TUG Statistics and Reports Group Meeting

Minutes
September 5, 2002    1:20-3:15 p.m.   UW Porter Library room 407

1. Agenda review and planning
   There were no changes to the agenda.

2. Minutes of August 12, 2002
   1. Approval
      The minutes were approved as drafted.

   2. Business arising
      Linda confirmed that the only TUG Statistics and Reports (TSR) expense incurred so far this year was for the Cognos training sessions Bill Halahan and Gail Sperling attended in July. UW’s IST Dept. has provided some server support but there is no formal arrangement with IST. Other set-up support has been provided by the UW Library Systems Dept. We do not have a hardware maintenance contract since the server is not designated an essential one. During the term of the server warranty, repair will be handled as needed by the vendor. Cognos software is covered by campus licenses. No significant hardware and software expenditure is anticipated for the remainder of the fiscal year (there might be a small cost if a retired ERL or TRELLIS server is migrated to the Cognos environment).

3. Cognos User Conference
   Gail and Bill’s attendance at the Cognos Enterprise 2002 User Conference in Toronto on November 5^th was approved. The only cost will be transportation.

   To do: Linda will forward to Ron and Joanne the procedure used for reimbursement of travel expenses for the Cognos training sessions in July.

4. TSR area on TUG staff website
   TSR group members agreed to the expansion of the TUG Reports area on the TUG staff web to become a TUG Statistics and Reports area and the closure of the TUG MIS area. The TUG Cognos Project report and TSR mandate, minutes, etc., will be added to the web site.

   To do: Ron will ask Murray and Mark if Cheryl Kieswetter can assist in maintaining the web page.

5. TUG Managers consultation meetings, October 2002
   1. Meeting schedule
      TSR group members agreed that the first consultation with managers should require about 30 minutes and be held as part of a regularly-scheduled meeting if possible. At Guelph, CLC meets on Oct. 10^th; at UW, Library Managers meet on Oct. 8^th. A meeting at WLU may not occur until later in the Fall.

      To do: Ron, Linda and Joanne will confirm dates for each meeting.

   2. Meeting objectives
      Objectives, as drafted on the agenda, were approved:
      • Managers will have overview or vision, recommendation, timeline and resource requirements.
      • Managers will have opportunity for questions and feedback.
      • TSR Group will review planning in light of feedback.

   3. Documentation review
      A cover memo with the executive summary and recommendations appendix from the TUG Cognos Project report will be sent to managers before the meetings. The URL for the full report will be included.

      The draft meeting presentation notes were reviewed. Some minor changes were suggested (drop the context and history slide, combine the two training lines in the vision section, add a “Next steps” slide at the end). TSR Group members will adapt the slides to each local situation but will tell the other members what changes are made.

      To do: TSR members will continue to review and revise the presentation electronically.

6. Recommendations: review

   The status of and action required on several TUG Cognos Project recommendations were reviewed:

   • Security
     Gail has designed a security prototype based on input received from Library Managers. Next step may be to review it with functional groups of managers. A session with Gail and/or Bill will be arranged for TSR Group members who want a better understanding of the security issues and options.

   • Web support staffing
     The TSR Group assumes that local customization of the Cognos web interface will be minimal at first. The Group will work with Bill and Gail to identify essential changes. This would include review of and reorganization of folders.

   • Training
     Training issues were discussed, including skills required of trainers, levels of training and the ongoing support role. It was suggested that a TUG Cognos training group might be a sub-group of the TSR Group and that, when a staff training program is developed, it be tested on the TSR Group. Specialized training for reports developers might be best handled by Bill and Gail. During the consultation meetings, managers will be alerted to the training commitment they will asked to make for trainers and trainees.

   • Reports listserv, request form, database
     The listserv is ready for implementation as soon as managers are subscribed and a message is prepared to announce the listserv. Other more function-specific discussion forums may also be required and they might be addressed as a separate training and support mechanism.

     The report request form and database are almost ready to implement. Still required are use guidelines and procedures (when to request vs creating one’s own report, who authorizes requests, etc.)

   • Cubes rebuilds, archiving
     The frequency and scheduling of automatic cube rebuilds will have to be agreed to and coordinated with managers and the TRELLIS Operational Management Group. TSR Group members felt that the weekly schedule recommended by the TUG Cognos Project Group might be too frequent.

     The TUG Cognos Project Group’s archiving recommendation is that, unless a different schedule has been developed for a particular cube, only cubes for the previous year-end and the most recent cube for the current fiscal year be stored online and that, once a year, all cubes retained online for the previous fiscal year be burned to CD ROM and retired from online access. This would mean that, to access an archived cube, a staff member would use the CD ROM at a staff workstation that had the Cognos desktop clients installed or request that it be loaded temporarily onto the web server.

     To do: Bill and Gail will be invited to the next TSR meeting to identify and discuss work required to move forward on the TUG Cognos Project recommendations.

7. Meeting evaluation & next meeting
   TSR Group members confirmed that the meeting agenda and format had resulted in productive discussions.

   The advisability of preparing a vision statement as soon as possible was discussed (i.e. a general statement of where we’re heading with reports, possibly some “what this will mean to you” scenarios for staff).

   To do: Joanne will expand on the vision statement/scenario concept.

   The next meeting was tentatively scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on Sept. 30^th [but will have to be rescheduled since Gail is not available at that time].

   Agenda: discussion with Bill and Gail; final preparation for meetings with managers