1. Debbie Karcher CIO, Miami-Dade County Public Schools
CIO Leadership Forum
Debbie Karcher
CIO, Miami-Dade County Public Schools

2. Outline for Customer Presentation
Background on Miami Dade County School Board
District Challenges
Overview of Solution & Performance Management Vision
Deployment
Product Snapshots
Results and Benefits
Key Learnings
Experience with Cognos
Next Steps
4/26/2019

3. Background Fourth-largest U.S. school district
376 public schools; 85 Charter schools
Serving 2,400 square miles
345,000 students
53,000 employees
More than 180 Home Languages
Mobility rate of 40%
$6.1 billion budget
4/26/2019

4. District Challenges
Requirement to facilitate data driven decision making aligned to District goals
Tremendous pressure on the District because of data requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
District-wide performance management based upon key performance indicators
Necessity to tie strategic initiatives to outcomes for both budget and performance management
4/26/2019

5. Many disparate systems and legacy mainframe systems not integrated
District Challenges
District move to zero-based budgeting paradigm
Many disparate systems and legacy mainframe systems not integrated
Need for agile response to rapidly changing District information needs
Diminishing budget and staff resources
4/26/2019

6. Overview of Solution & Performance Management Vision
Implement a three pronged approach for agile information delivery utilizing data warehouse, portal and business intelligence (BI) technologies
Increase Student achievement
Improve operations
Extend the life and enhance functionality of legacy systems
Provide data to all of our users
4/26/2019

7. Overview of Solution & Performance Management Vision
Obtain an enterprise planning system that accommodates the zero-based budget model and interfaces to the District Strategic Planning System
Expansion of historical data in the student performance data warehouse that will facilitate targeted instruction, prescriptive teaching and predictive analysis capability on an individual student basis
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8. Overview of Solution & Performance Management Vision
Extend the use of business intelligence tools that permits educators and administration to monitor key performance indicators, create individual queries, perform ad-hoc reporting and perform real-time analysis, all in an easy to use, graphical web interface
4/26/2019

9. Deployment August 2005 Deployment begins
Deployed Cognos 7 Business Intelligence in January 2006
Initially to 150 “Power Users” in departments such as School Operations, Curriculum and Instruction, Budgeting, Personnel, Performance Improvement, Data Analysis, Transportation, Capital Construction and Maintenance
Enterprise license now in place with over 50,000 authorized users to Cognos BI
Currently running 8.2, in process of upgrading to 8.3
4/26/2019

10. Deployment
June 2006
Cognos Connection was integrated to the District Portal Lite including single sign-on capability
September 2006
Target for improvement (COMSTAT ) reports were developed
February 2007
Implemented Cognos Budget Planning System integrated to the District Strategic Planning system
August 2007
Cognos Metrics Studio was integrated into the District SharePoint Portal (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007)
4/26/2019

11. Deployment December 2007 January 2008 April 2008
Cognos Enterprise Training package including combination of computer based training, curriculum development with District trainers and coupons for Cognos training
January 2008
HR and Position Control Data Mart deployed
April 2008
School Based Budget added to Cognos Budget Planning System and all school site users (800+) trained
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12. Data Flow Diagram 4/26/2019 AIDS Mainframe - Student, Class & Academic
Nightly Active Directory Update via MIIS and EXAAM for Employee and Student Account Management (400,000+)
Mainframe
- Student, Class & Academic
- Testing
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Payroll
- Supply & Distribution
- Work Order
- Food Services
- Textbook
ETL
- Informatica Pkgs
- Mainframe Extracts
- Transformation Processes
- FTP
- DTS Pkgs
- Cleansing Processes
Gradebook
Nightly update to gradebook student, teacher, course, etc. information
Reporting Services
Nightly Refresh, Delta Only
Cognos (Main)
Primary Cognos production and development environments
Server & External
- Edusoft Assessment
- Magellan Facilities
- Site Deficiences
- Student.Net Apps
- Business.Net Apps
- Transportation
- Budget
Data Warehouse
- Staging Tables
- Operational Data Stores (ODS)
- Data Marts (Fact & Dimension)
- Cubes ( Aggregation /Summary)
Cognos (Portal)
Cognos instance for Portal running V3 Single Sign-on (SSO), web parts and intelligent linking.
SharePoint Portal
Content driven from data warehouses. Transaction updates to application tables and mainframe systems.
Transaction Process
4/26/2019
Data Transport Only

13. Cognos Budget Planning
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14. Cognos Budget Planning
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15. Cognos Budget Planning
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16. Cognos Budget Planning
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17. Cognos Budget Planning
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18. Main Metrics Studio List
Cognos Metric Studio
Main Metrics Studio List
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19. Drill in to a Specific Metric Main Metrics Studio List
Cognos Metric Studio
Drill in to a Specific Metric
Main Metrics Studio List
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20. Cognos Metric Studio Drill from Report into Student List
Drill in to a Specific Metric
Main Metrics Studio List
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21. Cognos Metric Studio Drill from Report into Student List
Drill to Student Profile: 3 years of Grades, Attendance, FCAT, Content, ESE …
Drill in to a Specific Metric
Main Metrics Studio List
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22. COMSTAT
COMSTAT Report permits the Superintendent and Region staff to measure school performance on 24 parameters in both a discrete and cumulative fashion
4/26/2019

23. Experience with Budget Planning Implementation
Important because not only was the product right for M-DCPS but it was implemented in record time
Implementation was turn-key
Project management
Requirements gathering
Implementation
Testing
Training
Knowledge transfer
4/26/2019

24. Experience with Budget Planning Implementation
Benefits
Pre-populated information reducing time and increasing data integrity
Provide users the ability to change budgets and create “what ifs”
Provide management rapid feedback and answers
Will continue to be the Budget Planning tool through and after SAP financial implementation
4/26/2019

25. Key Learnings The Watershed
Once staff who never had access to information become empowered, the requests for new reports, models, cubes, etc. escalate rapidly. Ensure you have sufficient data warehouse and Cognos resources to manage
Official vs. User Created Reports
Once data models are provided to users for query and reports building, they may produce reports with different results than the “Official” reports. Establish clear business rules and embed, to the greatest extent possible, these rules in the data layer. Also, sign “Official” reports to differentiate them from those created by end users
Leverage Cognos CBI Training
It can be impossible to train all users hands-on. Cognos CBI courses make an excellent alternative
4/26/2019

26. Experience with Cognos
Extended a number of opportunities to M-DCPS making it financially possible to extend our licenses to the enterprise
Rapid implementation of both Budget Planning and School Based Budget
Have also been a willing partner
Have assisted us in our strategic planning
Understand budget constraints
4/26/2019

27. Results and Benefits
Improved student achievement through targeted instruction
Improved student performance through better school staffing
Reduced district costs through improved operational efficiency and reduced district costs through improved budgeting
Increased credibility in overall systems and products
4/26/2019

28. Results and Benefits
Information delivered to all employees including principals, teachers, and administrative employees
Made Information Technology Services a flexible and agile organization able to quickly respond to information requests
4/26/2019

29. Next Steps
Continue to expand the use of Cognos and provide professional development for more power users
Extend the use of Key Performance Indicators to all employees and display with Metrics Manager
Use Cognos to help trigger action based on student performance and apply and track intervention activities
4/26/2019