Snapshots and Census Sets
Census Sets
Data Warehousing
Daily Snaps
one strategy from an institution under the gun
Reflections
some closing thoughts
our context
our under-the-gun strategy
our reporting
Mike Ellison
Manager, Data Systems and Application Development
UNLV Office of Institutional Analysis and Planning

mike.ellison@unlv.edu
Information Delivery
Staging
Enhanced
Transactional Systems
Daily Operations
Raw
Integrated
restructured
derived
informational
value-added
Offloaded
Reporting Applications
Operational Improvements
Analytics
Offloaded
Enhanced
Operational Stewards
- or - 
those with intimate knowledge of the data
and technical ability
Information Professionals
those with the technical ability to work with the processed information
- or - 
Decision Makers at all Levels
those with information needs
- or - 
Our Immediate Priorities
we may not know all the data fields....
we may not know all the right interpretations just yet...
... but we have a pretty good idea of the transactional tables we'll need!
OLAP Cube
Star Schema
DataMart
Data Warehouse
Staging
Enhanced
Information Delivery
DataMarts
Transactional Systems
Data Warehouse
Staging
Enhanced
Information Delivery
DataMarts
Transactional Systems
Data Warehouse
Staging
Enhanced
Information Delivery
DataMarts
Transactional Systems
Snapshots
raw
interpretive
Our Situation
New ERP System - Student Information
Reporting/DW lagged behind the implementation
IAP tasked with the enterprise DW and BI Platform

One simple idea, which we didn't do...
Daily Snapshots of Transactional Data
What we did instead...
Daily Snapshots of Transactional Data
Select * 
  From SnapTable
 Where SnapDate = '27-OCT-2011'
Select * 
  From SnapTable
 Where '27-OCT-2011'
         Between BeginDate and EndDate'
Implementing data definitions... 
...and snapping that too!
Interpreting Transactional Data
What about PeopleSoft's effective dating?
What about Oracle's solution?  It's just around the corner....
Data Warehouse
Staging
Enhanced
Information Delivery
DataMarts
Transactional Systems
Snapshots
raw
interpretive
Admissions
Enrollment
Enrollments
Students
(attributes of the Person)
Students' Career
(attributes of the Student + Career)
Students' Program/Plan
(attributes of the Students' Academic Plans of study)
Census Dates
(attributes of the capture date and type of census)
Headcount * FTE * SCH
division * state-supported
Unofficial and Official Enrollment
raw snapshots
interpretive snapshots
census dataset
Unofficial 
Sep 11, 2010
Sep 10, 2010
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 8, 2010
...etc...
...etc...
Official Enrollment:
Sept. 10, 2010
Maintained in "census revised" tables
Cross-checked with Stewards
Uncovered Errors Corrected

Original "Unofficial" left unchanged
Official
raw snapshots
interpreted snapshot
IPEDS Race/Ethnicity
five transactional tables
logic based on ethnicity records
PS_DIVERS_ETHNIC
PS_VISA_PMT_DATA
PS_VISA_PMT_TBL
PS_CITIZENSHIP
State-supported FTE
six transactional tables!
critical enrollment measure
PS_CLASS_TBL
PS_ACAD_PROG
PS_STDNT_ENRL
PS_ACAD_PLAN
PS_STDNT_ENRL
PS_DEGREE_TBL
PS_CLASS_ATTRIBUTE
Trade-offs...
IR has a unique contribution
data-first perspective
institutional scope

Delivered
Diane
Offloaded
Enhanced
Delivered
intimate knowledge of data and business practices required
Offloaded
Enhanced
Delivered
some assembly required
Offloaded
Enhanced
Delivered
no previous experience necessary!
...all others need not apply
Would we do it again?
happy Diane
Fall 2010 Census is LOOMING....
transactional context
informational context