> --- this one's important - get all the requirements &definitions 
>> really pinned down to technical detail, as far as you can - this is 
>> where many projects fall over because they usually need the busiest 
>> people in the organisation to agree them, and no amount of time spent 
>> by IT or external people can replace this.
>> --- I know lots of people have had issues with reporting tool 
>> licensing structures, may not be relevant for you.
>>
>> d) What would you do differently next time?
>> Um. Demand £250K up front? alternatively write a persuasive 
>> business case to ensure sufficient in house IT resourcing for the 
>> project.
>>
>> *****************Which leads me to my question to the 
>> group:************************
>> -- I need to write a persuasive business case justifying additional 
>> resource in a difficult climate, by demonstrating the direct 
>> financial benefits of a Business Intelligence system. Any of you 
>> people with existing well established systems have any thoughts 
>> and/or examples on their benefits you could share, at the highest 
>> level? Anything at all would be appreciated, however vague. and 
>> anonymised of course.
>>
>> Thanks - hope the above helps you as well
>>
>> Georgina
>> -- 
>>
>>
>> Georgina Spary
>> Business Intelligence Manager
>> SBPO, Corporate Affairs
>> Oxford Brookes University
>> + 1865 484887
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: [Fwd: Re: Reporting from multiple systems]
>> Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:49:21 +0000
>> From: Rebecca Mander <[log in to unmask]>
>> Organisation: Oxford Brookes University
>> To: Spary Georgina <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: Reporting from multiple systems
>> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:53:29 +0000
>> From: Andrea Cheshire <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Academic, financial or space planning in UK universities 
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> References: 
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Jennifer
>>
>>
>>
>> We have invested in a data warehouse at UWE and have operated the 
>> system over the last 2 years. Currently the warehouse holds data from 
>> our student record and finance systems but we are expanding to bring 
>> in admissions data. The warehouse has opened up completely new 
>> avenues for business analyses which single systems can never provide 
>> . Although it is quite an investment, it is paying off in terms of 
>> efficiency and effectiveness of analysis and reporting. We are 
>> currently using it to drive performance improvements across the 
>> institution.
>>
>>
>>
>> As the reporting front end we have chosen Business Objects, although 
>> there is very little difference to other systems like Cognos.
>>
>>
>>
>> The key factor of success of our project was the quality of the data 
>> warehouse design. You really need to get this right, as it determines 
>> the avenues for future analysis. We used consultants as we don’t have 
>> the knowledge in house. However we ensured significant know how 
>> transfer in the first project and are now confident to do more 
>> ourselves.
>>
>>
>>
>> The biggest non technical issue is the review of the quality of your 
>> data. We have spent months cleaning our records and are still picking 
>> up issues. But this is to be expected and I have had similar feedback 
>> from other institutions that went down the warehouse route.
>>
>>
>>
>> We are happy to give more in depths informaton if this is helpful.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Andrea
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrea Cheshire
>>
>> Director Business Intelligence and Planning
>>
>> University of the West of England Bristol
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Academic, financial or space planning in UK universities 
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Arkell J.H.
>> *Sent:* 21 January 2010 12:10
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Reporting from multiple systems
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Here at Southampton, we're looking to improve our reporting from 
>> multiple corporate systems (rather than the single system reporting 
>> which makes up the majority of information at the moment).
>>
>>
>>
>> I would welcome experience and advice from institutions who have been 
>> down this route already on issues such as
>>
>>
>>
>> What products do you use?
>>
>> What solutions have proven most cost effective?
>> Have there been many non-technical issues to resolve?
>>
>> What would you do differently next time?
>>
>>
>>
>> We don't have a data warehouse system at the moment, and I would be 
>> particularly interested in institutions who have found interim 
>> solutions to this problem without investing in a data warehouse.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jennifer
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________
>>
>> Jennifer Arkell
>>
>> Corporate Planning Manager
>>
>> University of Southampton
>>
>> www.soton.ac.uk
>>
>>
>>
>> 023 80594447
>>
>> (internal 24447)