One place the whole campus gets its answers
Financial Aid has its spreadsheet, the Registrar has an extract, Institutional Research has the one report everyone trusts, and none of the numbers match. With Argos, every office on campus works from the same governed source, so enrollment, aid, and finance stop reconciling numbers and start answering with them.
Trusted across community colleges, private institutions, public universities, and statewide systems
Argos
What is Argos?
Argos is an enterprise reporting and application-building solution specifically made for higher education, for Banner, Colleague, and other ERP systems. Your team builds a report, a dashboard, or a small application once, and every office uses it from then on.
- Reports and dashboards, built by the people who own the numbers.
- Scheduled delivery, burst to the person each result belongs to.
- Documents and communications, produced from the same governed data.
- Applications, from approval routes and check-in on a card swipe to input forms where the environment allows write-back.
Any screen
Build it once. It fits wherever it opens.
Argos X dashboards reflow to the screen in front of you, from the cabinet room display to the phone in a dean's hand. Nobody builds a mobile version, and nobody maintains one.
Drag the handle to resize it yourself.
No mobile version to build
The dashboard you publish is the one that opens on a phone. One design, one place to change it.
Same data, same permissions
Every screen reads the same governed DataBlocks, under the security model your team already maintains in Argos.
Opens where people already are
Embedded in your campus portal or an ERP page, or shared as a link.
The situation
What is usually already happening when an institution calls
Very few institutions go looking for a reporting platform. They go looking for a way out of one of these.
01
Two people have become the reporting department
Faculty, finance, HR, admissions, and student services all file with the same queue, and the order things get answered in has nothing to do with what matters. This is the single most common reason institutions start looking.
02
The reporting tool needs a developer
An enterprise suite that only IT can operate, a homegrown system with one maintainer, or a platform aging out of support. Adoption outside the technical team never happened, because the tool was never built for anyone else.
03
Enabling self-service has meant handing out database access
Somebody wants to look one thing up. A database credential is disproportionate and nobody takes it back. Denying it makes your team the obstacle. A report they are permitted to run, without a login to the database, is what resolves it.
04
A migration is coming and the reports are not in the plan
A new ERP, or a move to SaaS, and two decades of reporting written against the old one: state submissions, departmental reports, and queries whose authors left years ago. Nobody has inventoried it, and it is not in the project plan.
05
The same manual work repeats every term
Reports assembled and emailed by hand, letters merged one at a time, a state file validated line by line, and every dashboard's term filter updated by somebody the first week of the semester.
Argos X
Your whole campus works with its data in the browser
Your team builds the governed objects once, in the Argos Client. Everyone else works in a browser: dashboards built and published without a desktop install, results reshaped without a new request, and everything readable on a phone.
The person who needs an answer never sees the query, the schema, or a database login. They open what they have been granted, filter it, pivot it, chart it, and take it into the meeting.
- Dashboard Designer builds and publishes dashboards from the browser, embedded in your portal
- Explore Data for multi-column filtering, sorting, and export to Excel or CSV
- Pivot Mode for reshaping a result without writing a query or altering the DataBlock behind it
- Look and feel. Custom branding, light and dark modes, and delivery across every device.
- Included with Argos. Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode come with the license, at no additional cost.
“Non-technical users will finally have the power to explore and manipulate data on their own.”
Ryan Barrameda · Admissions System Manager · Fashion Institute of Technology
Argos Data Agent
Ask a question, then check the answer
Argos Data Agent lets people ask in plain language and answers against governed DataBlocks instead of your raw schema. Every response shows the SQL it ran and the DataBlock it ran against, so an analyst can confirm the definition before the number travels.
It honors the MAPS permissions already in place, so nobody reaches data through a question that a report would not have returned for them.
- Plain-language questions answered from governed DataBlocks, not the raw database
- Logic applied and SQL written shown with every response
- Zero Data Retention, with masking and redaction available
- Core is licensed for unlimited users. Advanced is licensed per seat.
- Argos Data Agent is licensed separately from Argos X
Beyond reporting
Check-in, data entry, approvals, and alerts, built on the same objects
Ask a long-time Argos campus what they would not give up and this is usually what they name.
The same governed objects that produce reports end up running processes that were never anybody's reporting requirement.
- Data clean-up. Discrepancy reports across sources, catching the 15 students in the CRM against 14 in the ERP, or "Elm Street" against "Elm St."
- Data governance. The Library of Objects and the Data Dictionary standardize definitions so the rest of campus can see how a number was calculated.
- Communications. Generate letters and emails without a separate application, including early alerts triggered when the data changes.
- Scheduled delivery. The report arrives in the inbox of the person who needs it, on the morning they need it, without anyone running it.
“By thinking outside the box, IT staff were able to design a low-cost solution that drives data-driven decision making and promotes student success.”
Steve Zuromski · AVP of Information Technology · Bridgewater State University
Built to last
Two decades of upgrades, and the reporting still works
Reporting logic lives in documented objects your team owns, not in a query one person wrote and never wrote down. When that person leaves, the report still runs and the next person can read how it works.
