UDFS Team Meeting Minutes

8/9/00

9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

In Attendance: Marsha Lockard

Carol Rylee

Julie Burton

Van Adams

Greg Rumsey

 

  1. General Information
    1. It was determined meetings will be held every other week at 8:00 a.m. beginning August 30 at 113 Townsend Hall
    2. Team email: UDFS-report@udel.edu
    3. The other UDFS teams are directed by the executive committee to identify reports that:
      1. Are used by many people on campus
      2. Are routinely run

      Other reports are considered user generated

    4. Team members are reminded to check the UDFS web page daily for updates and new information
    5. Marsha and Julie will be going to training on August 28
    6. All requests for consultants or travel to other schools should go through the executive committee
  2. Team Goals
    1. Select and evaluate reporting tools
    2. Evaluate tools for extracting data, moving data, reporting data, and ability to refine reports
    3. Analyze- within and outside of People Soft- resources available to produce reports as needed by users including:
      1. Central
      2. End-users
      3. Non-users that need data
    4. Evaluate tools for executive reporting
    5. Select a data repository and determine the design
  3. Important Points to consider
    1. Delivered reports should be kept to a minimum
    2. The Goal should be for users to generate reports, not programmers
      1. Tools selected should be flexible enough for this including appropriate security
      2. This will probably require a training plan for users
  4. Brainstorming
    1. Security
      1. People Soft reporting tools do not deliver row level security
      2. Modifying People Soft for row level security is an extensive and costly modification that makes upgrading more difficult
      3. Row level security can be accomplished in a data repository outside People Soft
      4. The existing FAMIS data warehouse presents a potential model for row level security on a data repository outside of a financial system
    2. Potential tools
      1. Crystal Reports used with PS client or a data warehouse
      2. nVision used with PS client or potentially a data warehouse
      3. People Soft query used with People Soft client
      4. MS Access used with a data warehouse
      5. Oracle Web DB, Oracle Reports, Oracle Discoverer, and/or Oracle Express Financial Analyzer used with a data warehouse
    3. Data available for reporting – should meet needs of users
      1. user input data with transactions at front-end
      2. pre-encumbrance
      3. budget detail by object (PS account)
      4. statistical information by ChartField
  5. Plan of Action
    1. All team members will sign up for the educause list serv
    2. Schools that have implemented secured data repositories will be contacted- Carol Rylee will coordinate this
    3. Carol Rylee and Jeff Quirico will give a demonstration of various products on 9/27
    4. Greg Rumsey will gather data about Oracle Web DB and other Oracle products
    5. All team members will review the educause web page and Van Adams will compile pertinent information on data warehousing and reporting
    6. Carol Rylee will work on getting some demo data into People Soft for experimentation
  6. Assignments for August 30, 2000 Meeting:

Carol Rylee will provide a list of schools currently using PS with data repositories.

All team members are to bring list of ideas for survey to be used for contact with schools in Carol’s list.

Continue to work on items listed in Plan of Action above and report back to committee on progress made.