Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Student Financial Dashboards Training and Roll-out as part of the Modernization of Financial Reporting Implementation Project

April 17, 2014

What is the Modernization of Financial Reporting Implementation Project?

The Project Mission is to modernize Harvard University's financial reporting platform by implementing Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI).  Report content that currently exists in the CREW reporting platform under the financials, grants management, student financials, and public tabs of CREW will eventually be made available in the OBI technology.  By replicating and migrating CREW functionality in the OBI platform, the finance community will immediately benefit from added features such as integrated charting, graphing, drill-down, and guided navigation.  Longer term, Harvard University has the potential to transform the University's data strategy so that local school investments can take better advantage of this enterprise reporting platform.    

The roll-out of the new dashboards (reports) will be phased by subject area with Student Financials going live in early May.  The timeline for additional phases will be communicated as details are finalized.

What Improvements can you expect to see in the Student Area?

  • The ability to drill from a student account balance to the details without having to execute a separate report
  • Improved run times.  Reports that took 1.5+ hours in CREW now return in OBI in under 4 minutes
  • The addition of the “refund flag” to the Student Account Balances and Attributes dashboard

How will the Schools/Units be kept up to date about the project?

Each school/tub has identified a local implementation manager (LIM).  These LIMs are responsible for communicating information about OBI, addressing questions/concerns and serving as the point of escalation at the local level.  

Will there be training available for the new system?

A robust training, documentation, and communication program will be managed through our Change Management (CM) Team, and the CM team will work closely with the LIMs and business owners throughout the OBI implementation.  Regular updates will be closely aligned to ensure the population is well-informed and trained before any OBI reports are released and any CREW reports are disabled.

What should you do in preparation for the Student Roll-out?

  • Access the OBI Tools Training Overview and Student Dashboard Overviews via the following links:

OBI Tools Training: https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/OBIEEProject/OBI+Tool+Training

Student Catalog Overviews: https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/OBIEEProject/Student+Catalog

If you are a Student Financial Report user in CREW today and have not yet enrolled in a training course, sign-up for training via PeopleSoft Employee Self Service which is accessed through HARVie at http://harvie.harvard.edu/