About “reports”:

 

The Strategic Planner is equipped with a truly powerful report generating capacity.  Taking thoughtful advantage of this capacity may be one of the greatest single benefits to university stakeholders arising from diligent use of the Strategic Planner over the long term. 

 

Because the Strategic Planner rests on a robust relational database, connected with a world-class report generating tool, a truly infinite variety of professional-quality reports can be designed drawing on the wide array of detailed data contained in the Strategic Planner. 

 

The IRP office has developed in advance a set of default reports supporting a few anticipated institutional needs—as viewed from the research office.  These reports can be run at any level of aggregation (e.g.: office, department, college, university) immediately.  They are run by clicking on the “default reports” button on the main window of the Strategic Planner, and clicking on a particular report of interest.  The report will print directly to the default printer installed on the computer on which you are working.  [Or, alternatively, your report can be printed as a MS Word(.doc), Adobe(.pdf), MS Excel(.xls), or HTML web page(.htm) file on your computer that, depending on the chosen file type, you may subsequently modify at will.  IRP staff can walk you through this routine in the event you do not know how to do it.]

 

Among the pre-designed report templates, available immediately, you will find:

            Unit Annual Report

            Unit Planning Budget Report

            Unit Strategic Planning Report

            SACS Accreditation Compliance Report

            Etc.

                       

However, it is relatively easy for the Strategic Planner’s administrator/programmer to develop new professional-quality reports formatted and made to order—subject to the limits of what can be fitted to one or a series of printed pages (in horizontal landscape or vertical portrait mode) and what data is recorded in the planner.  Indeed, a the primary motive for developing the Strategic Planner was to support collaborative development of automatic report generation meeting changing organizational needs.  Turn around time for developing a whole new report is estimated to be a normal work week (i.e.: < 5 working days)—depending on work flow in the IRP office.  (Minor modifications to an existing report can usually be developed far faster.) [To develop report templates requires programming skills beyond those of normal end-users; hence, the need for collaborative developmental work.]

 

Accordingly, you are strongly encouraged to envision a new report useful to your own unique needs and to consult with the IRP office (more than 5 days in advance of a due date!) to develop a new report template.  Sketch on paper or a spread sheet what a new report should look like.  At the top of the page, indicate the particular purpose of the report.  Who is the intended reader of the report and what information do they need to know about your plans and operations?  Indicate which variables should be included and how you think those variables should be displayed in what relationship to other variables.  (In cases where you need a compliance report for an outside agency, please provide a template of the report that the agency requests, if available.)[1]

 

Once it is clear exactly what information is needed in a new report for communication with what specific audience, IRP will develop and format a high-quality professional report, add it to the list of default reports in the Strategic Planner, where it will be available thenceforth for use by any organizational unit at any level of aggregation at any time in the future with the click of a button!  Clearly, designing a specific high-quality report template once to satisfy your needs will potentially save you massive reporting time in the future.  Your greatest time leverage will accrue by designing reports that you will need repeatedly by term or year.

 

To develop a new made-to-order report, please arrange an appointment for consultation with IRP staff at 691-6880 or email to crowm@savstate.edu or lauffer@savstate.edu. Notice:  The farther in advance you begin to dialog with IRP about a report, the more opportunity you will have to revise, elaborate, adjust and tinker with the report display before needing to use it.  Without fail, the final impact of a report depends absolutely on the time and care taken in advance to design, prepare, test and revise its format.

 

We hope you will take advantage of this powerful reporting capacity by devoting some thoughtful time to it.  Doing so will serve you well in the future!


[1] Warning: Please be advised in advance that if IRP becomes swamped with requests to develop new reports, a cue line will be devised and your standing in that line will depend absolutely on three factors, considered together:

(a)     your place in the “food chain” hierarchy of SSU (President 1st, VPs, 2nd, Deans 3rd, Dept. Heads 4th, etc.)

(b)     the order in which your request is received (first come, first served)

(c)     the number of units expected to benefit from the availability of the finished report template. (Requests from several stakeholders together have priority over requests by single individuals. The more stakeholders served by a specific report, the higher its priority for development.)