These days, when Synch-Solutions professionals are talking about PeopleSoft implementations and upgrades for Higher Education, they use the phrase Campus Accelerator. Why differentiate? Why not just say ERP implementation or upgrade?

Synch-Solutions’ Campus Accelerator delivers rapid implementations of Oracle PeopleSoft ERP using our proven experience, methodology and toolset developed specifically for Higher Education institutions. We applied the Campus Accelerator model at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, enabling full implementation of each of three enterprise suites – Campus Solutions, Human Capital Management (HCM) and Financials – within 12 months. Compare that to a traditional implementation, which can take 2 years or more.

Although in UAM’s case, implementation of the three suites was staggered to adjust for the already busy schedules of the institution’s internal IT resources, the success of the project moved the solution from theoretical model to proven reality. Synch-Solutions is excited to have Oracle recognize this offering as a first-to-market solution and to partner with us to promote it.

Campus Accelerator is offered at competitive fixed-fee pricing, and the compressed timeline reduces implementation costs and shortens time-to-value for client institutions. It thus gives small and midsize institutions an affordable means to gain a world-class Oracle PeopleSoft ERP system that can enable a competitive operating advantage in the marketplace.

Synch-Solutions has also applied aggressive timelines to upgrades for PeopleSoft and Oracle E-Business ERP systems. And we can deliver “a la carte” rapid implementations and upgrades of individual suites. All of these services are designed to deliver faster ROI than traditional solutions.

Is it any wonder Synch-Solutions is excited about this offering?

We closed our last blog entry with a table displaying a high-level matrix of KPIs, measures and dimensions for higher education institutions. A digital dashboard can portray the same tabular-format data in a more presentable way by displaying enrollment trends in colorful and meaningful graphs, alerts and notifications. Based on the analytical data presented, you will be able to understand your institution’s progress toward student enrollment goals. If your enrollment count does not meet the targeted goal for a particular term or academic year, the dashboard will trigger an alert indicating your current trend. This detailed and real-time analytical data will enable you to make more informed decisions for improving your enrollment trend in future terms.

Now let us look at a real-life scenario demonstrating this process. Let us say that in looking at your enrollment trend data displayed in the dashboard, you find that the Total Students count for African-American students has decreased for three consecutive terms. This is clearly an indication that you need to take certain actions to increase the African-American student enrollment in future terms. Having identified a problem, you can now take the precise action to fix it. In this case, your action might be to increase Financial Aid to African-American students in need, thus attracting more African-American candidates. This is what we call making an informed decision and taking effective action!

These are some key pointers that you need to take into consideration when defining KPIs, measures and dimensions:

1. Ensure that your KPIs are directly tied to your vision and mission statements
2. Ensure that you have set target goals
3. Ensure that the identified KPIs and measures are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound
4. Ensure that you have clearly defined each KPI and the benefits each can bring in managing institutional or campus performance
5. Ensure that the outlined KPIs, measures and dimensions are correctly mapped to business requirements

Over the last four blog entries, we have covered a strategic plan for defining KPIs, measures and dimensions for institutions of higher education. We have explored how to outline the KPIs tied to the institution’s vision and mission statements, how to measure the indicators and, finally, how to view the data elements related to measures. We hope these last few blog entries have provided you with the knowledge to begin designing your performance digital dashboard by identifying KPIs, measures and dimensions.

In our last blog entry, we worked through the identification of a pair of KPIs (Student Enrollment and Student Retention) and a set of measures related to Student Enrollment. The next step is identifying the dimensions. As we mentioned earlier, a dimension provides a means to view data elements that categorize the measures. In Data Warehousing design, dimensions contribute to a multidimensional view. The more dimensions, the greater the degree of data complexity. A multidimensional view enables you to slice and dice the data in many dimensions.

To help you define the dimensions associated with the measures identified above, you need to ask more questions! How do you want to view the enrollment trend? By Gender? Ethnicity? Academic Program? Term? Academic Year?

