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.
Considerations for most products should include:
1. Are the presentation layers for both the development environment and end user access 100% web based?
2. Can users self subscribe to a variety of outputs, that allow them to receive information when they want in the format they want?
3. Integration of the BI tool with the ETL tool is critical.
4. Dashboarding and critical performance indicators capabilities.
The selection of these for a campus wide solution is something that typically takes a few months, as these are usually large scale projects.
Most of the major database and software vendors have these tools or are acquiring companies that have developed the tools.
Most are similar in terms of their capabilities.
Cognos
Business Objects
Microsoft
Oracle
etc.
Some initial steps you need to think about in Advancement before even looking at a tool are:
1. What are the key performance metrics you want to develop and measure?
2. Who will these be delivered to?
3. Have a very good understanding of data cubes/pivot tables and drill down within these.
4. How a reporting and data deployment environment built on these technologies will be significantly different than your current reporting environment and how to leverage these new technologies.
5. How you will integrate data enhancements such as screening data, Prizm clusters etc. into your BI environment.
6. Integration of data mining and statistics into your BI environment.