Business Intelligence (BI) involves a dedicated team of experts who leverage advanced technologies and analytical practices to transform raw data into meaningful insights.
This team collects, integrates, and analyzes data from various sources across the university and health system, ensuring decision-makers can access accurate and actionable information. Their work supports strategic planning, enhances operational efficiency, and drives organizational success by providing a comprehensive understanding of the organizational performance and opportunities for improvement.
Our Mission
We transform data into powerful insights. Our mission is to create a robust BI framework that delivers clear, accurate, and actionable data to drive informed decision-making. We achieve this by:
- Empowering Stakeholders: Providing intuitive dashboards and analytics tools.
- Ensuring Data Integrity: Implementing strong data governance practices.
- Fostering Collaboration: Breaking down silos for a unified data approach.
- Driving Continuous Improvement: Utilizing user feedback for ongoing enhancements.
- Centralizing Data and Ensuring Quality and Trust: SoM’s BI initiative, known as BigHorn, focuses on centralizing data from various sources across the university to create a single, reliable source of truth.
Approach
Our method is more than extracting, curating, and presenting information on a dashboard. We elicit critical insights through the following methods:
- Use descriptive analytics to answer what happened.
- Use diagnostic analytics to understand why it happened.
- Use predictive analytics to foresee what is likely to happen.
- Use prescriptive analytics to recommend the best course of action.
Services
The BI Team offers a range of services designed to transform data into strategic advantages. These services include:
- Data Integration: the BigHorn data warehouse leverages Snowflake to integrate data from multiple systems, including student information systems, financial systems, and research databases.
- Data Visualization: BigHorn provides intuitive and interactive dashboards allowing users to easily access and analyze data using Power BI.
- Trust and Transparency: BigHorn's BI dashboards are designed with a focus on transparency and trust. Each dashboard includes a BI signature that guarantees the data's integrity and accuracy.
- Data Quality Assurance: Rigorous data validation and cleansing processes are implemented to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data.
By leveraging BI through BigHorn, VCU ensures that data-driven insights are accessible, reliable, and actionable, ultimately supporting the university's mission of excellence in education, research, and community service.
Tools & Technologies
Our BI team uses a variety of tools and technologies to develop products for our users.
- T-SQL: To extract data from various sources.
- SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS): For data transformation.
- Python: For moving data across platforms.
- Snowflake: For data lake and warehouse capabilities.
- Tableau/Power BI: For visualization.
- SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS): For tabular reporting.
Dashboard Inventory
Team Members
- Vacant, Data Analyst
- Kate Loomis, Business Intelligence Analyst
- Steve Kuchta, Data Engineer
- Alina Fisher, Assistant Director for Business Intelligence