By admin on
8/5/2010
 We all want to improve our reporting but this is challenging given our ever present queue of work. What are some simple steps we can take to make some improvements? What are some quick wins?
A reporting strategy that is not always obvious – benchmark your reports against those of other institutions and try to use this benchmarking to help improve and provide new ideas for your own reporting. We used to share our favorite reports at conferences but don’t always do this any more.
Set up standards for reporting and adhere to them so that all of your reports have the same look and feel. Every time someone needs to reinterpret information such as font, it slows down their co ...
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By admin on
6/30/2010
Join the Association for Advancement Services Professionals (AASP) Wednesday, August 4th at 12:30 – 2:00 p.m. EST, for a 90 Minute Webinar on Building Your Data Warehouse.
Overview
Dr. Ralph Kimball, the founder of the Data Warehouse Institute, uses the metaphor of the publisher to convey the concepts of a data warehouse. A publisher produces a periodical, distributes it, and updates it at regular intervals. Just like a newspaper or web site, a data warehouse must be updated frequently and information in it needs to be accurate for it to be useful.
Dr. Kimball also likens the concept of data warehousing to a restaurant. The data warehouse is the kitchen and the dining room is where the presentation and consumption takes place. Diners stay out of the kitchen because it is full of busy people, sharp knives and hot liquids. The way in which the meal is prepared is transparent to the co ...
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By admin on
9/18/2008
One of the tenets of great programs is that we measure everything we do and use these analytics and related tools to make improvements.
We all have campaign to date totals, year to date, this year vs. last year, fundraising by donor interest and designation and more.
Activity based metrics such as how many records have we updates, what is our average receipting times and similar are less common. It’s ironic that activity leads to investment, but we don’t have nearly the same amounts of focus that we do on bottom line numbers even though activity based metrics are just as important to “sell” our ideas. For example, a slipping addressable rate may be used to sell a board or governance body on the idea of using data tracing servi ...
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By admin on
5/18/2008
One of the first steps is to do a Google search which will bring up most of the vendors:
higher education business intelligence
business intelligence
etc.
< ...
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By admin on
6/30/2006
The Quality of your Data Warehouse
The Quality of your Reporting
The Quality of your Information
After you create your data warehouse, and use it for a while, it is inevitable that you will reach a point where you are experiencing a certain degree of anarchy.
This is especially true if you have a larger team, since not all team members can communicate equally with all others all the time.
Building a data warehouse is part art and part science. Although you may decide ...
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By admin on
12/1/2005
Some interesting listserv postings on whether telemarketing staff are using some of the free online services such as Facebook to help manage interactions with their telemarketing staff.
Responses included setting up Facebook clubs for callers, but needing to ensure that any information posted on Facebook should not be confidential. Facebook is more useful for asking if someone wants to take over a shift etc.
Other responses included using a blog, and the fact that there are a number of sites where you can get free blogs. Again, useful suggestion, but probably better contolled in house because of confidentiality, and the need to assign individual logins and passwords.
Microsoft’s Sharepoint is also another way to do this. You can build sites very easily, deploy reporting components directly into the portal and much more. I ...
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By admin on
11/1/2005
Business Intelligence Lowdown
Blog on business intelligence with ongoing commentary presented by Mini Singh. Good general source postings with links on BI and related topics such as data mining, data warehousing, data cleansing and more ...
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By admin on
10/1/2005
As we move further into the busy season, many of us will have the need for more annual fund reporting, which always has its challenges.
- Differences between summary annual fund reports for executives, summary reports for colleges, and detailed annual fund reports going to various constituency offices and individual fundraisers.
- You don't want to have annual fund or other staff spending time reformatting reports, although at the same time you need to provide slice and dice capabilities for the more complex analysis that annual fund typically requires.
- The need for detailed analysis also makes the distribution of details problematic, as everyone will tend to come up with different results once they start manipulating data in their own spreadsheets.
- Complex terminology, complex data models, complex an ...
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By admin on
9/1/2005
From a seminar by Dr. Ralph Kimball, one of the primary initiaters of the modern data warehouse.
Looking for the truth as long as it takes. As opposed to scientists and philosophers, an engineer has to build something that works and has to deliver it.
Beliefs that affect data warehousing:
1. The data warehouse will only be successful if your users like it.
2. The data warehouse task is distressingly difficult.
- You need to like end users.
- You need to understand what they do.
- You need to be interested in their cognitive psychology.
- You need to be interested in their business world.
- You need to understand technology.
- You need to be a good manager.
3. A data warehouse is a project ...
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