Service overview
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to a set of technologies and practices used to support planning and decision making in a company or organization. Throughout higher education, universities use BI to better understand their academic "business" and to align their practices with their strategic goals. At McGill, our BI platform consists of:
- A range of specially-prepared data sources, built on top of Banner and other systems.
- Web-based environments of interactive dashboards and tables.
- Power BI, the Microsoft data visualization solution for Business Intelligence.
The BI platform brings together important information from across the University and presents it in an interactive, easy-to-use way. The goal is to give McGill units the tools to examine and strategically manage themselves from a variety of different angles.
Who can use it
BI@McGill is intended for McGill administrators and staff who engage in planning and decision making. Access is currently restricted to authorized staff. In the future, parts of the system will be available to the wider McGill community and to the general public. Power BI, which is part of Office 365, is already available to all staff and all students, for their own use, on their own and on public data.
How to request & access the service
To request access to the BI data sources and guidance on how to use the data analysis tools, submit a request via the General Request form..
Cost
There is no cost associated with this service.
Availability
Access to the service is available 24 X 7, except during scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. Check the home page of the IT Support site for announcements regarding service interruptions.
Frequently asked questions
What is Business Intelligence (BI)?
How does BI apply to my department or unit?
How is BI being done at McGill?
Best practices & policies
The web-based Business Intelligence environment is ideally suited for answering high-level strategic and managerial questions in a number of McGill’s "business" areas. Use the interactive BI dashboards and spreadsheets when planning for meetings, preparing for strategic discussions, and doing ad hoc analysis.
In addition to the web-based environment, experienced users performing deeper data analysis can connect to the BI data sources directly, using Microsoft Excel.
To contact the BI team for more information, see the Support section below.
Training & documentation
The platform can be used without formal training, or using widely available training from the web (Microsoft web site, or LinkedIn Learning). Basic orientation to the BI@McGill environment is available upon request. The BI@McGill platform contains basic data annotation for each table, graph and page. This includes (as appropriate): data source, scope, timing and definitions.
Support
For technical information or user support, please submit your request via the General Request form.