Present: Bill Halahan, Ron MacKinnon, Joanne Oud, Linda Teather
Minutes of March 14, 2003
Approval
The minutes of March 14, 2003 were accepted as drafted. They will be added to the TUG Statistics and Reports (TSR) area on the TUG staff web.
Business arising
Cube archiving policy and schedule: The draft policy and schedule have been reviewed with the TUG Acquisitions group and will be reviewed with the Cataloguing, Collections and Circulation groups. Joanne obtained approval from the WLU Library managers. Linda asked the UW Library managers for input and received a suggestion that the policy also indicate which site is responsible for storing the original CD ROM set.
TUG Reports Training Team Implementation
Ron, Joanne and Linda summarized the knowledge and skills of the seven applicants for the Reports Training Team. All seven applicants were approved but, in the case of two UW applicants from the same department, appointment to the Training Team is dependent upon the Manager’s assessment of the impact on the unit’s workload. [Note: Subsequent to this meeting, the Manager approved the assignment of one person to the team.]
The members of the Training Team will be:
UG: Alan Gale, Pam Jacobs
WLU: Linda Cracknell, Vera Fesnak
UW: Susan Arruda, Baiba Turner
To do: Ron, Joanne and Linda will contact the successful applicants to confirm their appointments. They will also determine each person’s availability for training between May 20th and June 20th. Linda and Gail will draft a Training Team terms of reference document for review and revision by TSR. Ron will call an initial meeting of the Team and TSR when the terms of reference are ready and training dates known.
External Cognos training companies
Ron distributed quotes received from three companies experienced in Cognos training, with a comparative summary of the three quotes. Advanced Computing was eliminated based on cost and the presence of other experienced trainers in Canada. Of the other two, preference tended toward ThoughtCorp on the basis of company size, training experience, focus on training customization and data gathering, and the greater training time allocated to the desktop client. A final decision will be made on Monday.
Several questions arose that require confirmation before committing to a vendor:
The group agreed that the training location would be Guelph. Backup location will be UW. TSR members noted the value of focusing on one or two cubes for training purposes.
To do: Ron will refer the questions noted above to the vendors. Linda and Joanne will review the vendors’ quotes and comment to Ron on Monday. Bill will follow up at Guelph regarding training lab availability and installation of the Cognos 7.1 software for training.
Update meeting with TOMG
Ron and Bill met with the TRELLIS Operational management Group (TOMG) on April 15th. Ron provided an overview of work to date and plans for next steps and Bill presented more technical issues such as server administration, security set-up and the proposed cube-building schedule. Charles and Martin will investigate system load and scheduling issues related to cube builds and respond to TSR’s proposal. TOMG recommended that TSR add documentation describing server hardware and software support responsibilities on its web site and that TSR address policy issues related to the scheduling of reports-related jobs.
To do: Linda and Gail will prepare an initial draft of a server support document.
Timeline review
Review deferred to a future meeting.
Other business
Cognos Tech Forum 2003
Gail’s attendance at the Cognos Tech Forum in Orlando was approved. Accommodation at the conference hotel and a stay including the Saturday night were also approved.
To do: Linda will inform Gail that she should register for the conference and make her travel arrangements.
The next meeting will be the kick-off meeting with the Training Team.