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TUG Statistics and Reports Group Meeting

Minutes

  December 11, 2006 - 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Wilfrid Laurier University Library, Board Room

Present: Vera Fesnak (Recorder), Bill Halahan, Gail Sperling, Linda Teather (Chair), Ron Ward

  1. Agenda Review

The Agenda was approved.

  1. Minutes of October 10, 2006
    1. Approval
    The minutes of October 10, 2006 were approved as revised.
    1. Business Arising
      • Implementation of report request form and database: Changes to the form are complete. Step 5 is new; url's were removed. Names of staff who no longer have privileges have been deleted. List of authorized staff for reports is also being verified. Linda Teather will draft a message to TUG staff to inform them of the changes to the report request form.
      • ERM usage data for Guelph and Laurier: Guelph 's data is being added once a week; WLU's is being stored but not yet being represented in TUG ERM usage database.
      • Testing procedures for new releases: Gail drafted guidelines and sent them to the tugTSR and tugCogTrain lists. At UG, a duplicate set of overnight reports were converted to new release and run side by side with old versions of reports for comparisons. Gail has experimented with Powerplay on the client and commented that when the cube was opened, it opened up from the production server and not the test server. It is important for report users to test for bugs or nuances because the TUG Cognos administrators may not enounter the same type of problems since they have expanded privileges that normal users do not. A message will be sent out to each local TUG reports group asking them to do more testing, and if they cannot meet the deadline of December 18th, to let a TSR member know.
      • Cognos server: TUG has a Production server and a development server. One takes over from the other in case of downtime, with some limitations. The servers are on different software levels, the production server is not clustered. There is redundancy, but that is good, in case of failure of one server.
      • Training Team update: Vera pointed out that she will be stepping down as Chair and Secretary since she is also secretary of the TUG Stats and Reports Team. After discussions, it was agreed that the TUG Cognos Training Team will have a rotating chair and secretary for each meeting. The next Chair will be Linda Cracknell. Susan Arruda will take minutes. The future directive of TUG Training Team and their immediate needs were discussed. Goals for the coming year were outlined: Each member of the training team will examine all the training documentation created thus far for a March deadline. Each member will note areas for clarification and or understanding into a wiki. The team will r eassemble in March and then go over each member's queries. If an expert is needed above the TUG training team's expertise, then the appropriate person will be asked to join the team in March. Enough notice will be given to assemble experts. Areas identified so far: Drill through, Hot files, Administrative files, Archived cubes, Excel files. Because of future retirements of members on the Team and because membership should rotate, it was decided at Laurier, to introduce Catherine Fitzgerald to the Team. Each TSR member will pursue the appropriate route to address his/her institution’s current or upcoming Training Team vacancies. In terms of what has been going on at each institution, WLU & UW have been training new staff and addressing their needs.
      • Endeavor Analyzer: Linda informed TOMG of our interest in an Analyzer demo if an Endeavor site visit was being planned. Since then, the merger of Endeavor and Ex Libris has placed a site visit on hold. More insight in Endeavour Analyzer will be sought at EndUser in April.
      • Cognos 8: At some point at both UG and UW campuses, a review will be conducted. At WLU, a review of reporting needs has been scheduled in the new year

    2.  

  2. Test server preliminary test results

No feedback was received up to this point. An email will be sent out to TUG Cognos staff reminding them to send feedback.

  1. Review of Cognos user accounts

WLU and UG user accounts have been reviewed and updated. Linda will review UW’s accounts. In the longer term, each TUG site will have a staff member designated to update Cognos user accounts on a regular basis.

  1. Preparation for mid-term review with TUG Executive

In late January or early February, the TUG Executive will expect activity and expenditure-to-date reports, as well as a proposed budget for 2007/08 from the TUG Statistics and Reports Group. The activity report will be compiled from the minutes of the group. The report may include: Cognos development and campus directions, migration to Cognos 8, red flags for Cognos 8. Budget requirements for 2007/08 were discussed. It was suggested that an amortization model for server replacement be introduced beginning in 2008/09. Linda will prepare draft reports for TSR to review and finalize electronically.

  1. Creation of "Library" table for Cognos reports

A link from location tables to library table exists and is populated. It should be automated by early January 07.

  1. Cognos User Group meeting, Nov. 7/06

Gail gave a brief overview of the meeting she attended.

  1. Next meeting (location UW)

Linda will call the next meeting in late February or March.