Creating a Reporting & Analytics Road Map

Enterprise Reporting & Analytics

As we embark on our Finance Strategic Transformation we are taking a holistic, program-view approach to enhance reporting & analytics across the University in order to better provide high-quality, timely access to data and information so you and our leadership team can make more informed decisions and benchmark performance across all business dimensions. 

We're using FST and Workday implementation as a catalyst to design and plan an enterprise reporting & analytics road map to make sure the steps we take now in FST are leading us down the path to our desired end-state.

When we developed UBI, the focus was understandably on providing the important operational and transactional reports that users on the front-line need to do their jobs everyday.

 

 

While we've made some progress in developing analytical reports and dashboards, our data is still complex and fragmented, which makes it difficult to bring together in ways that would be more valuable. Visualizations can make it easier to spot trends or anomalies that then lead you to a deeper exploration of the data or prompt you to take action.

 

Enablers

So how do we get from our current state to an environment where we are better able to find, understand, and trust our data so that we can use it to make more data-informed decisions.

The Workday Foundational Data Model (FDM) is going to simplify, standardize, and enhance our Chart of Accounts so that we have a common base of reporting elements across the financial enterprise.

Our goal with FST will be to fully leverage the tools in Workday (Workday Reporting, Adaptive Insights, and Prism Analytics) where we can create dashboards and reports that link all the way through to the underlying transactions allowing users to take action directly from a report.

Where the Workday tools don't provide all the capabilities we need or where we want to combine data that is not in Workday, we will to utilize the other systems we have in place such as the Data Warehouse, UBI, and Tableau.

Data Governance will be key to making this all work - how do we make sure the right people have the right access to the right data? How do we make sure that data elements and reports are correctly defined? How do we improve the accuracy and consistency of results across systems?

Collaboration and coordination - how do we work together to break down silos and share data and information? How do we build capacity in the system through education and skills development so we're all able to better make use our new tools and improved data? What are the structures, tools, and technology that are needed as we go through this journey?

READ ABOUT "NEXT STEPS" ON OUR REPORTING & ANALYTICS JOURNEY IN MARK'S ARTICLE IN THE ONLINE COMMUNITY.