Data Warehouse
The University Data Warehouse is an organized and integrated collection of financial and administrative data. It is specifically designed for reporting and analysis, and can provide both large volumes of data and tightly-defined analytics quickly and efficiently. The primary source of data is the Oracle Applications, which consist of Finance, Procurement, Human Resources and Payroll applications. University budgets and Grant Budgets, and Department Plans (for central campus) are sourced from the OFA application (see below). Department Plans and Grant Budgets for School of Medicine departments are sourced from the FMT application. The Data Warehouse collects, organizes and consolidates data from these applications to provide a comprehensive reporting environment.
While standard reports and reporting tools are provided, the security structure of the Data Warehouse enables use of diverse reporting and analysis tools while preventing unauthorized access to data. Reporting hierarchies and pre-summarized data are provided to speed access to information. A Data Dictionary application provides definitions of the many data elements available.
We load data overnight, providing up-to-date information at the start of each work day. With the exception of department-initiated processes to update commitments and grant budgets during the day, data is kept consistent throughout the work day.
We implement new sets of data, ensure consistency and integration of data, implement improvements in functionality, and perform periodic upgrades of vendor tools. We use an Oracle database and leverage reporting and analysis capabilities provided by Oracle and Hyperion.
Data Warehouse Portal
The Portal is the primary report delivery application for the Data Warehouse. Standard reports have been created to meet the typical reporting needs of the University community. Each report has a number of parameters that allow a user to customize its contents to meet specific needs. While the reports are “standard”, each department can meet their unique needs through their selection of reports and by providing specific parameter values.
The Portal is used to run reports when needed and to schedule reports to be run and delivered at a future point in time. The most popular scheduling event is the Fiscal Month-End, when final financial data is available for a fiscal period. Scheduled reports can be delivered to the person who established the schedule, or can be delivered to other members of the University community. The functionality facilitates getting the right information to the right person at the right time.
To ease requesting reports, sets of parameter values can be setup and saved in advance, to be ready for use whenever a report is run.
The Data Warehouse Portal uses the Hyperion Foundation product (formerly the Hyperion Portal), with carefully selected Yale customizations to provide key Yale-specific functionality. Standard Reports are written in Hyperion Intelligence (formerly Brio Query) and in Oracle Reports.
