Implementing Workday Student as Iowa State's system of record not only transformed business processes for things like class registration and course offerings, it also altered how student data is categorized, stored and processed.
Since the enrollment management team released the official enrollment numbers in mid-September, Enrollment Research and Analytics (ERA), Institutional Research (IR) and IT Services (ITS) have been working to validate the data and create reports that present the full enrollment picture. The first of these detailed reports was published last week on the registrar's website, under "resources" in the "enrollment statistics" section.
Currently available data include enrollment numbers by headcount and FTE, by major or department, and by a variety of demographic variables. Institutional research also publishes enrollment reports as part of the university's online Fact Book.
Job one: Data accuracy
The fall 2024 reporting cycle has presented both challenges and opportunities in the transition from legacy systems to Workday. Greg Forbes, manager of data analytics in the ERA unit, said there are many differences between the two systems in how data is stored, which has required additional time and attention to produce various enrollment reports and make them available to the campus community.
"Data accuracy is of the utmost importance to ensure leaders have the information they need to make decisions for the university, or for their individual units," Forbes said. "Our teams have taken the time to redevelop every report in the new system, as we strive to provide reports that meet the changing data needs of campus."
Accessing the Data Mart
Previously, enrollment data in ADIN were captured and stored in a data warehouse and accessed through e-Data. During the transition to Workday Student, ERA, IR and ITS staff have been working with an external consultant, Phytorion, to replace e-Data with a new "Data Mart" that leverages Workday's enhanced capabilities.
"Our interdepartmental team has spent the past two years developing a reliable and valid database for official student reporting, integrating legacy data with Workday data and ensuring we can deliver accurate and reliable information," said Amanda DeGraff, IR associate director and Data Mart project director.
Like e-Data, Data Mart is snapshot data, which is particularly useful for numbers that don't change, for example in historical comparisons and trend analysis.
The fall 2024 enrollment reports on the registrar's site are the first of many reports that will be provided from the new Data Mart. The project team is engaged in a multi-year process to merge information from e-Data to the new Data Mart and provide reports on student retention, graduation rates and other student success measures.
"We appreciate everyone's patience as our teams work to provide the campus community with accurate and reliable data," explained IR executive director Karen Zunkel. "The plan for this year is that as data is validated, we will provide data and reports similar to what the campus community and public have been able to access in previous years. Report and dashboard development will continue to evolve in future years to meet campus data needs."
In addition to transitioning data from ADIN to Workday, the reporting teams concurrently are implementing Microsoft Power BI, a modern reporting and analytics tool for visually presenting Data Mart data. Kevin DeRoos, senior manager in ITS, said Power BI allows users to create dashboards that provide deeper insights into the data and better inform decision-making. Reporting teams will leverage this new tool to provide enrollment reports to campus. Later this academic year, enrollment management also will use the Power BI tool to replace theTableau dashboards shared with campus leaders.
Help still available
If a department or unit has a critical data need prior to that data being published (accreditation reporting requirements, for example), staff can send an email to studentdatarequest@iastate.edu.