Here are some sample Dimensions you may use to view your data:

1. Gender – enables you to view enrollment by Female or Male head count
2. Ethnicity – enables you to view enrollment by ethnic group (African-American, Asian, Hispanic, etc.)
3. Academic Program – enables you to view enrollment by programs in which students are enrolled
4. Term – enables you to view enrollment by summer, fall and spring terms

Through our exercises, you have definitely laid the groundwork for identifying KPIs, measures and dimensions associated with your institution’s strategic goals.

The table below shows the high-level matrix of KPIs, measures and dimensions:

In our next blog entry, we will explain the use of digital dashboards to display the data represented in the tabular graphic above.

In our last blog entry, we laid out the basics for understanding the terms KPI, measure and dimension in the context of Business Intelligence for higher education institutions. In this entry, we’ll cover the means for defining Key Performance Indicators and measures that will drive your institution toward its strategic goals.

Let’s assume that your institution’s officers clearly understand all of the relevant external and internal environmental factors that impact the strategic goals, vision and mission directly. How must you then proceed to identify the indicators for measuring your institution’s position relative to its stated goals and objectives? What decisions must be made? What actions must be taken?

At this point, you may be overwhelmed with many unanswered questions. However, finding the right answers to these questions will guide you in defining the relevant KPIs, measures and dimensions accurately.

The very first step in identifying KPIs, measures and dimensions is meeting with the business users to understand their requirements for measuring institutional or campus performance. We’d suggest beginning with one functional area and then moving on to another. For example, Student Enrollment and Retention are two equally important indicators in the Student Administration functional area that all institutions want to measure. You can begin your requirements gathering in this area first. The business requirements will help you to identify the exact data elements needed for tracking performance in the Student Administration area. So in this case, your first KPI can be defined as Student Enrollment, and your second as Student Retention. Very good! You have successfully defined your first two KPIs!

Now, how will you track your student enrollment and retention? By head count? By percentage? By FTE? I apologize for throwing more questions your way, but, again, answering these questions will give you a clear picture of how to measure the critical indicators you defined earlier. Many colleges prefer to gauge enrollment trends based on these measures given below:

• Total Students – a head count of all students enrolled at the college.
• Developmental Students – a head count of developmental students only. Developmental students are those who have enrolled in developmental academic programs based on the Program Classification System (PCS) Code as defined by Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
• Full Time Equivalent (FTE) – computed based on students’ course credits.
• Student Status – examples would be new students (new to college without prior enrollment in any other colleges) and returning students (students who had dropped out earlier but have returned to the same campus).

These are just some sample measures that could help you to plan your work in identifying the measures related to the indicators defined earlier. Again, remember that these measures help you to track your progress and performance trends toward the predefined goals and objectives in your vision statement, while also meeting the business users’ requirements.

In our next blog entry, we will discuss how to define dimensions.

“Plan your work, and work your plan.” We strongly agree with this expression, and believe that this motto applies well to strategic planning. If you fail to follow this guideline, you may fall victim to another favorite saying, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

In a series of four blog entries, We’ll be discussing the best-known methods and best practices in identifying and defining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), measures and dimensions used when building a digital dashboard that aligns with a higher education institution’s strategic goals and performance measurement plans.

In working with various institutions of higher education to implement Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence projects, Synch-Solutions’ professionals have gained a first-hand understanding of their organizational strategies, goals, visions, missions, plans and objectives. In order to stay competitive in this ever-changing and challenging socio-economy, many colleges are embracing new technologies to manage performance and enable informed decision-making. Business Intelligence applications such as dashboards are becoming popular performance management tools among institutions of higher education.

Before diving into the details, let us briefly explain the three key terms we will be using frequently in this discussion.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), also known as Key Success Indicators or Metrics, help an organization define and evaluate how it is progressing toward its long-term organizational goals

• Measures refer to direct numerical variables that represent pieces of business data in relationship with one or more dimensions associated with a KPI

• Dimensions provide the means to view data elements that categorize measures

The aforementioned keywords are the foundations in developing a digital dashboard.

The biggest challenges are where to begin and how to plan.

We will begin to address these two issues in our next blog entry.