University of Wales Swansea

Voyager Web Reporting

Andrew BrownUniversity of Wales Swansea

University of Wales Swansea

Aims and Objectives

• Aim– To encourage Voyager users to setup and run

web-based reporting in their organisation

• Objectives– Know the benefits of web-based reporting – Know what is required to setup web reporting– Know the process involved in setting up web

reporting

University of Wales Swansea

Session Outline

• Why use web-based reporting?

• Putting it together

• Demo

University of Wales Swansea

Benefits of web-based reporting?

University of Wales Swansea

Benefits of web based reporting?

• Improves access to report writers/creators– Potential to split SQL work/report formatting

• Improves access for report customers/users– Can run their own reports– Standard format of reports

• Increasing cost effectiveness of reporting– Separation of production roles and training needs– Quicker creation of new reports– Low maintenance

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – preface

• University of Wales Swansea– 15000 students / 3000 staff– South Wales

• Library and Information Services– Manage library, IT and

telephony across the university (1997 merger)

– 100 staff & six libraries– £4m (€5.7m) annual

budget

• Information Systems– 1.5 staff manage Voyager,

LinkFinderPlus and digital resources

– 450,000 bib records– Voyager budget

£40K(€57K)• Voyager maintenance

• Authority and bibliographic records purchase

• Projects (e.g. reporting)

• Essential trips to places like Helsinki…

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – history

• Voyager implementation (Sept 1999)• Experimental web work and simple Access

reports (Late 1999)• Access reporting course (Early 2000)

– Improved Access reporting

• Reporting review (May 2001)– Two staff with SQL and MS Access experience and

Oracle drivers installed– Results of experimental web reporting– Small collection of MS Access reports

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – problems

• Plenty of other things to do ;-)

• All MS Access queries required individual packaging into user friendly reports

• Experimental web reports – worked but not easily replicated by others

• Other interested staff but required training and support

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – possibilities

• Features– Easier to author

reports– Easier to run reports– Cost effective– Minimise post report

processing

• Resources– No extra staff– Small budget (≈£1K)

• Solutions (Aug 2001)– Commercial package

• E.g. Business Objects

– Perl– Active Server Pages– ColdFusion 5.0

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – proposal

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – procedure

• Server hardware– Test server

• PII 450MHz• 512MB RAM• Cost – free!

• Server software– Windows 2000

Professional (patched!!)

– IIS 5.0 (patched!!)– Norton Anti-virus

(managed)– Oracle ODBC drivers– ColdFusion 5.0

(patched)

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – procedure

• Report writer/creator client hardware– PIII 850Mhz– 256MB RAM– No additional cost!

• Report writer/creator client software– Windows 2000– Dreamweaver

UltraDev 4.0– MS Access 2000– Oracle ODBC drivers

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – procedure

• Report customer/user client hardware– Anything…

…in theory!

• Report customer/user client software– Operating system– Web browser

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – post test

• Testing results

• Upgrades

• Staff training

• Offline reporting

• Report conversion

University of Wales Swansea

Putting it together – procedure

• Writing a report

University of Wales Swansea

University of Wales Swansea

University of Wales Swansea

Wrapping up + demo

University of Wales Swansea

Any questions?

University of Wales Swansea

Any answers?