The Challenge

The Ana G. Mendez University System (Sistema Universitario Ana G. Mendez – SUAGM) is a collection of three universities (Universidad del Este, Universidad Metropolitana, Universidad del Turabo) operating in Puerto Rico across 17 locations. The newest member of SUAGM is the Universidad Ana G. Mendez – Virtual Campus, which is a fully on-line program institution; plus five branch campuses serving Hispanic adult students on the Continental United States in the states of Florida, Maryland and Texas. IT staff is mostly centralized and responsible for the SUAGM extended network and all of the main systems, with offices located on the main campus of the Universidad Metropolitana, in San Juan.

The Solution

In spring of 2014, SUAGM evaluated seven reporting-dashboard options ending with the selection of Evisions’ Argos Enterprise Reporting Solution because of its ease of use and enterprise licensing as their sole solution.

First phase of Argos was implemented in April 2015 as a way to report thru a dashboard with performance indicators in the areas of Recruitment, Admission and Enrollment. With the help of the Evisions support team, the SUAGM team (an IT programmer and 2 members of the Institutional Statistics Office) built a custom dashboard that acts as a main hub of information. On a sidebar of the page, users select from which area, (that is admission, enrollment, and university) for which they want to see the statistical data, and whether it is current (actual term) or historical data (5-year trends). For example, Argos displays data on the number of enrolled students versus projection, or ratio analysis between applicants, admitted and enrolled students, for the Puerto Rico and USA based operations.

According to users at SUAGM, these dashboards effortlessly guide them to the information they need, so they don’t have to go searching for the correct pages of the statistical data of the corresponding area, or wait until the internal statistics office can deliver a special report. They appreciate how they can see data in graphical form, generate reports quickly and if necessary drill down further to see data from different levels and in some cases up to raw data at the lowest level. Drill-down capabilities enable the users to break down information from total, system-wide level, to lower levels by specific institutions, divisions, schools, locations, programs, and even feeder high schools. User satisfaction, at different levels, has been outstanding.

While Evisions’ support team helped build the foundation of this dashboard, SUAGM’s internal staff were key to developing the full potential of the application, and adapting it to suit the reporting users’ needs. In less than a year, SUAGM had more than 50 high/middle level management individuals, many without technical knowledge, using SUAGM Dashboard solution – a testament of how navigable the solution is.

Another major benefit SUAGM gained from switching to Argos was an immediate cost saving. The previous reporting solutions were expensive as they were based on a per-user pricing. This was costing SUAGM more and more each year, as new users sought to access the solutions. But with the Argos enterprise license, SUAGM pays one fee for unlimited users.

SUAGM’s Board of Trustees has been so impressed with these achievements, that Argos’s dashboard use has been expanded to include more Human Resources and Finance key performance indicators. With Argos, SUAGM now has a cost-effective reporting solution providing statistical and other reporting insights to satisfy the needs of the different areas at all campuses, at a lower cost than before.