University of Wales Swansea Voyager Web Reporting Andrew Brown University of Wales Swansea

Aims and Objectives Aim –To encourage Voyager users to setup and run web-based reporting in their organisation Objectives –Know the benefits of web-based reporting –Know what is required to setup web reporting –Know the process involved in setting up web reporting

University of Wales Swansea Session Outline Why use web-based reporting? Putting it together Demo

University of Wales Swansea Benefits of web-based reporting?

University of Wales Swansea Benefits of web based reporting? Improves access to report writers/creators –Potential to split SQL work/report formatting Improves access for report customers/users –Can run their own reports –Standard format of reports Increasing cost effectiveness of reporting –Separation of production roles and training needs –Quicker creation of new reports –Low maintenance

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – preface University of Wales Swansea –15000 students / 3000 staff –South Wales Library and Information Services –Manage library, IT and telephony across the university (1997 merger) –100 staff & six libraries –£4m (€5.7m) annual budget Information Systems –1.5 staff manage Voyager, LinkFinderPlus and digital resources –450,000 bib records –Voyager budget £40K(€57K) Voyager maintenance Authority and bibliographic records purchase Projects (e.g. reporting) Essential trips to places like Helsinki…

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – history Voyager implementation (Sept 1999) Experimental web work and simple Access reports (Late 1999) Access reporting course (Early 2000) –Improved Access reporting Reporting review (May 2001) –Two staff with SQL and MS Access experience and Oracle drivers installed –Results of experimental web reporting –Small collection of MS Access reports

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – problems Plenty of other things to do ;-) All MS Access queries required individual packaging into user friendly reports Experimental web reports – worked but not easily replicated by others Other interested staff but required training and support

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – possibilities Features –Easier to author reports –Easier to run reports –Cost effective –Minimise post report processing Resources –No extra staff –Small budget (≈£1K) Solutions (Aug 2001) –Commercial package E.g. Business Objects –Perl –Active Server Pages –ColdFusion 5.0

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – proposal

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – procedure Server hardware –Test server PII 450MHz 512MB RAM Cost – free! Server software –Windows 2000 Professional (patched!!) –IIS 5.0 (patched!!) –Norton Anti-virus (managed) –Oracle ODBC drivers –ColdFusion 5.0 (patched)

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – procedure Report writer/creator client hardware –PIII 850Mhz –256MB RAM –No additional cost! Report writer/creator client software –Windows 2000 –Dreamweaver UltraDev 4.0 –MS Access 2000 –Oracle ODBC drivers

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – procedure Report customer/user client hardware –Anything… …in theory! Report customer/user client software –Operating system –Web browser

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – post test Testing results Upgrades Staff training Offline reporting Report conversion

University of Wales Swansea Putting it together – procedure Writing a report

University of Wales Swansea

Wrapping up + demo

University of Wales Swansea Any questions?

University of Wales Swansea Any answers?