Data Warehousing:You’ve Captured and

Cleansed It, Now Exploit It!

A Case Study Using Payroll and Budget Systems

Ryan Cherland and Brenda Tucker

University Management Information

University of Kansas

2

Polling Question:

How many attendees currently have data warehouses that contain Payroll

and Budget data?

•Have this in a data warehouse

•Do not have this in a data warehouse

•Do not have a data warehouse

3

Key Objectives:

• Discuss how KU has developed a data-warehouse that brings together payroll, budget, and financial data and the methods that the data is exploited

• What this has meant to users on our campus

4

About the University of Kansas

• History - The University of Kansas opened its doors in 1865.

• Academics - The university offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate majors and programs including allied health, architecture, business, education, engineering, fine arts, journalism, law, liberal arts and sciences, nursing, pharmacy, and social welfare.

• Lawrence Campus Enrollment – 20,692 undergraduates and 6,122 graduate students from every state in the nation and more than 100 countries around the world.

5

About the University of Kansas

Staffing*• Faculty, Librarians, Faculty Administrators 1,426• Unclassified Nonfaculty 1,756• Classified 1,480• Student Employees 4,032

* As of Fall 2003

6

Polling Question:

What business sectors are the attendees from?

•Educational institution

•Commercial sector

•Private sector

•Public sector

7

KU’s Data Warehouse

Data from: – Human Resources– Financials– Budget– Student– Research

Are extracted into a data warehouse as often as business needs require

8

KU’s Data Warehouse

• Data in the warehouse is exploited using:– Web query front-end (DEMIS)– BI analytic software for power users

9

DEMIS

Departmental Executive Management Information System

• Campus Intranet system for the University of Kansas

• Developed gradually over-time from a few static web pages to a campus management ‘portal’

10

What is DEMIS?

DEMIS is a decision support system, which can be defined in many ways. One definition that fits DEMIS well is:

“A decision support system is an interactive system that provides the user with easy access to decision models and data in order to support semi-structured and unstructured decision-making tasks.”

(Watson, Houdeshel, & Rainer, 1997, p.265)

11

What is DEMIS?

Key parts for a decision support system are:

• Ease of use• Contains models or analytical aids used

to analyze the data• Data are maintained to be used in the

analysis

12

DEMIS User Menu

DEMIS is password protected• User authenticates• Userid is used to create a custom series

of available links that their campus security profile allows

• 5 broad areas of information from DEMIS: General, Academic, Student Administration, HR/Pay, and Financial

13

DEMIS Main Menu

14

DEMIS Query Architecture

CGI

Functional Subject Area

Data mart

A DEMIS Query web form

Filters + Rpt Breaks

SAS report program

User receives output in HTML,

RTF, PDF, or Excel-ready

format

15

Solving a Business problem by exploiting related systems

• With daily extracts of KU’s transactional systems, initial queries just reported on different views in those systems

• Then a business need arose….

16

Development of an Integrated Budget System

Expectations• A flexible, powerful reporting system

• Convenient for campus departments

• Accessible for the university community

17

Current Budget System

Customized system, housed within KU’s Financial system

• Dollars and FTE, if applicable, managed at three levels– Positions– Pools– Other Operating Expenditures (OOE)

18

Limitations of Current System

• View access is limited

• Update access even more limited

• No departmental reporting

19

Budget Data Limitations

• OOE expenditures not posted to the budget system

• Transactional data held in the source database

• No expenditure history• No position history• No detail on employees included in

pools

20

The Problems:

• The budget data by itself provided a very “flat” view of the University’s financial activities

• Restricts auditing abilities

• Hinders reconciliation with other DEMIS tools

21

Can the web reporting product be made more

robust?

22

Sources of related data in the Budget: Human Resources

"Working Budget"

Data held atPosition or Pool ID

On& Off cycle YTDpostings

Budget updatedwith Transfer and

On & Off cycleactivity

BudgetHR Side

Decision:Enhance Budget Data

with enough HRTransactional data tofacilitate auditing and

reconciliation.