The same holds through a move to SaaS. Argos connects to Banner SaaS through the Ellucian Data Gateway and to Colleague SaaS through the Data Gateway and Ethos REST APIs, live on customer campuses today. What carries over depends on how each object was built, and Professional Services inventories that before anyone commits to a date.
- Reporting logic lives in documented, portable objects, so it stays when the person who wrote it does not
- The Library of Objects and the Data Dictionary show the next person how a number was calculated
- On-premises, hosted, or SaaS, with the same permission model in each
- Professional Services inventories what you run before a migration, so the reports are in the plan
“We needed something reliable, something we knew other schools had success with. Argos gave us that confidence from day one.”
Maura Woods · AVP of Information Technology · St. John's University
Where this fits
What happens to the reporting tools you already have
Institutions call us to get out of something, and they arrive with more than one thing in place. Some of it stays. The rest is what they called about.
A general-purpose BI tool
The situation
A visualization tool licensed per viewer, fed by an extract somebody maintains, with its own users, roles, and permissions to keep in step with the ERP. Good at charts. Unaware of what a student, a term, or a budget center means at your institution.
What changes
Dashboards, plain-language questions, and formatted output on one platform, built on governed objects that already know your definitions and run under the security your team already maintains. Many institutions find they no longer need the separate tool, and the ones that keep it point it at Argos as the governed source.
The reporting included with your ERP
Keep it for
The operational reports and packaged content that ship with your ERP. They answer the questions the vendor anticipated, and they are a reasonable place to start.
Argos beside it
Everything the vendor did not anticipate. Dashboards your own offices build in a browser, a plain-language question answered from governed data, formatted and paginated output delivered on a schedule, and the working applications in the section below, all on one license.
An aging enterprise reporting platform
The situation
An enterprise reporting suite bought in the 2000s, still licensed, still maintained by one or two people, and getting harder to staff every year. Adoption outside IT never took hold, because the tool was built for developers.
What changes
This one we replace. Professional Services inventories what you run, converts it in priority order against your cutover date, and hands your team documented objects they own. Report writers then work in a browser and functional users run reports without SQL.
Spreadsheets and shared database logins
The situation
Spreadsheets are the most-used reporting tool on most campuses, and nobody licensed them. It is also where the governance problem lives, because the usual way to enable it is a database login that never gets taken back.
What changes
The same answers, under permissions your team set once, with a definition anyone can look up and a record of who ran what. Exports still go to Excel. The credentials do not.
You do not have to settle all of this at once. Institutions usually start with the reporting problem costing the most staff time, prove it against their own data, and expand when report writers in other offices start asking for access.
Rapid application development
One license, and the software your campus keeps asking for
A DataBlock does not have to end in a report. The same object that returns a result set can take input back, drive an approval, run on a card swipe, or publish to a website. Institutions have used that to build working software on a license they already hold, instead of buying a new system and putting it through a new security review.
Every one of these is something we have built ourselves, seen an institution demonstrate at an Evisions conference, or watched a campus run for years.
Check-in and attendance
Orientation, athletics events, fitness center usage, and music performances, recorded off a card swipe.
Asset checkout and inventory
iPad lending, library materials, and equipment tracking, with the record in the database rather than on a clipboard.
Data entry back into the ERP
Forms that let a department update records without anyone writing a custom web application. On-premises only.
Approval workflows
Faculty contract approval and other routes that had been living in an email chain.
Advancement CRM
Prospect finder, call reports, donor profiles, next steps, and the fundraising pipeline.
Advising and student success
Advisor caseload views, at-risk identification, academic progress, and outreach history.
Administrative utilities
Create accounts, manage groups, and reset passwords from a dashboard instead of a console.
Exception management
Find the bad or missing data, then route each case to whoever can correct it.
Alerts and notifications
Add and drop notices to advisors and Financial Aid, early warnings, and scheduled personal messages.
Directories and embedded services
A college phone directory delivered inside SharePoint through the Argos API.
Publishing and synchronization
Class schedules pushed to the public website, and LMS course readiness checked before term starts.
Write-back to the ERP is on-premises only. SaaS does not give the same update and function access, so bring the specific process and we will tell you what is possible in your target environment. Read-driven applications work in both.
Licensing
What comes with Argos
One license, per institution, with unlimited users and unlimited connections.
Argos Data Agent is licensed separately. Core is per institution with unlimited users. Advanced is per seat, assigned by your admins. Both run on the DataBlocks and permissions you already have.
Covered by the license
- The Argos Client, where your team builds DataBlocks, reports, and OLAP data cubes
- Argos X in the browser, with Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode
- Scheduling and delivery
- The Argos API and embedding
- The Library of Objects and Data Dictionary
- The MAPS platform, with its permissions and SSO
Reports the campus runs itself
Every office gets its own answers from one governed source, inside the limits IT set once. See what that looks like on your ERP.
Related
Wherever the data lives
Banner
On-premises or in Banner SaaS, with the Banner Starter Pack of more than 150 objects.
