Institutional Research
Every number on this campus should trace back to yours
Define the cohort once, certify the figure, and show in five years exactly how it was derived, from the same governed object run against the frozen file you kept. Every other office publishes from your definition instead of its own.
Running Argos at community colleges, private institutions, and public university systems
The situation
The submissions grew. The office did not.
Federal and state reporting expanded faster than any IR office was staffed to absorb. In AIR's National Survey of IR Offices, nearly a third of offices ran on one staff FTE or less, and average staffing has been slowly declining while expectations grow.
The EDUCAUSE Top 10 names the underlying condition at number four: siloed data sources and management practices contribute to "fragmented, and even misguided, planning and decision-making, greater data privacy and security risks, and inconsistent data definitions and understanding." Inconsistent definitions is the part IR lives with daily.
01
ACTS asks for history nobody stored this way
The IPEDS Admissions and Completions Transparency Supplement wants years of student-level admissions, aid, and enrollment detail together. Some of those cycles ran on systems you have since replaced, and none of them were captured with this request in mind.
02
Every office produces its own headcount
Then you get asked to reconcile them, after the versions have already circulated and someone has made a decision on one.
03
You build the submission, then rebuild it
Leadership asks a different question about the same data, and the second version takes as long as the first.
04
The number has to survive years of scrutiny
Census must be frozen, reproducible, and defensible long after the person who derived it has moved on. If a figure comes out differently next year, someone will ask why, and you need to be able to answer.
Definitions as objects
Define the cohort once. Defend it in five years.
First-time full-time degree-seeking. Retained to fall two. Completers within 150 percent of normal time. The work is defining a population precisely and defending that definition years later.
Argos stores those definitions as governed objects instead of as a query someone wrote once. The same logic runs the same way next year, next audit, and next accreditation cycle, with the derivation documented rather than remembered. Argos saves the definition, not the data; the frozen figure is the file you produce on the reporting date, which Argos can schedule.
- Cohort and population definitions saved once and run the same way in a future year
- Point-in-time files produced on the reporting date and scheduled every cycle, so the frozen figure exists even though the underlying data keeps moving
- Documented, portable objects, so the definition survives staff turnover
- Your team owns the logic. Everyone else runs it without the ability to change it.
- Against your data source directly instead of a static extract
SELECT cohort, retainedFROM DataBlock: CohortWHERE load = 'PT'Argos X
The second version should not cost as much as the first
You build the submission. A vice president asks a different question about the same population, and rebuilding it a second way consumes another week you did not have.
Argos Data Agent answers that follow-up in plain language against the same governed objects, and shows the SQL behind the result, so you can confirm the definition matches the certified one before the number leaves your office. Pivot Mode and Explore Data reshape a result without writing a query.
- Argos Data Agent for plain-language questions, with the SQL visible
- Pivot Mode and Explore Data for reshaping and exporting without rebuilding an object
- Answers grounded in your governed definitions, not an uploaded spreadsheet
- Zero Data Retention, with masking and redaction available on sensitive fields
- Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode are included with Argos at no additional cost
- Argos Data Agent is licensed separately, in Core and Advanced tiers
“The siloed nature of our data and multiple sources of truth made it nearly impossible to know which numbers were correct. We spent more time debating the accuracy of the data than making strategic decisions.”
Colin Hilton-MacFarlane · AVP for Institutional Research and Effectiveness · Stetson University
Submissions and formatted output
Files that go to the agency without reformatting
IPEDS components, state enrollment files, Perkins, accreditation evidence. The specification is set by the agency, not by your vendor, and formatting is pass or fail rather than cosmetic.
Argos produces the formatted output those submissions require from live data, and delivers it on a schedule so nobody is assembling one the night before a deadline.
- Fixed-width and delimited extracts in the format the agency requires
- Scheduled delivery by email or FTP
- Banded PDF with your branding for accreditation exhibits and board reporting
- Community-shared assets for localized reporting requirements, through the CO-OP community
- We do not file your submissions for you. We make assembling, verifying, and reproducing the underlying data materially less painful.
0001 FA 000000 FT 00000002 FA 000000 PT 00000003 FA 000000 DE 0000One governed definition
One office, every module, one governed definition
Admissions, enrollment, and aid live in the same ERP, and IR is the office expected to reconcile all three, usually in a spreadsheet nobody else can rebuild. The Clearinghouse return and the CRM extract arrive from outside it, and somebody has to load them before anything can be compared.
Because the three modules share one database, Argos turns that reconciliation into a governed object with documented logic instead of a file on one person's drive. Clearinghouse and CRM data join it once you have loaded them into the ERP or a warehouse; Argos reports on whatever is in the database, and nothing else.
The data-quality side gets built here too. Discrepancy queues that find missing or contradictory records and route each case to the office that owns it, so the correction happens before the submission rather than in the appeal after it.
