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  • 1.  Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 09-23-2022 09:05 AM
    We are in the early stages of establishing an Institutional Research office.  I attended one of the sessions at the Annual Conference on this topic that focused on staffing an IR office.  We just have one person (not me!) at this time diving into this new field.  I'd like to know who the other schools are out there that are investing staff and time in this area.  We're particularly interested in Blackbaud schools and knowing if you've been successful in linking your Blackbaud data as a data source in Power BI and if you'd be willing to share your experience with us.
    #SustainingInnovationandLookingAhead

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    Susan Fuhs
    Director of Information Technology Services
    Norfolk Academy
    swfuhs@norfolkacademy.org
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  • 2.  RE: Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 09-26-2022 09:32 AM
    We are in the very early stages as well and would love to learn all we can from others.

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    Joan Guhl
    Marist School
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  • 3.  RE: Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 09-26-2022 11:03 AM
    Check out #BBK12UC - Educated Insights for some places to start on linking BB to Power BI. Matt can help you build out more if needed as well.

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    Brian Hoyt
    French American School of Puget Sound
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  • 4.  RE: Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 09-27-2022 08:44 AM
    Good Morning @Susan Fuhs,

    Miami Country Day School has been a Blackbaud client for over 40 years now and we have utilized the Microsoft Power BI (PBI) integrations with RENXT and K-12 Cloud to develop insights and dashboards for the last several years. In our most recent (and current) strategic plan, we focused on bringing on a staff member dedicated to developing reporting dashboards to assist the school with making data-informed business decisions. This data analyst team member works on our Applications & Data Solutions team.

    I have to say that having even ONE person dedicated to reporting and research is the first step in successfully implementing this solution as it's not something that you can just pick up as an "other duty", it has to be part of your core responsibilities in order to stay on top of it all.

    We are using Power BI integrations to feed data insights that combine SIS class roster information with RENXT donation information for gift officers. We also have dashboards presenting giving information that takes into consideration gift splits and primary constituency codes (and the "art" of fundraising, and how that impacts soft credits). We have an interactive campus map that color codes rooms based on occupancy by the percentage of tracks occupied, it also allows us to pull the roster and contact information for students and their parents for specific rooms--this one is helpful when we need to relocate the classes that meet in a specific room due to environmental issues affecting specific rooms. Recently we moved our admissions reporting system into PBI so that our Enrollment Management team can produce their weekly reports in a matter of minutes (2-3) as opposed to about 7 hours of work in the past.

    The K-12 integration is not a "certified" connection and has some limitations that need to be considered when developing our PBI solutions. And more of us need to push on Blackbaud to develop a certified connection to the BB K-12 Cloud in order to provide a first-class solution, like the RENXT and FENXT connectors.

    Please feel free to reach out to me and we can talk or connect our team members to collaborate. There are also a few other schools that you may want to link up with for more ideas that we've worked with to bounce ideas around with.

    Best of luck!
    Jimmy



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    James Cudzilo
    Chief Information Officer
    Miami Country Day School
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  • 5.  RE: Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 10-13-2022 02:06 PM
    Hey Susan!

    Blackbaud is doing a webinar with ATLIS called 'From one record to one data management center' on November 2nd that you might also find helpful. You can register here. We've had a lot of conversations with our vendors about data visualization and analytics.

    Warmly,

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    Dr. Ashley Cross
    Senior Director of Education and Content
    www.theatlis.org
    888-502-8547
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  • 6.  RE: Institutional Research / Blackbaud Schools / Power BI

    Posted 10-17-2022 09:24 AM
    Not a Blackbaud school, nor Power. Bi user, however, I highly recommend looking into CIRIS - https://ciris.maret.org/ - as a resource for these discussions.

    We (MKA) have worked in this area for a while and have numerous dashboards we have used over the years with our board.  We are looking at better ways of automating this work and making it more accessible.

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    William Stites
    Director of Technology
    Montclair Kimberley Academy
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