Comparison of Estudias to Reporting Solutions

Estudias

Data Warehouse

• Data constantly change, results are different from day to day, frustrating executives
• ERPs overwrite values (i.e. current major, address) making it impossible to see things as they were in the past
• Data definitions remain unclear -- users remain confused as to which field to use for a given task
   
• Data may be stored in multiple fields and there is no control over which fields people use to run reports
• Data remain dirty

• Users can create snapshots of data at different points in time
• Data warehouse can record all changes and what date they were changed enabling point-in-time reporting
• The data warehousing process builds a data dictionary, consolidating information about rules spread across campus into a single, integrated metadata database
• Show a subset of the fields in ERP -- the correct subset
   
• Data are checked as they are downloaded; Can be cleansed for reporting

• Limited to fields available on the ERP
  
   
• Users are still burdened by the complicated ERP schema -- i.e. reports across budget years or financial aid years can be difficult depending on how the ERP stores data
• Still restricted to data on the ERP; No way to easily add new data sources
  
   
• Rewrite reports if ERP changes
• No way to consolidate data silos, and other intervention info
   
• Stops at reporting
   
• Have to write reports from scratch

• Additional metrics for higher education reporting are automatically calculated: cohort, stop-outs, term index, etc.
• Can use a standard, relational data model to access info
  
   
• Data can be integrated from multiple data sources: National Student Clearinghouse, Census, CCSSE / NSSE, or other data sources
• Only change data file import if ERP changes
• Estudias Student Engagement Module highly acclaimed for ability to reach out to engage students (i.e. at-risk intervention)
• Advanced items like OLAP, data mining, ad-hoc reporting allow for more in-depth analysis
• Comes pre-bundled with reports, metrics currently in use at other institutions

• Must rewrite reports when ERP changes
   
• Burden on ERP (especially during registration)
   
• ERP is optimized for transactions (i.e. registration), not reporting, so complicated queries run slowly
   
• Limited support for auditing and permissions -- i.e. who is downloading info, when?
   
• ERP may be built on a database architecture that is antiquated or very expensive to maintain

• When ERP changes, only need to change the way the Estudias tables are populated
• Data warehouse runs on a separate server, refreshing information at night
• Estudias is optimized for reporting, so even the most complicated queries run in seconds; intelligently learns which queries are run most often and optimizes them
• Can have more fine-grained control over data (restrict access to student info: rows or columns)
• Built on Microsoft SQL-Server; can be extended with standards such as SQL over ODBC