Business Intelligence Competency Center Information Technology
Student Data
Business Data

Data Landscape

Purdue data gets moved, denormalized, and restructured into target reporting databases for the benefit of the community. Here are some of the primary systems, which are the sources of the reporting databases:

  • Banner – Student, Financial Aid, Student Accounts Receivable
  • Unitime – Space and Academic Scheduling
  • Slate – Prospect data for student recruitment
  • SAP – HR and Finance Data
  • Advance – University Development Data
  • COEUS – Sponsored program data
  • Boiler Insight– Purdue built stars referred to as PDW for HR, Finance, Instructional Activity Cognos Usage, etc
  • Concur - Travel
  • Ariba - Procurement
  • Data Cookbook - Is the authoritative metadata source for official Purdue data fields, report and dashboard definitions. Anyone with a Purdue Career Account may set up an account.
Cognos Landscape
Tableau Landscape

Enterprise Data Sources

  • ODS (Operational Data Store) – Ellucian delivered solution making the data from Banner available for reporting via Cognos. Primarily used for daily operational reporting after being refreshed overnight. It also contains frozen data captured as copies of a subset of this data on key event dates such as CENSUS, and TERM_END.
  • EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse) – Ellucian delivered solution using source data from the ODS remodeled as Fact/Dimension models and snapshots captured by dates for comparison over time. Course Enrollment, Course Registration, Student Accounts Receivables, Admissions/Recruitment.
  • Purdue Datamarts – Purdue built Fact/Dimension models pulling from SAP HR/Finance data as well as from ODS student data.
  • COEUS – Cognos access to COEUS system replacing Brio access. Not modeled or combined with any other data
  • UD ODS – University Development home built ODS, accessible via Cognos

Live, Frozen, Snapshots

  • Live Data - Live data can in few cases mean just that “live” data directly out of the source operating system. However, from the reporting perspective, it most commonly refers to the “copy” of the live data refreshed overnight of the source data from yesterday. It doesn’t change until the next scheduled refresh, normally nightly. Can be completely rebuilt from the source periodically as warranted
  • Frozen Data – Copy of the “live” target reporting data in its normal data structures at a point in time and does not change. Intended for official reporting so you can always get back to official numbers
  • Snapshot Data – Captured on a regular schedule (EDW, Purdue Datamarts) on a schedule to provide longitudinal comparisons over time.
  • Tableau Data – Each dashboard should describe the source and currency of the data

See the following for significant processing and data capture dates:

  • Student ODS Freeze Calendar - Definitions can be found in Data Cookbook by browsing definitions and searching on keywords such as: 'calendar', 'freeze', 'census', 'ODS'.
  • EDW Calendar Events – Available through any of the Cognos Student EDW Packages
DSS