HR Data

Create link toaccess PositionHistory

Create link toaccess PoolPeople Detail

23

Sources of related data in the Budget: Financials

"WorkingBudget"

Beg ApprUpdated with

Transfers

BudgetOOE Side

Decision:Enhance Budget Datawith enough FinancialTransactional data tofacilitate auditing and

reconciliation.

Financials

Post OOEExpenditures toUBUD Datamartfrom KUFSDatamart

24

Sources of related data in the Budget: HR related Financials

YTD postingsonly include On

& Off cycleactivity

BudgetHR Side

Decision:Enhance Budget Datawith enough FinancialTransactional data tofacilitate auditing and

reconciliation.

Financials

Post payrolladjustments notincluded in Offcycle postings tofunding level

25

Data Choices

• How to structure data across fiscal years?

• What filters and report breaks do users need?

• How will users view entire transfer transactions?

26

Implementation Issues

• Report links enable drill downs to non-Budget datamarts – Pool type-staffing detail– YTD

• Separate datamarts for each fiscal year• Data warehouse dependencies• Create link to view complete transfer

transaction

27

The Initial System

• Two levels of web form: Power User and Departmental User

• Multiple report summary/break levels • Web forms created twice daily • Powerful datamart accessible to campus power

users• Datamart updated twice daily to capture

transfer transactions and expenditure data• Dynamically created links show detail behind

the summary numbers

28

Budget Web Report Filters

29

Web Form Report & Output Options

30

Sample Employee Report

31

Sample Employee Report Popup Window Transfer Detail

32

Initial System Overview

Integrated BudgetReporting Datamart

PayrollDatamart

FinancialsDatamart

BudgetDatamart

33

And with Success….

Comes more challenges

• Develop a salary forecast system

• Integrate it with the new budget system

34

New Implementation Issues

• Report links enable drill downs to non-Budget datamarts – YTD by Pay Period – Forecast by Pay Period

• Data warehouse dependencies

35

A Quick view of the Salary Forecast model…

University BudgetWeb Reporting

Datamart

Funding dataDept budget earnings

Salary ForecastGrab Future dated job and

earnings changes to generateforecast

Job dataPosition data

36

A Quick view of the Salary YTD model…

University BudgetWeb Reporting

Datamart

Payroll ReportingDatamart

Summarizationby Pool Key, by

Employee

SalaryExpendituresby Pool, byEmployee

By PPNo Yes

Summarizationby Pool Key, byEmployee, by

PP

SalaryExpendituresby Pool, byEmployee,

by PP

37

Sample Employee Report

38

Sample Employee Report - YTD

39

Sample Employee Report - Forecast

40

Budget Web Audit Report

41

Current System Overview

Integrated BudgetReporting Datamart

PayrollDatamart

FinancialsDatamart

BudgetDatamart

ForecastDatamart

42

Benefits of Integration to Users

• Flexible reporting

• Timely data

• Auditable– Balances Across Databases– Future Payroll Funding Problems

• Facilitated Decentralized Culture Shift

43

Future Directions

• Increasing the “drill-down to detail” functions in reports to other related systems– Reusable code– No data duplication– Increases validity of reports and data to the users

• Development of an integrated Executive Dashboard for high level administrators

44

Data Warehouse Benefits to Users

• Standardized approach to data fields and reporting

• Time saver – single place for reporting needs• Provides historical data• Consistency of information• Decreased reliance on department “shadow

systems”• Transactional systems are protected from

having to allocate resources for reporting

45

Conclusion

Campus users have stated that the Budget reporting system has proved to be a truly valuable management tool for financial planning and analysis. Projects that used to take several days now take minutes.

46

Conclusion

• How we did it:– Incremental approach

• Financial 1999; Payroll 2000; Budget 2001; Forecast 2002; Integrated Budget 2003

– Created systems which met the largest needs first

– As we learned more and the users learned more, we increased the number of specialized reports using the same data

47

QUESTIONS?

48

Contact Information

• Ryan Cherland, Director– University Management Information– Email: ryan-cherland@ku.edu

• Brenda Tucker, Senior Programmer Analyst– University Management Information– Email: brenda-tucker@ku.edu