ASG-Safari.OLAP: The Ideal Reporting Solution for Georgia Military College

Industry: Education
Location: Georgia, USA

Georgia Military College (GMC) is a Junior College, High School, and Middle School educational institution headquartered in Milledgeville, Georgia with six other campuses throughout the state. It was created by act of the Georgia legislature in 1879 for the purpose of "...educating young men and women in an environment which fosters the qualities of good citizenship..." It continues to fulfill its original purpose by embracing the philosophy that education is two dimensional, involving development of the intellect along with elevating the qualities of character of the student.

The Challenge

Georgia Military College's Vice President of IT, David Hohnadel, was tasked by the school's President to find a way to streamline the school's process of planning, preparing, reviewing, and approving departmental budgets. The process, which was implemented on a quarterly basis, was long and tedious, requiring the extensive involvement of all departments including IT personnel, finance personnel, the Board of Trustees, and school administrators. More than 30 people were completely consumed with the budget process at least once every three months.

"The reporting technology we were using required contracted work and consulting every year as we changed the budget view from previous to current," said Hohnadel. "Getting trained personnel into our office or training our staff was not easy. Basically, we had little control and many desires."

Hohnadel needed to find a reporting and data analysis tool that was easy to use, easy to understand, and extremely flexible. "I wanted a tool that was able to easily present data in a variety of formats that would allow users to obtain and view data in a way that is most beneficial and helpful to them," said Hohnadel.

ASG Solution

In the summer of 2002, Hohnadel learned of ASG-Safari.OLAP during ASG's and Datatel's training and implementation services engagement (Georgia Military College (GMC) uses Datatel applications).

"The school and the principal decision makers conducted extensive reviews of available information management and business intelligence products and determined that the ASG-Safari products, especially the business intelligence solution ASG-Safari.OLAP, were the right tools for GMC's specific and custom requirements," said Hohnadel. "The ASG-Safari solutions 'communicated' very well with our existing Datatel products, demonstrated an ease of use, maintenance, and development, and were extremely easy to deploy."

Implementation of the ASG-Safari suite took less than 50 days. In addition to ASG-Safari.OLAP, GMC also deployed ASG-Safari InfoServer, ASG-Safari ReportWriter, ASG-Safari Administrator, ASG-Safari 4GL, ASG-Safari OpenAccess, and ASG-Safari DataViewer.

"The most significant part of the implementation was the teamwork shown by the ASG staff, Datatel staff, and GMC personnel," said Hohnadel. "That synergy definitely reduced the learning curve and enhanced the final product."

Measurable Results

ASG-Safari solutions reduced the decision-making process for GMC from over a week to a half-day.

"Because the quality of business information is improved in both accuracy and timeliness, we don't need to spend as much time in discussion," said Hohnadel. "The decision-making process has been effectively reduced to a few hours versus a full day or more just for the approval stage. In one instance, we have even been able to avoid meeting in person, which has freed up travel time and eliminated expenses associated with administrators traveling to the main campus for the meetings."

The ASG-Safari tools provide real-time, up-to-the-minute analysis of key institution data including financial records, general ledgers, accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgets, expenses, and encumbrances. They also report on student records such as enrollment, class selection, class mix, class size, and re-enrollment. Individual executives, managers, and administrators are utilizing the system to obtain the data specific to their own requirements and needs.

"Deployment of the ASG-Safari solutions has significantly simplified our reporting," said Hohnadel. "Administrators and other executives are utilizing the system more since it is so easy to access, add, or remove data. Our previous system would typically require a week's worth of programming and deployment time. With the ASG-Safari.OLAP system, any new analysis cubes are deployed in less than an hour."

Hohnadel plans to expand ASG-Safari to new levels in the future. "One of our goals is to extend the ASG-Safari.OLAP capabilities to more and more GMC staff members. Having this tool at their fingertips will empower them to do a better job of running their departments through the effective and powerful data management capabilities in the ASG-Safari tools."