SIS: Reporting in Focus

Although we aren’t implementing a new student information system (SIS) right away, the SIS project team is still working hard to prepare for the change to a new system with a new Reporting workstream.

The vision is to position existing reports into a comprehensive Activity Hub source prior to the Go Live of a new SIS. The work started with the creation of a report inventory, which after significant analysis and consultation will lead to the development of new reports and remediation where needed.

A focus on reporting now, in advance and independent of an SIS, makes good sense. Although it is possible that QueryLink reports would be replaceable by out-of-the-box reports in a new SIS, this will not be known until after an SIS development partner is selected, a product is developed then configured, and implementation begins.

The work of the Reporting workstream requires the identification and analysis of operational reports, with a goal to analyze and convert them to Tableau or Cognos in the Student Activity Hub (SAH) or Extension Student Activity Hub. 

Reports needing blended data (e.g. Student and Financial data) are the highest priority to rebuild, because they would not be available out-of-the-box from a new SIS. For official reporting required for UCOP and other reports done by batch with our current SIS, the solution will be to extract from the Activity Hubs. 

The project will not include reports that are single-department use, supported by distributed IT, or that use localized data. In these cases, ESR Continuity Planning will work with departments to develop a remediation path to preserve the data connection with programming that does not go through ISIS. 

A project plan has been developed to engage subject matter experts to deepen the project’s understanding of the decision tools (data and reports) that individuals and units depend on every day. 

Over the next several months, Business Systems Analysts, the ESR Continuity Planning team, and the Business Intelligence & Analytics team, will work with subject matter experts from departments, central offices, and other units. In addition to analyzing current reports, they will ask questions like:

• What’s working and what isn’t? 
• Do current reports meet your needs? 
• What enhancements would you like? 
• What’s missing?

The teams will review and analyze core reports and report samples, build report requirements, and provide report templates and gather feedback. Once reports are developed, there will be user acceptance testing and usability testing. The new reports will remain in place once a new SIS is selected and implemented. Only the data source “under the hood” of the SAH will change and point to the data in the new SIS. This means that the eventual Go Live of a Student Information System will be easier because users will continue to run the same reports in the same manner.