[NERDug-list] Colleague Reporting Strategy

[Jeff Butera]

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Mark Phalen wrote:

> Hello. I work for St. Lawrence University and by next July we will have the
> finance portion of Colleague installed and soon to follow will be the HR
> module. The database we will have this installed on will be SQL Server 2008.

Good luck with your implementation.

> I have a few strategic reporting questions (and keep in mind that we are
> very new to Datatel):
>
> 1.      Do colleges/universities share their Business Objects Reports with
> one another?

I can't comment on this specific questions as we (like many "older" 
clients) aren't using Business Objects.  That being said, it is very 
common for colleges to share code, reports and other things, so I would be 
surprised if you couldn't find some folks willing to share.

> 2.      We have experience with Microsoft's Reporting Services that is a
> part of SQL Server. What disadvantages do you see with us using this vs
> Business Objects? We currently do not have Business Objects.

Again, I can't comment on the above - we're not a windoze shop here.

> 3.      In Colleague, is it easy to modify and create reports? What do you
> think about it? How do end users like it?

It's easy to modify reports, but there are several places/levels this can 
be done.  You could edit Datatel-delivered reports for use directly in the 
User Interface, you could do this for ad-hoc reports using Query Builder 
or you could also do this for external reports (eg: Business Objects or 
other reporting against your ODS).

> a.      Same question as above for FRx reporting, SAS, and iStrategy.
> 4.      Has anyone used any other end user reporting tool against their ODS?

We don't have/use those tools so I can't comment.

We're building a data warehouse, but do not use ODS from Datatel since we 
don't want data in MS-SQL.

Jeff Butera, Ph.D.
Administrative Systems
Hampshire College
jbutera at hampshire.edu
413-559-5556

"Dad, you're talking in grown-up and need to stop."
                  Catherine Butera