CIRPA Conference October 23, 2011

CIRPA Conference 2011  Organization Overview  BI Program – Enrolment Management Project ◦ Project Drivers ◦ Business Challenges ◦ Technical Overview ◦ Business Benefits  Cube Demo  Questions 2

CIRPA Conference 2011  13 campuses across Nova Scotia  100+ certificate, diploma and advanced diploma programs  Plus apprenticeship training, customized training and continuing education  About 25,000 students annually 3

CIRPA Conference 2011  Pressure on Institutional Research team ◦ Preparing and manually producing reports for 4 key reporting periods and attending to many ad hoc requests (iterations of same data/information) for various clients (ranging from internal to external) adds a lot of pressure on the Institutional Research team.  Manual data manipulation using Excel o About 4 staff in the IR department manipulate the excel data files and sorting on the wrong/blank field can muddle up the files. Also, in-depth analysis or trending entails joining several files which may require the files to be formatted the same way. If the file is not saved due to storage issues and a similar request is received the file will have to be re-created which is time consuming.  Individual interpretation of metrics o As a result of not having concrete definitions of terms/metrics, the definitions can vary based on individual interpretations. An example is the fall term-to-winter term retention rate – in the College’s Balance Score Card, the rate is defined as the percentage of first year students (cohort) who started in the fall term and those who returned in the winter term. Whereas at Campuses and Schools, the retention rate is defined as the percentage of all (first year and returning) who started in the fall term and returned in the winter term.  No consolidated view of enrolment management o Each campus has its own enrolment management practices and processes and this also differ from campus to campus. This makes it difficult to forecast, project and manage enrolment college-wide.  Minimal strategic use of institutional data for planning and decision making o With the different interpretations of metrics, practices and processes, it is difficult to make strategic use of the information that is available. There was a great need to have a consolidated view of data, information, metrics and measures used throughout the college. 4

CIRPA Conference 2011  Create a standard data dictionary that would be accepted college wide (i.e. Active Student) o As a result of individual interpretations of metrics we identified the need to create a common language, definition and interpretations of metrics college-wide. This will create a single source of truth accessible to everyone.  Tightening of some business process to collect required data o While working on common definition of metrics, we discovered some of our business processes and practices differ from campus to campus. By developing timelines and guidelines, we were able to align and tightened these business processes and practices.  Change management required to create a self-serve culture o Consequent to developing acceptable definitions of terms, aligning practices and process across the college, we were able to develop business rules using the terms. These rules were building blocks used to develop metrics, measures and dimensions within the data warehouse, which made building reports easier. The reports were made readily accessible across the college and the burden of servicing ad hoc requests was eased for the Institutional Research Office. Managers and key users were able to look at the same reports using different filters (views) thus eliminating redundancy of producing iteration of same reports.  College relatively new to BI o We currently have one Cognos expert (Business Intelligence Architect) and two assisting consultants. It is important to note that the relationship between the technical and business team greatly influenced the positive outcome of the project. The reports were incorporated into enrolment management processes and practices throughout the college and the information contained have been used to make strategic decisions. 5

CIRPA Conference

“I attended a training session for the new enrolment reports that are now available in the Cognos system and I wanted to let you know how impressed I was with the work that’s been done. It’s really exciting to think that we are moving toward an integrated enrolment reporting system that is consistent for everybody, easy to access and updated daily. The results were nothing short of astonishing and I can see that this will move us to a very sophisticated level in terms of how we forecast, analyze and interpret College numbers.” - Quote from a Director on the Enrolment reports 7

CIRPA Conference