Activity Hubs: December 2020

Some Activity Hubs Terms

This month, the Activity Hubs team provides some definitions of terms used in this article related to Activity Hubs and data analysis. Interested in learning more? Visit the Activity Hubs website.

Activity Hubs – 

Activity Hubs are legacy campus data warehouse technology and process replacements using a next-generation platform, tools and services. Activity Hubs allow for self service analysis through the Cognos and Tableau business analytics tools and automated data movement.

Views –

Report Developers build reports using one or more views. A view is a table of data that contains all of the fields related to a specific report topic.  

Data Visualization –

Graphic representations of data that are particularly efficient at communicating about data with visual learners. Visualizations include charts, graphs, graphics, maps, networks, plots and more.

Cognos –

Cognos is an IBM business intelligence tool used to create reports, dashboards and lists that can "empower users to execute smarter data discovery and tell the story of their data with stunning visualizations". Cognos began as a financial tool designed to support repetitive reporting and has moved into big data analysis and data visualization. 

Tableau –

Tableau is a business intelligence tool used to create reports and dashboards that "help people see and understand data". Tableau's constant focus has been ease of use and data visualization. 

What is the difference between Cognos and Tableau? 

These two tools are complementary and should be evaluated based on your business needs. Activity Hub data is made available in both tools under the same structure and field names. The IT Services Busines Intelligence and Analytics - the team behind the Acitivy Hubs - recommends providing direct links to reports so that the end consumer can focus on the report output and not the tool.   

Activity Hubs Update: December 2020

Employee Activity Hub (EAH)

At the request of the Employee Data Steward we have adjusted security around the Labor Ledger views to allow EAH users greater access to the data. Behind the scenes, we've increased our data flow efficiency in order to decrease our time to delivery.

Financial Activity Hub (FinAH)

We have rolled out 18 financial views thus far with more to come, with the most use from FINAH-ProjectCosts-View, FINAH-Project-View, FINAH-ProjectPersonnelRole-View, FINAH-Task-View and FINAH-UCSDGeneralLedger-View.

Our next goal is to add budget information into the existing views. 

Student Activity Hub (SAH)

We are rolling 30+ SAH-LMS views into User Acceptance Testing with a focus on analysis of student online engagement.

ESR-Sponsored Cognos/Tableau Training

Due to high demand, Cognos training sessions have been extended at no cost into January and February 2021. 

You must have access to Activity Hub data prior to signing up for training. Find details and additional prerequisites at ACOP Training - Cognos and Tableau for Report Developers*.

After February 2021, the vendor is available for private team trainings or mentorship hours at cost.  Contact Nate Jacminek (nate.jecminek@plantemoran.com) for Tableau and Shannon Brancard (shannon.brancard@plantemoran.com) for Cognos training options.

More Information

Keep up to date with Activity Hub projects at UC San Diego. 

Submit Activity Hub questions and requests to busintel@ucsd.edu.

* You must have access to Confluence to visit these links. Request Confluence access here.