BI APPROACH - Just Do It! DW Workshop at CSG May 14, 2013

1. BI APPROACH - Just Do It!DW Workshop at CSGMay 14, 2013 Suneetha Vaitheswaran Director, Business Information Services University of Chicago

2. U of C FACTS • Founded 1892 by John D. Rockefeller • 12,000 students, 56% grad students • 11 Schools & Divisions • 2,200 faculty • 150,000 alumni • $466M sponsored research • $6.6B endowment

3. BI: The Right APPROACH • Sell the initiative and get funding • Procure tools, platform, and architecture • Design the bus matrix • Build and integrate each subject area • Create additional targeted data marts • Celebrate your EDW! • Add dashboards • Move into predictive analytics • Refresh your architecture • Work on Big Data • …

4. The STATE of the U • Institution • Hit hard by the economic downturn • Continued aggressive growth • 87 Nobel Prize winners, extremely faculty-driven • Pushback on admin staff and processes • Executives demanding data for decision-making • Systems • Hundreds of legacy and silo’d source systems • Inconsistent, bottoms-up business processes • Erratic data stewardship • Nonstop demand for feeds

5. The state of BI • Dispersed team • One size for all users = ad-hoc • Architecture and maintenance projects • No new subject areas in years • Many separate Business Objects systems • Limited partnerships • Consultants defining strategy for reporting • BIS formalized late in 2007

6. Start DOING • Team building • Hired slowly, but got great folks • Realigned team • Leveraged ownership of stack: architecture through support • “Coordinate reporting approaches into an enterprise-wide, streamlined solution” • Took over admin of all BO systems • Began managing consultants • “Provide easy-to-use and flexible access to data” • Began revamp of training – short modules vs. day-long • “Use consistent best practice methods & tools” • Redo of DW/ETL architecture a big success • “Partner for progress and data governance” • Started Stewardship Council • Registrar: Student data warehouse • New Research system: Grants data warehouse

7. Emerging vision • Login to one place for reporting • Similar look/feel across subject areas • Support different user skill levels • Training a means to an end • High performance and availability • Consider integration points

8. KEEP DOING • Committed to multiple projects at a time • Implemented best practice consolidated architecture for Business Objects • Teams coalesced • Focused on standards and process including coordinating SDLC with PMO • Brought SMEs in earlier • Acknowledged surprises and new priorities

9. Services

10. BI NOW • High demand from senior stakeholders • New app projects include BI • Capital projects requested by steward • PMO partners with BIS regularly • Good relationships with functional areas • User base increasing 10-15% year • Better understanding of what it takes

11. BI Strategy • BI Strategy must address: • Current State: Turn challenges into opportunities • The Culture: Will introduce constraints • Defined Benefits: Introduce some structure • BI Strategy must be: • Feasible: Balance user with architecture projects • User-focused: Not all users happy • Sustainable: Build solid stuff, resource load projects • BI Strategy must overcome: • Perception: Deliver good stuff • Partnership challenges: Strong team, better selling • Reality: Deliverables create more demand

12. The BOTTOM Line • Marketing opportunities come in ways you may only recognize when they come up, so be ready • Planning happens all the time – always connect the dots and keep user focus paramount. The vision will come more easily. • Doing it means mapping planned and unplanned efforts into a whole program, and continually realigning the pieces to make sense to you, team, stakeholders

13. But it’s not perfect… • Over-committed • Very little redundancy across team • Tools: Monitoring, ETL, Metadata • Tipped too far to user deliverables • Not yet EDW (integration) • No time to redo original (financial & payroll) • Get to visualization, analytics, big data • Strategy when ERP shows up? • The Hospital • Little abatement of local systems

14. Discussion & THANK YOU!

15. appendix

16. THE REALITY… • We can’t wait so just give me a feed… • Wow, the source data is terrible! • This new system needs reporting, do that next. • Oh, there is no consistent business process… • This financial DW is for operational reporting. • We have how many separate BO systems?? • Provost needs that reporting app ASAP… • Our architecture has been off vendor support for how many years? • You have BO, you don’t need a bigger team..

17. Boil it Down • BI Strategy must address: • Current State • The Culture • Defined Benefits • BI Strategy must be: • Feasible • User-focused • Sustainable • BI Strategy must overcome: • Perception • Partnership challenges • Reality

18. HURDLES • BO environments a mess • Diversion from student DW to grad reporting • Sluggish Stewardship efforts • Adapting DW/BI to PMO SDLC • Team challenges • Always asking for a seat at the table • No time to build conformed dimensions

19. sustainable • Deliverables are solid • Structure and accountability in projects • CITO implements governance and planning • ITIL improved IT partner understanding • Pounded team on communication & user focus • Bosses very supportive • No ERP elevates criticality of DW/BI

20. NEW CURRENT STATE • DW/BI apps: Financial, Payroll, HR, Grants, IRB, Enrollment/Person, Graduate Teaching • EPM: Budget Planning and Management • Single consolidated BO environment • 1700 users • In progress: Expense, COI, Registration • Self-service access (viewer, analyst, power user) • Standard reporting packages plus ad-hoc • Platforms: Power Designer, Oracle db, OWB, VPD, AD, ESP, Business Objects, Hyperion

21. Success factors • Broad span of control • Structured projects • Resource loading • Amazing team

22. Document benefits • Self-service access to core administrative reporting that decreases report requests to IT and central business offices • Single point of user entry to reporting applications over and across multiple data areas, using common ‘business intelligence’ tools and access methods • Consistent look and feel of reporting applications across different data areas • Reporting design and deliverables that serve user types from casual to advanced • Common training and support model tiered to effectively deliver training and help to various users types, and coordinated with other systems and stewards • ‘Smart’ models that organize data for reporting, resolve some source inconsistencies, and add context/help to simplify analysis and creation of new reports • Support of historical analysis and trending to enable projections and data-driven decisions, even after source system history is purged • Integrated reporting to support analysis across and within each business process lifecycle to answer critical questions regarding instruction and research • Enhanced value of source applications by deploying reporting tool functionality to support effective data analysis and decision support (e.g. drilldown, linking ‘like’ reports, slice/dice, dynamic filtering) • Fast data retrieval that does not impact performance of transaction systems • Best practice architecture for data warehouse and user interface that is flexible, extensible, and high-performing