Dear Reporting WG members,

These are the notes from our meeting of Friday, 10/15. Comments welcome.

Present: Lydia Pettis, Linda Westlake, Bill Kara, Karen Calhoun

The purpose of the meeting was to review progress to date and the draft project plan that Karen had distributed prior to the meeting.

1. Approach to reporting. Based on the results of our first group meeting, earlier this week Karen forwarded notes about the general approach the Reporting WG plans to take in its work. Briefly, we plan to take advantage, to the greatest extent feasible, of the opportunity Voyager provides for greater decentralization of the design and production of reports and notices. Such a system can increase flexibility, reduce turnaround time for report/notice production, and give library staff greater freedom to mine information from the database. At the same time the WG plans to insure that only basic training and equipment will be necessary for library staff to run and print the standard reports and notices they need for their operations. Our recommendation implies that the library will need to design and provide appropriate basic training in how to view and print Voyager standard reports and notices.

2. Project plan. The group evaluated the tasks associated with accomplishing four major milestones--evaluating Voyager-supplied reports and notices; evaluating the existing NOTIS SAS reports; planning and preparing specifications for the reports and notices that will be needed when Voyager comes up at Cornell; and planning the necessary staff training. The draft plan was modified as follows: Task 33 -- At the Endeavor orientation training, group members learned that Voyager reporting is being enhanced in version 99.1. It was agreed that the group should schedule the two-days of Endeavor training in customized reporting until after 99.1 is available--perhaps in mid- to late February. After task 30 -- The group discussed the timing of the installation of the ODBC drivers. WG members will need the ODBC drivers on their workstations before they can set up Voyager-supplied reports. After the drivers are installed, it will be necessary to build links to a Voyager database. When the links have been built, then WG members can use the prepackaged reports. Lydia and Amy Blumenthal will be installing the drivers and making links to the training database for members of the WG. However, two events will need to happen first: completion of the Endeavor functional training, which includes a section on reports and notices; and installation of new Voyager-capable workstations for WG members. Karen agreed to modify the project plan to reflect these two changes and distribute a new version to the WG. The task list and timeline will continue to be modified as we learn more.

3. Bursar accounting feed and associated reports - In response to a question from Bill, Lydia reported that Joel Zumoff has been assigned to work on the bursar accounting feed in the Voyager environment. She believes that responsibility for the bursar accounting feed and its associated reports is outside the scope of Reporting WG's charge; she agreed to verify this and report back to Karen.

4. Assignments -- we agreed that members of the WG will have responsibility for interviewing and gathering necessary information from end-users of existing and new Voyager-supplied reports (e.g., John Saylor will have responsibility for working with selectors, Bill for acquistions and serials, etc.). The first round of interviews is planned for this fall. We need to prepare ourselves for the many tasks and decisions that must take place in the spring by doing our homework and starting to move up the learning curve now. Karen asks that WG members read the Accessories Manual p. 33-96 before the next meeting, which will be Friday, Oct. 22. When you sit down to read, please have the handouts produced and distributed by Lydia at today's meeting handy. They will help you to visualize the forms and reports. (Ed, John, Susan: the handouts are coming to you via campus mail)

5. Entity-relationship diagrams. Lydia distributed some tables taken from the Technical Manual (they are coming in campus mail to those not present). The tables illustrate the physical record structure of the Voyager database. In order to spec out custom reports, technical staff will use these to understand what data is wanted, where it is stored, and how to create relationships between the Voyager relational database tables. WG members are not expected to understand these diagrams at this point, but they are expected to be helpful for reference later in the project.

6. Miscellaneous -- Bill asked about EDI for acquisitions. We agreed that the potential use of EDI is a matter to watch, with respect to its relationship to reporting. Linda noted the message she'd received from a contact at Penn regarding the fund structure, and Karen agreed to forward it to all members of the WG. There is some interesting and possibly helpful information in the message about Penn's experience with reporting.

Notes prepared by KSC.