I’m currently experimenting with various types of modelling diagrams, with a goal of finding which work best for us.  But what do I mean by “best”, and who do I mean by “us”? The original profession of architects, i.e. the people who design buildings, have been creating 3-D models for centuries.   Minu shows some examples […]

One of the challenges we faced in designing our HR data mart was how to map the data from the old HR and Payroll system into the new data model used by the People & Money system. As an example of the problem, consider the data about which posts are funded from which sources – […]

In 2021, we in Enterprise Architecture spent a lot of time working on strategy development.  We looked at the next steps for integrating our CRM platforms with other applications and for establishing more strategic governance for CRM.  We also took several technical strategies for our Core Systems to the relevant University committees; a process which […]

This is a third post in what is becoming a series about our work on the data warehouse.  We have just handed a new release of our HR data mart to a small group of BI analysts, who will test it before we deploy the live version.  This release is significant because for the first […]

With increasing numbers of data analysts across the University using Power BI, the HR Datamart project decided to make strategic HR data available in Power BI workspaces.  We have achieved this, but it turned out to be significantly more work than we expected. Power BI is a data visualisation tool that lets analysts present information […]

Earlier this month, we had a stimulating conversation with colleagues from another Scottish university, in which we compared our approaches to structuring our core data.  We share the goal of making our core data as valuable as possible, in a world where data analytics is of increasing importance.   Much data analysis now manipulates data […]

“Digital Estate” is a term we are using to describe all the IT infrastructure, data and applications that enable the university to function.  Like the physical estate (i.e. the buildings and spaces around them), the digital estate must work for the people who use it, while being safe and secure.  It requires investment and maintenance.  […]

The transformation of computing services to the cloud paradigm is an industry-wide phenomenon which presents radical challenges and opportunities to how the University provides IT services. Cloud will affect most aspects of the University’s IT, including Management, Operations, Procurement, Budgeting, Security, and Compliance. In January this year, the Knowledge Strategy Committee approved the University’s strategy […]

One of the less important effects of the strange year we’ve just had was a dearth of blog posts here.  There were many reasons for that absence.  Some were pandemic related, as we had to adapt to new demands and cover for members of staff who weren’t able to work.  Other reasons were more prosaic […]

Our new People & Money system is replacing the University’s old HR and Finance systems.  With that change comes the need to replace the data feeds that connected the systems being replaced to other IT applications.  We’re taking advantage of this to change the way we connect our systems.  Instead of copying large data files […]