Present: Calhoun, Paolillo, Kara, Currie, Hsu, Westlake, Weissman

1. Should there be just one login (dbread, dbread) for reporting, as is the case now, or should each staff member running queries and reports have an individual login ID? This question was referred to our WG from the Security WG. Those present agreed that if it is feasible, individual signons are desirable. If individual signons prove not possible, there should be other system controls so that support staff can quickly identify an individual who is executing a query that is affecting overall system performance.

2. Status reports. Karen reported she is leading a task group to recommend a coding scheme and implementation plan for systemwide technical services statistics. The task group includes representatives from CUL processing units, Access Services, and the MyLibrary project team. Lydia reported (via e-mail) that the bursar feed has completed testing, that the accounts payable feed is winding up development, that the daily approved invoice report is next on the list for day one implmentation, and the endowed voucher form mods. are complete, and that she is preparing materials for prepackaged reports training by functional areas. John
reported (via e-mail) that he is contacting Alan Manifold of Purdue to begin discussing a consulting visit and that Report 17 (fund accounting for selectors) is much on his mind. Michelle reported that she taught a "by request" encore of the Reporter 1 class. Susan Currie noted she has referred the matter of the Circulation Global Print Queue to IMT and that there is a new group with membership from various access services units. The group is charged to look at prepackaged reports related to collection
management, run these reports, and report their findings back to Lydia. The group plans to do th same thing with billing reports. Linda noted that the Copy Center is fast--could it be used to print global print queue or very large reports?

3. "Proposal for the Management of Data Collection and Reporting in the Voyager Environment." Our chief item of business was a discussion of this proposal, sent to us by Christian Boissonnas for review. The proposal presents a rationale and plan for managing data collection and reporting following the Voyager implementation. Reporting (and reporting needs) affect all functional groups yet is not the province of any single library group. Calling for a system-wide approach for meeting reporting needs, the proposal recommends continuing the Reporting WG (with a new charge) to provide oversight and services related to:

• creating and maintaining a master inventory of reporting projects (helpful
  for avoiding duplication of effort and sharing solutions widely)
  
• designing and completing a needs assessment of reporting needs
  
• identifying system resources for meeting reporting needs and (if
  appropriate) recommending the order in which reports requiring technical
  staff support should be worked on
  
• identifying a training and support structure for staff who want to run
  queries and develop reports

Members of the Reporting WG support the proposal. It was felt that a new group should be formed to serve as a clearinghouse for developing reports and as a mechanism for sharing queries and expertise. The new group was seen as important for relaying information to and from the library's various functional groups and to library staff members as a whole. There was also interest in the new group's assuring that a support structure exists for smaller libraries that have reporting needs, but lack the resources to develop a reporting "expert" on staff. Karen agreed to carry the proposal forward to IMT with a recommendation that it be adopted, that
a new charge be written, and that potential group members be identified. Reporting WG members were asked to think about potential members and send their names to Karen.

4. Next meeting. Our work related to Voyager implementation being nearly complete, this was the last regularly scheduled meeting of the Reporting WG. Karen said she would schedule another meeting for the week of June 26 so we can follow up on our remaining action items.

MAY 19 MEETING OF THE REPORTING WG

1. Debriefing on Endeavor custom reporting training May 16. Donna Smith, Endeavor's "manager of project managers," gave an all day session to members of the Reporting WG and other selected staff members. The goal was to "teach us how to fish"--to help us move from the interface back to tables in the Voyager Oracle database, to help us practice using the E/R diagrams and data dictionary, to develop specs. for reports. Lydia had developed a "to do" list as a result of the session which she summarized again for the group. We felt the session was valuable and helped us begin to move toward the preparation of custom reports. We also realized that the complexity of custom reporting, and the time required to do it, is greater than we thought when we first proposed a decentralized approach to Voyager reporting. Developing some reports will definitely require heavy consulting, if not hands on development work, by library systems staff.

2. Round the table. We reviewed who is working on what. Members of the group agree that more training on reporting is needed.

