About Decision Support > Mission
Mission Statement
Decision Support is a customer service organization, with focus on data warehousing, business intelligence and information management. Our mission is to:
Support customers in colleges and departments, in their management, planning and
strategic decision-making, by supplying information solutions and data services.
We will accomplish this mission through excellence in data warehousing and business intelligence practices, striving to be an industry leader among higher education institutions. Our specialty is information integration. Integration means:
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Integration of requirements |
Understanding diverse customer needs and driving all our activities in those terms |
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Integration of subject expertise |
Partnering with experts in central offices to understand data in many subject areas |
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Integration of data |
Understanding and gathering data from disparate technical systems |
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Integration of delivery |
Creating solutions that can be accessed by customers at different levels of skill |
Scope
In its early years (2001 – 2005), Decision Support was operated under a mandate to build the Data Warehouse, concurrent with the Banner implementation, as part of the UI-Integrate project. Today Decision Support is leveraging the University’s original investment in the Data Warehouse by ensuring that practical applications are available and accessible to a growing number of users.
Decision Support's major responsibilities include managing the University’s Data Warehouse, providing data access, helping staff create their own reports, providing data education and general information University data and reporting. Decision Support is also the unit that manages Business Objects and EDDIE, the server that delivers Standard Reports to users.
Decision Support does not have responsibilities in the following areas:
- Develop or modify Standard Reports – Standard Reports are developed by AITS and/or Functional Offices.
- Maintain data quality in transaction systems – Decision Support provides feedback to operational units on issues detected during warehouse loading. The operational unit is responsible for assessing and changing the source system.
- Answer questions about Banner or other transaction systems – Instead, Decision Support provides referrals to those with transaction system expertise.
- Provide access to copies of transaction systems – Creation of, and access to, raw transaction data is the responsibility of the owner of the system and/or AITS.
Vision
Decision Support will help create a University where decision makers at all levels, including front-line academic units, are empowered with the information they need to analyze and manage their business. We will focus on the productivity of faculty, staff and administrators in accomplishment of administrative tasks related to information.
Our approach will be to provide information solutions that are highly relevant to the demands and challenges of day-to-day operational and strategic tasks of University staff. We will use business intelligence techniques to promote sharing of information and solutions among faculty, staff and administrators, to reduce effort and increase effectiveness for departmental units. Decision Support will also provide excellent service to users in all units, including those who do not have data or technical professionals to provide expert help. We will help individuals move up the learning curve quickly by providing multiple entry points and pathways to data and information solutions. Finally, the environment we manage will be well documented and transparent. By approaching our tasks in this manner, we seek to increase trust that the Data Warehouse is an excellent alternative for information solutions for front-line colleges and departments.
Decision Support will also serve as a knowledge resource in the areas of data warehousing and business intelligence for the University. We will maintain our knowledge of trends and new techniques and adapt the best of these for the University of Illinois environment.
