Customer story · West Virginia Network
Statewide collaboration, built on Argos
WVNet hosts Argos centrally for 14 of its 24 member institutions. Schools that once reported alone now share ideas and DataBlocks, and one college estimates the switch saves it $10,000 a year.
Morgantown, West Virginia
Computing services for West Virginia colleges
Argos
- $10,000 saved a yearNorthern Community College’s estimate of its annual savings from switching to Argos.
- 14 reports, one dashboardAn Institutional Research user combined them into a single view.
- More reports, less effortSchools that wrote straight SQL now produce far more reports.
West Virginia Network at a glance
1975
Founded
24
Member institutions
Morgantown
Home base
01
The challenge
Every school reporting on its own
The West Virginia Network for Educational Telecomputing (WVNet) is a data center that provides software services to universities, colleges, and technical schools around the state.
After WVNet implemented Banner by Ellucian in 2005, its member schools started to work with various reporting systems. Some used a 3rd party product, while others wrote straight SQL code to run reports. In most cases, the institutions were developing and running their reporting independently.
Many reporting systems
Some schools used a 3rd party product, others straight SQL.
Little collaboration
Schools developed and ran reporting independently, making it hard to work together.
A small state’s resources
Licensing fees and report development time had to go further.
The individual solutions gave the schools the data they needed, but collaborating among institutions was very difficult. It became clear to WVNet that everyone would benefit from a unified system hosted centrally. And with West Virginia being a small state with more limited resources, a centralized, collaborative solution could save member schools money on licensing fees and time on report development.
02
The solution
Hosted once, shared across the state
Argos had already become the go-to reporting tool at many of WVNet’s member institutions, so choosing it as the network’s primary reporting tool was a no-brainer.
Argos could be hosted centrally on WVNet servers while licensed schools access it via the cloud, a good fit for WVNet’s needs. WVNet implemented Argos in April 2012, and now hosts it for 14 of the network’s 24 member institutions, with more planned.
The schools, particularly those that had been using straight SQL, have dramatically increased the number of reports they produce while saving time and money. Northern Community College estimates that switching to Argos saved it $10,000 annually, and users have saved countless hours by building dashboards that combine multiple reports. At its Office of Institutional Research, one Argos user combined 14 reports into one dashboard.
Argos has also helped with administrative tasks. At Bluefield State College, database administrators tied Argos to several PL/SQL packages to create a dashboard for managing administrative user accounts. The Help Desk staff can now create accounts, manage user groups, and reset passwords from within Argos, a big time saver.
| Before | With Argos |
|---|---|
| Separate reporting systems at each school | One Argos instance hosted on WVNet servers |
| Reports written in straight SQL | A query builder or SQL, and many more reports |
| 14 separate Institutional Research reports | One combined dashboard |
“We have found that most times, creating reports in Argos has been quicker and more robust than building native Banner reports. Argos has saved our school money by making our reporting more efficient and by putting the tool into our end users’ hands, thereby lessening the number of reports generated directly from our office.”
Delano Sweeney · Database Systems Manager, Bluefield State College
“
Argos has created a collaborative environment between schools, who are now able to share DataBlocks and resources. People are calling each other. We’ve got the technical gear in place, so now people can push the envelope because they’re challenged by what other colleges are doing.
Dana Keith · Manager of Applications, West Virginia Network
03
The results
A network that shares what it builds
On top of saving money and time for member schools, Argos has created a culture of openness and transparency among WVNet’s participating institutions.
WVNet hosts Argos training sessions a few times a year for administrators and users from schools across the network. By bringing reporting staff from multiple institutions together, it has fostered a collaborative reporting culture: member schools share ideas, projects, and even DataBlocks during and after the sessions. Argos users, some entirely new to SQL, now build fairly sophisticated reports on their own very quickly.
$10,000 a year at one college
Northern Community College’s estimate of its annual savings.
14 reports in one dashboard
Built by a single Institutional Research user.
Help Desk self-service
Bluefield State’s Help Desk creates accounts and resets passwords in Argos.
A shared reporting culture
Schools share ideas, projects, and DataBlocks after training.
By centralizing its reporting, WVNet achieved the savings and collaboration it wanted, and now looks to further improve its reporting and administrative capabilities.
“
My staff found Argos very easy to learn and found it helpful that users have the choice of using the query builder or straight SQL code. This assisted with the migration of existing reports and enabled my newer staff to learn the Banner tables easily. The free online training and the ability to download dashboards from the CO-OP are wonderful features. I had a few users who were very apprehensive about the change; however, they are now some of my heaviest users.
Pam Woods
Director of Institutional Research, Northern Community College
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