3. Reporting WG task list review. Karen distributed copies of the initial task list for our working group. We begain by investigating and recommending an approach to Voyager reporting--we recommended a decentralized approach and this was approved by the IMT steering committee. Second, we charged ourselves to inventory and evaluate Voyager's system supplied reports and notices as well as the NOTIS SAS reports and to make a plan for what should be in place for 'day one' of Voyager. We agreed that on 'day one' the day-to-day operational notices and reports (e.g, fine notices, purchase orders) should all be ready and that library staff should be introduced to the Voyager pre-packaged reports through communications from Reporting WG members and through Voyager training classes. These goals have been accomplished. Third, we set ourselves an objective of identifying and implementing critical 'day one' custom reports. We identified a set of accouting reports that are not provided by Voyager but are critical to paying our bills. These reports are either ready or on track for being ready by the end of June. Our fourth major goal was to plan, develop, and carry out appropriate levels of training for WG members and library staff. We organized, helped develop the curriculum, and
identified potential students for five "Introduction to MS Access" classes offered to library staff in early 2000. Next we worked with the two reporting trainers, Michelle Paolillo and Adam Smith, to develop a curriculum, potential student list, and examples for the Reporter series of Voyager classes. Finally we worked with Endeavor to identify learning objectives, attendees, and a class outline for the May 16 custom reporting class given here by Endeavor's Donna Smith. One training/consulting objective remains--bringing Alan Manifold to Cornell to consult with a select group on specific queries and reports. The Mainfold visit is funded but still needs to be arranged. Members agreed that the time has come to plan what will happen next for the Reporting WG or its successor group.

Notes prepared by KSC.

APRIL 28 MEETING OF REPORTING WG

Custom reporting training outline. We refined our statement of what we want to learn from the Endeavor custom reporting trainer who is coming to Cornell the week of May 15. We have repeatedly asked for an outline of what Endeavor offers in the custom reporting class, to no avail, so we developed our own training outline, which Karen will send to Lynne with a request that it be forwarded to Endeavor.

Notes by KSC.

APRIL 21 MEETING OF THE REPORTING WG

1. Reporter 1 dry run. We talked about what we learned from Michelle and Adam's dry run of the class. Michelle noted that she wants to do a dry run of Reporter 2 (the 3 hour class about Voyager Reporter). We need a lab to do it because it's a hands-on class.

2. Lydia's SQL user group sessions. Bill, Scott and John attended the last session, which centered around retrieving bib format data from the Voyager Oracle database. They found it very helpful. Lydia leads this user group every Weds. at 3:00 in Olin 106. We decided to focus on one of the selector (fund accounting) custom reports, called Report 17 in NOTIS, in the user group session of Weds. May 3. In preparation for the May 3 session, Lydia said she would look at the current SAS report, and John said he'd work with Scott to identify what they want in the Voyager-style Report 17, in light of the Voyager fund structure. Those attending the May 3 (or any) user group session should bring the Voyager E/R diagrams and the data dictionary with them. Susan suggested that Rick Lightbody attend the May 3 session; Christian said he would attend also.

3. Allen Manifold visit. Karen reported that IMT Steering had approved funding for a consulting visit from Alan Manifold, who is a Voyager custom reporting/MS Access guru from Purdue. We will be asking him to come in July, the week of July 24 if possible (some won't be back from ALA until July 12, and Lydia will be out of town the week of July 17). Karen noted she needs to push on with the arrangements for this.

4. Drafting an outline (what we want to learn) for the Endeavor trainer who will be coming here to teach us about custom reports next month. Karen read what Adam Smith had sent her via e-mail in advance of the meeting (Adam had a conflict and couldn't attend). We agreed that the main thing we want to learn from the Endeavor trainer is how multiple Voyager db tables make up the objects that we see in the client. For example, what tables and fields capture and store the information we see on the screen of
an item record? When a staff member keys data into a Voyager form in one of the clients, where does it end up in the Voyager db? We would like the Endeavor trainer to provide a one-day class in which we spend some time on an intro to the ER diagrams, data dictionary, and what's in the Voyager db, but more time on how to map objects in the client to fields in the Voyager db tables. At the April 28 Reporting WG meeting, we agreed we would create an outline that Karen can ask Lynne to send to Endeavor.

5. Statistics. Christian Boissonnas' new job duties focus on CUL statistics and performance measures. We discussed the current reporting environment, its good and bad points, and what CUL units are now required to report for ARL, to the university librarian, special programs, etc. We also talked about the issue of uniformity in what statistics are tracked, how statistical categories are defined, and how statistics are captured system-wide. Christian agreed to produce a census of what CUL units are required to report and what statistics they would like to have. He offered to bring the results back to the WG for further discussion at our 4/28 meeting.

Notes prepared by K. Calhoun