Colleague
On-premises or in Colleague SaaS, with the Colleague Starter Pack.
Campus systems, including CRMs
Learning management, housing, imaging, admissions and advancement CRMs, and other campus systems reachable over ODBC, REST, or an API. Tell us what you run.
Everything else
A data warehouse, Oracle or SQL Server, Excel and CSV, and any source reachable over ODBC or REST.
Trust and security
You take security seriously. So do we.
The Trust Center is published and the HECVAT is available on request, so a reviewer can start before anyone schedules a call.
Permissions are enforced, never overridden
A DataBlock can only be run by someone permissioned to run it. Permissions are enforced at the MAPS layer and inherited by folder, and a view is built for the role that needs it.
Authentication
LDAP group sync, SAML SSO, and permission tiers across Execute, Modify, and Full, configured once at the platform layer.
Production performance
Query queuing and priority keep reporting load from competing with the transactional system.
Data handling
FERPA-aligned practices and encryption in transit. For Argos Data Agent, masking and redaction of sensitive fields through the Data Masking Manager.
How Argos is deployed
Argos itself runs on-premises or as SaaS, with the same permission model in each. That is separate from where your ERP lives; it connects to on-premises and SaaS systems either way.
Documentation
Trust Center at trust.evisions.com, a published accessibility statement, and a HECVAT (the standard higher education security questionnaire) on request.
Frequently asked questions
Questions we get asked first
What is a DataBlock?
The unit Argos reporting is built from. A query with its joins, parameters, permissions, and institutional definitions settled once by someone who knows the data, then run by everyone your team has granted access to.
Do users need an ERP seat or a database login?
No. Licensing is per institution with unlimited users, and running a report requires neither.
Do we need a data warehouse first?
No. Argos queries your systems directly.
Which systems does it connect to?
Banner, Colleague, PowerCampus, and other ERP systems, plus CRMs, LMSs, housing, imaging, and anything reachable over ODBC, REST, or an API. Tell us what you run.
What is included with Argos, and what is licensed separately?
One license covers the Argos Client, where your team builds DataBlocks, reports, and OLAP data cubes, and Argos X in the browser, including Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode, along with scheduling, delivery, the Argos API, and the MAPS platform. Argos Data Agent is licensed separately, in Core and Advanced tiers.
Can Argos write back to our ERP?
On-premises, yes, including electronic input forms and DML. Write-back is on-premises only. SaaS does not give the same update and function access, so bring the specific process and we will tell you what is possible in your target environment. Read-driven applications work in both.
What happens when we move to SaaS?
Argos connects to Banner SaaS through the Ellucian Data Gateway and to Colleague SaaS through the Data Gateway and Ethos REST APIs, live on customer campuses today. What carries over and what needs work depends on how your reports were built, and Professional Services scopes that against your own inventory.
How does this coexist with Ellucian Insights?
Insights aggregates across Ellucian products on a managed data layer. Argos runs against your own environment on your team's definitions. Most institutions run both.
Can we embed reports in our portal?
Yes, through the Argos API, into web portals and third-party tools.
Is there anything we can start from instead of building everything?
Yes. Starter Packs ship pre-built objects, and the CO-OP community shares reporting assets across institutions.
We have several hundred reports in the old system. We cannot take on another conversion.
You do not rebuild them one for one, and the number is often smaller than the inventory suggests. The first step is an inventory: what still runs, what nobody has opened in two years, and how many of the survivors are the same query with a different filter. Institutions routinely find that several hundred legacy reports collapse into a few dozen DataBlocks, because Argos handles the variation with parameters rather than with separate reports. We convert the ones that matter first, run both systems in parallel while people get comfortable, and retire the old one when nobody is using it.
Can we start with one department instead of the whole campus?
Yes, and most institutions do. Start with the office whose reporting problem costs the most staff time, get it working on your own data, and expand when people in other offices start asking for access. Licensing is per institution with unlimited users, so a departmental start does not create a per-seat problem when it grows.
How do we know this is not more than we need?
Start with one process: the report nobody can run, or the submission that takes the longest. Argos is licensed per institution, so one process proves the platform without a second purchase when the next office wants in.
How long does implementation take?
It depends on your environment and how much you want live on day one. Professional Services scopes it with you. The people doing that scoping ran campus IT and institutional reporting before they worked here.
What does it cost, and can we talk to an institution like ours?
Licensing is per institution rather than per user, and price is driven by institution size and product mix rather than headcount. Argos, Argos X, FormFusion, and IntelleCheck all carry unlimited users and unlimited connections, with no per-connection or per-report charge and nothing billed for people who only read reports. The one exception is Argos Data Agent Advanced, which is licensed per seat. Data Agent Core is unlimited. Tell us your FTE and which products you are weighing and we will give you a real figure on the first call, then put you in touch with an institution of roughly your size and ERP. Ask them about support while you are there. It is in-house, and it is the thing customers raise unprompted more than anything else.
Next step
One source, every office, no report queue
Numbers that match across enrollment, aid, and finance, run by the people who need them. Get a demo of Argos on your ERP.
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