Evisions Blog
Stay up to date with the latest and greatest from Evisions.
Navigating the Evisions Customer Community
The Evisions Customer Community has always been an invaluable tool for clients. It serves as a resource for peers in higher ed to share knowledge and find answers. On May 7, 2019, a new community portal was launched. Why? Because we listened when...
Shining the Light on SQL Variables in Argos
When an institution begins its reporting efforts – let’s say after recently changing databases or reporting tools – one of the first steps usually taken is to replicate what they had before. Often, this means creating some type of file and...
The Problem with Self-Diagnosing when Requesting Data
When many of us get sick, we try self-diagnosing the problem. Maybe we look up information online. We may even go to a Web MD to find out what's wrong with this or that. Through this process we might find all sorts of symptoms we think we exhibit...
Get to Know DaaS (Data-as-a-Service)
Before we dive into DaaS (Data-as-a-Service), let’s take a brief look at the present and the past. Today, information is everywhere. It’s in our television sets, our personal computers, our cell phones and even our smart watches. 50 years ago,...
Data Ingestion: Can One Size Really Fit All?
Many institutions find themselves storing their data in aging systems. Often, this leads to disorganized, disparate, inaccessible, or isolated data. These institutions are faced with the challenge of addressing their data and technology issues. In...
Cloud vs. Client: Where Do You Want to Keep Your Higher Ed Data?
The abundance of data available to institutions of higher education is staggering. It’s found in ERPs, data warehouses, data marts, and other systems and databases used throughout campus. For years, these data sources were, in fact, on campus (aka,...
NCAA Compliance: Using Data to Help Keep Student Athletes Eligible
NCAA Compliance offices are crucial groups, dedicated to ensuring an institution’s compliance with NCAA regulations. They are tasked with applying those regulations to many areas, such as academic eligibility, financial aid, recruiting, personnel,...
What Do National Rankings Mean to Colleges & Universities Anyway?
Every year, millions of high school students are faced with a decision that will shape the course of their lives. This decision will influence many things, such as their careers, earning potential, hobbies, and even their circle of friends. To...
When IPEDS Surveys Reveal New Data and Lead to Tough Choices
It's time to complete your IPEDS survey. It's a complex, daunting task. The Department of Education wants to get a clear picture of your Title IV compliance. And you want to give information that secures federal funding for your institution. While...
Best Practices for Building Tables (Simple, Pivot, and Otherwise)
You’re tasked with creating a report for a set of data. The goal is to create a report your audience can quickly and easily understand, so they can use it to make key business decisions. You look at the data and see that it contains rows and rows...
Visualizing Data in Higher Education: Must-Have, Nice-to-Have, Shouldn’t-Have
All departments within an institution of higher education have numerous sources and insane amounts of data. They utilize these sources and data to track and forecast institutional performance. The departments are responsible for planning,...
Best Practices for Banded Report Design
Over the years, Evisions has taken on numerous projects and tackled many support tickets centered on banded reports. From building custom reports to advising on complex procedures to reproducing outdated or multi-sourced reports, a lot of time has...
The Growth of Voice AI in Higher Education
The penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our daily lives over the last several years has been rather incredible. Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Waze, Google assistant, music recommendations – the list goes on. The ability to talk to devices –...
Getting Your Banner Black Belt (Lesson Three): Learn to Love SQL
Welcome to the third and final installment of our Getting Your Banner Black Belt series. In this post, we get into the fine details of querying with SQL. This, of course, is the heart of any Banner reporting you’re doing. (As a quick note, all the...
Getting Your Banner Black Belt (Lesson Two): Use Good Requirements Documents
Learning the ropes of Banner reporting can be a challenging process. There is so much data to work with, so many metrics to track, and so many purposes to be served. But even if mastering such a powerful tool can feel impossible at times, I can...