A Managerial Approach to a Decentralized Report Writing Environment Agenda Historical Perspective and the Need for Change Policies & Procedures Group Training

A Managerial Approach to a Decentralized Report Writing Environment

Agenda• Historical Perspective and the Need for Change• Policies & Procedures• Group Training Session• One-On-One Mentoring Relationships• Security Concerns• Questions


Historical Perspective - 2005• Banner just implemented.• Support analysts busy learning base Banner.• Data Warehouse was incomplete and in it’s infancy.• Cognos implementation was in it’s infancy.• Immediate need to get information out of Banner resulted in a new Decision Support Team being formed.• Recognition that reporting, business intelligence, and data warehousing is a discipline all it’s own.


Historical Perspective – 2007• Banner implementation more stable.• Support analysts very comfortable with base Banner.• Data Warehouse is largely complete and mature.• Dependency on information coming out of Data Warehouse.• Recognition that our support analysts are ready to broaden their scope to some aspects of reporting and business intelligence.• Recognition that it is necessary to shift the focus of the Decision Support Team to higher level business intelligence initiatives.

Dickinson’s Architecture

Transaction Data Warehouse Reporting Environment

Local PC

Object Access Views

Custom Views

Banner PROD

Base Tables

• Advancement• Student• Finance• HR / Payroll• Financial Aid

PRODODS

Materialized

Object Access Views

Materialized

Custom Views

Cognos

Queries

Standard, Managed Reports

PowerCubes

Scorecards

Local PC

HTML docs

PDFs

Spreadsheets

CSV files

Recruitment Plus• Admissions

Adirondack• Residential Life

The Reporting Pyramid

Transactional

Tactical

Strategic

Information Need Delivery Method

Queries Reports Cubes Scorecards


Policies & Procedures• Document distributed to entire department - History & Background - Required Training - Procedures - Required Documentation - Security - Functionality Out of Scope


Procedures1. Support analyst (ASA) completes a Report Request / Change

form and submits to Decision Support Team for review.2. Decision Support determines if request is appropriate in scope

for ASA authorship and assigns to a specific person.3. ASA translates specification into PRODODS objects. Business

case is required to source from PROD.4. ASA develops and tests report on test server.5. ASA obtains functional sign-off.6. Decision Support moves the tested report to the production

server (restricted location).7. ASA and Decision Support test the report on production.8. ASA documents report on production.9. Decision Support approves final report and moves the report to

a production folder and adds Report Request / Change form to documentation folder.


Functionality Out of Scope• Security• Scheduling & Emailing• Move to Production• Crosstabs• Repeaters• Drill-throughs• Conditional Variables• Master-Detail Relationships• Bursting


Group Training Session• Guidelines & Procedures document• Report Request / Change form• Documentation Standards• Objects within Report Studio• Objects Properties Pane• Grouping & Sorting• SQL vs “Packages”• PRODODS vs PROD• Output Options• The “Dickinson” Way• What To Do In What Order


One-On-One Mentoring Relationships• Decision Support team acts as consultants as needed. • A natural outcome of the process.• Real learning happens with real-world problems.


Security Concerns• Privileges to all Cognos folders, reports, and functionality are controlled by Decision Support.• Database connections in Cognos are controlled by Decision Support and are limited by function.• Oracle accounts to which the Cognos database connections point are controlled by the DBA team.


Start of Group Training Slides

Reporting Request Form

• Must be filled out for each report.

• Submit to a member of the Decision Support Team for review and assignment (either to a DSA or an ASA, depending on scope).

• The completed form will be placed in the appropriate production folder accessible within Cognos Connection.

Documentation in Connection

Properties

Link to Report Documentation (Coming)

Report Documentation

Link

Documentation in Connection

Report NameReport

Description

Select Pages, Queries, or Variables

Objects in Report Studio

Objects in Report Studio - Pages


Insertable Objects

Properties


Insertable Data Items

Objects in Report Studio - Queries


Each report author group will have their

own data source signon.Select a data source before pasting in

your SQL code!


Objects in Report Studio - Variables

Objects in Report Studio - Variables

Objects in Report Studio - Prompts

Value PromptBased

on Query


Query2 returns values

available in value prompt


Value Prompt –

Static Choices


Text Box Prompt


Objects in Report Studio - Lists

Objects in Report Studio - Tables

Objects in Report Studio – Properties Pane

Shows properties associated with

whatever object is selected on the PAGE

pane

Shows parent objects of whatever object is selected on

the PAGE pane.

Objects in Report Studio – Grouping & Sorting

Basic Grouping & Sorting


Advanced Grouping & Sorting


AdvancedGrouping & Sorting


Sorting in a prompt

Objects in Report Studio – SQL vs Packages

• SQL code is portable.

• Directly coding SQL allows greater flexibility and complexity.

• Directly coding SQL allows you to dictate how Oracle will process the query, which is usually more efficient than Cognos-generated SQL.

• Directly coding SQL usually leads to faster development times.

• Directly coding SQL allows us to more fully take advantage of the power available in Oracle.

• Directly coding SQL is usually not appropriate for end users.

Objects in Report Studio – PRODODS vs PROD

• PRODODS Delivered Metadata:

file:///T:/Docs/software/sungardhe/ods_edw/docs/ODS_metadata_3.0/COMP_index.html

• PRODODS Custom Metadata:

file:///T:/Docs/software/sungardhe/ods_edw/docs/dc_custom/DC_CUSTOM_index.html

Dickinson’s Architecture

Transaction Data Warehouse Reporting Environment

Local PC

Object Access Views

Custom Views

Banner PROD

Base Tables

• Advancement• Student• Finance• HR / Payroll• Financial Aid

PRODODS

Materialized

Object Access Views

Materialized

Custom Views

Cognos

Queries

Standard, Managed Reports

PowerCubes

Scorecards

Local PC

HTML docs

PDFs

Spreadsheets

CSV files

Recruitment Plus• Admissions

Adirondack• Residential Life

Objects in Report Studio – Output Options

Click “Run with Options” to specify output format that is different from the default.


Select the output type from the drop-down box.


Choose another output format after running the report.

The “Dickinson” Way

• There is one version of the truth across campus: the data warehouse (regardless of which transactional system the data originally came from).

• Use Oracle for the heavy lifting.

• Source from PRODODS (business justification required to source from PROD).

• Name queries in a way that identifies their purpose.

• Queries used to populate prompt lists are named “________ Prompt”.

• Name prompt variables “Input ________”.

• Align prompts in a table with text labels in first column.

• Place filters in SQL instead of query object.

What To Do In What Order?

• Map data elements to PRODODS.

• Write query in Toad/Golden to generate raw report data.

• Paste query/queries into a new report in Cognos Report Studio (in your WIP folder).

• Follow the same query development process for any prompts to be used in the report.

• Summarize, group, and format report output appropriately.

• Documentation.

• Request Decision Support Team to review and move to production folder.

How Do We Proceed From Here?

• Try out the process.

• Work with a member of the Decision Support Team one-on-one to help you along as new requests are made.

Documents

A Managerial Approach to a Decentralized Report Writing Environment Agenda Historical Perspective and the Need for Change Policies & Procedures Group Training