Like many other industries, looking at the numbers is important for post-secondary institutions.
From application numbers to enrollment numbers, retention rates, or graduation rates, various reports are generated every week to serve diverse needs on campus.
Unless the office has designated personnel to crunch numbers, the responsibility of reporting can come down to any practitioner in the office. Then, the question is how higher education practitioners can create reports that are accurate and easy to pull.
Based on my experience, generating various reports can be a repetitive task requiring several hours.
The process includes downloading the raw data, cleaning the data sets, analyzing the data, and formatting the analyzed data as a table or list. Oh- and sharing the report with your team is also part of the process.
With Slate Reports, this entire process can be automated– yes, even including the mailing part of the process!
Let’s take a look at real examples first.
Real case scenario- Benefits of using Slate Reports:
*Before the CRM (BC) and after the CRM adoption (AD)
BC: Download the raw datasets to start building the report.
AD: If the office has built Slate to have the necessary information, Reports will automatically get fields from the record, thus, downloading the raw data set is not necessary.
- BC: Source Data had to be cleaned up utilizing the EXCEL functions, Pivot Tables, or Power Query to analyze the data. Whenever there are changes to the source data, Pivot Tables or Power Query have to be refreshed.
- AD: Exports can be created using various Output types, and filters which will be updated whenever the report is refreshed.
This means that real-time reports can be retrieved without performing the data clean-up every time the report is pulled. To learn more about Exports (output types), please check out the previous article titled Slate CRM Queries Best Practices.
- BC: Analyzed data (numbers, tables, lists) had to be moved/pasted into the reporting template (For example, from an EXCEL file to a Word Document then as a PDF file or from EXCEL to a PDF file).
- AD: As data analysis is done within the report and can be exported in various formats, a separate process to re-format the analyzed data is not necessary.
- BC: Attach the final report in an email and send it out to recipients manually.
- AD: Slate will send out the report as a PDF file with a preview image and the link to the report according to the schedule for each report.
- BC: Colleagues had to reach out to each other to see if the student took certain actions to be admitted/enrolled.
- AC: Anyone with access can refer to the report as the report will show the updated list whenever the report is generated.
- BC: Similar to the above example, the report can be created for professors. Before, professors had to manually check in with offices to follow up with the student’s internship process, visa status, etc.
- AD: The URL to the report can be shared with professors or set the Slate Reports to be sent to professors automatically. By doing so, professors can check each student’s status by themselves whenever they access/refresh the report.
How to create Slate Reports
How to Build Query-style Slate Reports
1. To start creating a new report, click the icon that looks like a graph and click the “New Report” button.
2. Type the name of the report and designate the folder for the report.
3. You can build reports by clicking one of the buttons on the right; Data/Charts, Data Explorer, and Query. (The following steps are for “Query-style reports“)
Savvy tip: I use “Data/Charts” when I need a traditional report with percentages. The “Query” is useful to create a query and take advantage of the Report’s automatic mailing feature.
As we covered the Slate Queries in the previous post, a step-by-step guide on how to create a Query-style report is categorized for beginners.
To learn how to create “Data/Charts” style reports, click the “For intermediate users” tab.
4. Type Name and select Base just like you would build Slate Queries.
5. As you can see the “Edit Query” view in Reports is almost the same as the “Edit” view in Query. The only difference is that some output types are available as buttons on the right.
To learn details of each output type, check out the previous post titled Slate CRM Queries Best Practices.
6. One unique feature of Slate Reports is that you can copy the query and paste it into the same report.
This is useful when you need to see the list of students who completed certain stages in the process. For example, you can create the first query that shows the list of students who applied for the internship. Then you can copy the query and change the filter to show students who got authorized for the internship.
To do so, double-click the query that you would like to copy. Then, click the “Edit” button on the top, right corner and click the “Copy” button.
7. Name the new query and click the “Save” button.
8. Once you are done building a query, click the “Edit” button on the top, right corner. From there, you can schedule the report to be sent weekly or monthly.
9. The automatic mailing will show the image of the report and attach the report as a PDF file.
10. The same report can be exported into different file formats that include EXCEL and PDF files as well as to Portals. To learn more about portals, check out the next article.
How to Build Data/Chart-style Slate Reports
Let’s create a simple table with a number of students who meet the logic (filters) along with the percentage.
(The first three steps are identical to Query-style reports)
1. To start creating a new report, click the icon that looks like a graph and click the “New Report” button.
2. Type the name of the report and designate the folder for the report.
3. You can build reports by clicking one of the buttons on the right; Data/Charts, Data Explorer, and Query. (The following steps are for “Data/Charts-style reports“)
4. When the “Edit Part” box pops up, add filters. Exports don’t have to be added at this point as we are going to look at numbers and percentages like traditional reports do.
5. Now that the basic filters are added, we need to add columns by clicking the “Data Column” on the right.
6. First, we will get the number of students. Add filters to filter out the students that serve your needs and type the “Name” that will appear as a column name as well as a variable name. Note that the variable name starts with “@.”
As you can see in the image, I named the variable “@number.”
7. Second, we will calculate the percentage. Click the “Data Column” button again and choose the type “Formula.” Then in the Formula box, type “@number / total number.” Lastly, type “0%” for the “Number Format” box.
8. Ta-da, we created a real-time report that will give us the number of students and the percentage of each group.
(The last four steps are identical to the “Query-style” reports)
9. One unique feature of Slate Reports is that you can copy the query and paste it into the same report.
This is useful when you need to see the list of students who completed certain stages in the process. For example, you can create the first query that shows the list of students who applied for the internship. Then you can copy the query and change the filter to show students who got authorized for the internship.
To do so, double-click the query that you would like to copy. Then, click the “Edit” button on the top, right corner and click the “Copy” button.
10. Name the new query and click the “Save” button.
11. Once you are done building a query, click the “Edit” button on the top, right corner. From there, you can schedule the report to be sent weekly or monthly.
12. The automatic mailing will show the image of the report and attach the report as a PDF file.
13. The same report can be exported into different file formats that include EXCEL and PDF files as well as to Portals. To learn more about portals, check out the next article.
My current position does not require to use advanced features of Slate Reports. Thus, instead of sharing the step-by-step guide to advanced features of Slate Reports, I will share features that I would like to implement in the future.
1. Color
Slate reports can be jazzed up with the institution’s color. With a gradient color scheme, reports can be informational and eye-pleasing.
2. Historical data
As long as data/records are stored in Slate, Slate Reports is a great way to look at the historical data including year-over-year data. For example, you can compare the application’s data since 2020.
Reports can seem challenging among Slate features. Yet, it is powerful and practical for its automatic mailing feature.
If you would like to start building the report, one of the best practices will be to work with the Slate/ Technology team. From there, you will be able to see how the report is structured and build your own.
We have come a long way and there’s only one Slate feature left that I am going to explore. Check out the final post that will cover how to use Slate Portals.
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