- Definitions live in the reporting layer, not inside a system you may replace in five years
- Dashboard Designer turns the factbook into something the campus serves itself from, which is how the ad hoc queue shrinks
- Views built for deans and department heads, from your definitions, with no ERP login
- Unlimited users and unlimited connections under the institutional license
Submissions assembled from governed objects
Cohort definitions stored once and reused each cycle, so IPEDS and the state file start from settled numbers. See it in a demo.
In their words
Why institutional research offices love working with us
Every institution below runs institutional reporting on Argos across more than one campus system.
“
When there's a question about the data that needs to be answered, Argos is the tool that we go to.
Bard College
Institutional Technology
The default answer to a data question, instead of one option among several.
“
We've been using Argos basically as our glue.
Earlham College
IT and Enterprise Reporting
Connects student, advancement, and engagement data across systems that were never built to talk to each other.
Outcome
Institutional reporting and factbook data published from governed definitions rather than assembled per request.
Outcome
Cohort definitions maintained centrally and reused across federal, state, and accreditation reporting.
Related
Your definitions feed three other offices
IPEDS and Compliance Reporting
Formatted submissions, reproducible cohorts, and scheduled delivery.
Registrar and Enrollment Services
Census, the official number, and the source of most of your enrollment detail.
Student Success and Retention
The indicators run on cohorts you defined, so the committee and the factbook agree.
Admissions
The admitted class reported on the same definitions the census uses.
How it fits
Where this sits relative to what you already run
With your ERP and CRM
Argos sits above them instead of inside any one, querying live data through governed objects. It does not replace a system of record and does not require you to build a warehouse before you can join anything.
With Ellucian Insights
Insights aggregates data across Ellucian products on a managed data layer. Argos works directly against your own environment, covering dashboards through Dashboard Designer, conversational analysis through Argos Data Agent, compliance output, and scheduled delivery, on definitions your team controls. Most institutions run both.
Versus your current process
Today the join lives in a spreadsheet, the definition lives in a query, and both live with one person. The EDUCAUSE research puts a number on the gap: leaders largely understand the value of data and request it regularly, but few data and analytics professionals report that leadership is fully committed to investing in analytics across the institution.
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 report can only be opened by someone your team has permissioned to run it, and a public factbook view is built to carry only what is public, which is what makes publishing it to the whole campus safe.
Authentication
LDAP group sync, SAML SSO, and permission tiers, 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 or redaction of sensitive fields.
Reproducibility
Definitions are stored as documented objects instead of as ad hoc queries, which is what lets you show an auditor how a prior-year figure was derived.
Documentation
Trust Center, and a HECVAT (the standard higher education security questionnaire) on request.
Frequently asked questions
Questions we get asked first
Can we freeze census and reproduce it later?
Argos saves the definition, not the data. The frozen figure is the file you produce on census day, which Argos can schedule every term. The saved definition is what makes next year's file comparable and what an auditor asks to see.
Can we produce fixed-width files for state and federal submissions?
Yes. Fixed-width and delimited extracts go to agencies in the format they require, and can be scheduled.
Can Argos join our CRM and Clearinghouse data to ERP enrollment data?
Not on its own. Argos reports on what is in a database; it does not merge a CRM extract or a Clearinghouse return with ERP records. Once you have loaded those files into the ERP or a warehouse, the join becomes a governed object like any other.
Does this file our IPEDS submissions for us?
No. It assembles, verifies, and reproduces the underlying data, and produces the formatted output. The submission itself remains yours.
Can we assemble historical student-level detail for expanded federal collections?
To the extent your systems captured it, yes, and cohort definitions run the same way in a later year. What was never captured cannot be recovered by any tool.
Who else can run our reports, and can they change the definitions?
Everyone your team has granted access to can run them. Only your team can change the logic.
What is included with Argos, and what is licensed separately?
Dashboard Designer, Explore Data, and Pivot Mode are included with Argos at no additional cost. Argos Data Agent is licensed separately, in Core and Advanced tiers.
Will Data Agent give a different answer than my certified number?
It runs against the same governed objects your definitions live in, and shows the SQL so you can confirm the logic before the number leaves your office.
Do users need a Banner or Colleague login?
No. Licensing is per institution with unlimited users, and report access does not require an ERP seat.
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.
What happens to our objects when we upgrade or move to SaaS?
Reporting logic lives in documented objects rather than in a query somebody wrote once. What carries over to SaaS depends on how each object was built, and Professional Services inventories that against your own library before anyone commits to a date.
Can deans and department heads see their own units?
Yes, from your definitions, scoped by the report object, without an ERP account.
How long does implementation take?
It depends on how much of your reporting calendar you want migrated on day one. Professional Services scopes it with you.
What does it cost, and can we talk to an IR office 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.
Next step
The definition you never rebuild again
Get a demo and see the cohorts IR reconstructs every year stored, governed, and reused.
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