TUG Stats and Reports Group
Meeting
University of Waterloo, Dana Porter Library RM 407
March 10, 2010
1:30-4:00 p.m.

1. Approval of the Minutes of October 14, 2009.
   -approved with minor changes.
   
   
2. Approval  of the Agenda
   -agenda was approved with addition of:  10) g. Daylight savings time
   
   
3. Business Arising
   -items under  Business Arising are covered as separate agenda items
   
   
4. TUG Exec Meeting Report (Ron)
   -the TUG Executive Committee was pleased with the Proposed budget report presented by Ron.  Ron addressed the need for a replacement server in the upcoming year as well as increasing the budget line for training.
   
   
5. Production server replacement plan and process
   
   Requirements  development
   Which of the two servers presented best meet our needs?
   Gail and Bill both confirmed that either server would be powerful enough to suit our requirements. David Dornan will be contacted to determine which server would best fit for development move to Cognos 8.
   
   Determine system requirements for Cognos 8 (Ron)
   
   
6. SFX development (Gail and All)
   
   
   1. Project details and proposed outcome
      Gail has started development of a PowerPlay cube for UW e-resources using Waterloo SFX data as Verde data has proven difficult to use in Cognos reporting.  Amaz Taufique indicated that access to the database can be disallowed at any time if it is discovered that this access is being abused or impacts negatively on the server. Gail is now using the test server instead of the production server because some queries did cause problems for SFX users. Gail will be working with Jonathan Sutherland to determine if PowerPlay cube counts can be used when reporting to ARL/CARL surveys. Usage statistics using ExLibris USTAT are being evaluated following the Webinar training provided by ExLibris.
      
      
   2. Presentation to TUG IR
      A presentation of SFX development will be planned at a later date when development ideas or input from TUG IR will be sought.
      
      
7. Primo & ARES reporting  (Gail & Bill)
   
   The Primo database is difficult to maneuver.  Cognos does not work well with two separate databases. Gail built a PowerPlay cube on usage of Primo. Primo tables are difficult to link to Trellis tables for creating reports even though Primo is Oracle based. Unfortunately, the new iteration of Primo’s data structure is not changing.
   
   
8. Training (ideas / discussion – all)
   
   Ron stressed that the field is quickly changing and in order to keep abreast of developments, as well as maintaining confidence and competence of both Gail and Bill, they should take advantage of opportunities to attend any training, user group days of workshops in this field.
   
   
   1. Cognos Performance Day 2009. (B&G) feedback
      
      
   2. Gail attended interesting workshops (e.g., Cognos presentation into other web applications)
      Free days that Cognos offers are enough to keep Bill and Gail abreast of Cognos developments
      User group days- Bill and Gail will attend these as required.
      
      
   3. SFX – Nancy Peltier to send Ron Ward the receipts for the two SFX sessions that Laurier already paid for.  Ron will find out who has the SFX admin account so that Gail could look more closely at future software development opportunities. This could potentially result in presenting reports outside Cognos
      
      
   4. ExLIbris web application does have licensing issues that need to be explored.
      
      
9. Review roles and duties for TUG S&R (Ron for discussion)
   
   This group is comfortable maintaining the roles that they presently have. The terms of reference will be changed to reflect this direction. A review of roles and responsibilities will be done annually.
   
   
10. Updates
    
    
    1. UG data mart update (Ron)
       Work on this has been deferred until the summer months.
       
       
    2. LibQuest-Reference desk data collection (Gail)
       The launch of the web interface for reference desk data collection (LibQuest) at UW is planned for the near future. PowerPlay cube and Impromptu reports have been developed using the PostGreSQL database.
       
       
    3. Cognos 8 status at WLU and UW (Vera, Gail/Richard)
       UW has no immediate plans to open the debate. WLU does have a single license however at this time has not committed itself to distributing the software to its community.
       
       
    4. Cognos 7 software update (Gail/Bill)
       Bill will continue to have a support license for Cognos; Gail will ask Allan Bell to do the same for her so that she can get permission for software updates.
       
       
    5. Oracle 10 client install problems (Gail)
       Further to updating Cognos series, bugs have been reported in the Oracle 10 client. Oracle 11 fixes many of the issues report. Gail will load the Oracle 11 client on a workstation. We will skip Oracle 10 if Gail and Bill are satisfied with its performance.
       
       
    6. Training Team
       No news to report
       
       
    7. Daylight Savings Time
       Because of previous problems experienced on the Cognos production server during DST changes Impromptu reports will be disabled on the production server overnight when the DST change occurs.
       
       
11. Next meeting
    
    In the fall term at UG

Action Items

1. Ron will contact David Dornan for his expertise opinion concerning the two servers.
2. Gail will continue with her contacts at SFX responsible for helping to resolve the problems Gail has encountered with SFX and the test server.
3. Gail will escalate the issue of not being able to obtain permission for retrieving software updates for Cognos 7 with Allan Bell.