Virginia Commonwealth University Graduates to a Higher Level of Data Access
Snapshot| Organization Virgina Commonwealth University, Richmond. |
| The Challenge Deliver promise of direct access to university information for students, faculty and staff, in a tight time frame, with data in disparate systems. |
| The Strategy Build a secure Web-reporting center based on a data warehouse that provides seamless, secure access to data in legacy systems containing student, human resource, and financial information. |
| The Results Web access to information, improving decision-making capabilities for administrators and staff, services for students and faculty, and IT administration. |
| Information Builders Solution EDA (Now part of iWay Software's product suite), WebFOCUS, FOCUS |
As the 1990s drew to a close, the administrative information technology department of Virginia Commonwealth University more than had its hands full: While still needing to make several systems Y2K-compliant and in the midst of installing a student information system in a much-compressed time frame, the department had a major headache from the aftereffects of a failed transition to client/server architecture.
"During the mid-'90s, we undertook a cooperative development project with several other universities to originate an integrated suite of client/server systems," explains James Thomas, Director of Administrative Technical Services. "We made a lot of promises that users would have direct, unencumbered access to all data in all systems. When the project was not successful, those promises came back to haunt us."
"We knew that we had to replace the whole reporting process to allow for a lot easier and simpler access, and to get the technical staff away from being middlemen, allowing users direct access to the university's information," adds Mark Willis, Executive Director of Administration Information Technology. The question was how to provide seamless access for faculty, staff, and students, given the disparate systems and their limitations – while making it simpler to administer the system. VCU turned to Information Builders to help it craft a solution.
EDA and WebFOCUS: Working Together for Flexible Data Access
The strategy devised was to develop a data warehouse from the existing mainframe transaction systems, and give the users access to information with both a desktop query tool and Web reporting capability: no small order. The key to success, according to Thomas, was the middleware: "The university has data in several formats on several platforms that all had to be seamlessly integrated. We felt EDA* from Information Builders was the best tool for that job."
Utilizing EDA Servers to access both VSAM and DB2 data on the OS/390 mainframe and DB2 on the RS/6000 SP where the data warehouse resides provided the framework for automating the data loads with EDA Copy Manager. VCU uses EDA Copy Manager to schedule and build individual data marts in the data warehouse. "It allows us to access mainframe data without running batch jobs, which is important to us, as our batch window is very tight," Thomas explains.
A VCU evaluation of several desktop query tools led to the selection of WebFOCUS Power Reporter. The university had FOCUS for MVS on the mainframe, so the use of the same language constructs on the PC was very attractive. "WebFOCUS Power Reporter is both an easy-to-use and a powerful query tool. It allows point-and-click reports as well as sophisticated FOCUS code to be written. This versatility lets it serve many purposes," says Willis. "When WebFOCUS was installed, we were able to leverage the existing desktop reports by deploying them on the Web with minor modifications." The combination of EDA and WebFOCUS forms the backbone of the system and permits direct client/server and Web access to work together in harmony.
Streamlining the System
Simplifying administration is important to Thomas and Willis, so the pair took a number of steps to accomplish that goal. A role-based permission system was implemented to provide appropriate access to both data in the warehouse and the Web reporting system. Each user has an individual ID and password, but what data they have access to depends on their job role at the university. This means that instead of managing more than 30,000 individual student, staff, and faculty profiles, the IT staff only has to worry about 150 easily defined roles.
Another step VCU has taken to reduce both efforts required by users and overhead on the system is the implementation of WebFOCUS Report Broker to e-mail scheduled reports. "Instead of 50 users hitting our WebFOCUS report 50 times, we can execute the program once and send each user only the information needed. It is a big hit for us when they can just open their e-mail and see the report in their in-box without doing anything," says Thomas.
Both Willis and Thomas say that besides the obvious advantages to the IT department, the data warehouse and Web reporting center have satisfied the university's end users, although it did take a little while for all of the benefits to become apparent.
"We finally started to get some recognition within the university that we are going to be using management reporting in a different way – that we would allow end users to go out to a Web site and develop a report People – skeptics – didn't think that it would work that well, but now they've discovered that they don't have to go through three or four iterations of a report with the IT staff," says Willis.
Improving Service and Performance With the Web
Using VCU's Web site, people get the information they need quickly and easily on their own. Students check class schedules and transcripts. Professors gain up-to-date class lists. Administrative staff run accurate, timely reports. And managers get the full picture of the university's activities and business.
As Thomas says, people have found the advantages in working with accurate data. "Better decisions are being made because they are based on consistent information. For VCU to go from nowhere to having a data warehouse and a Web reporting center in nine months is not only a credit to our staff but also to the products from Information Builders. They worked as advertised."
(*Note: EDA is now part of iWay Software's product suite)
