What you need if you are planning to use the
Data Warehouse

Access to the University of Pennsylvania's Data Warehouse requires 3 things.

You need all three:

• permission
• a query tool
• training

Permission (formal authorization to use the data)
To obtain permission to use any of the data housed in the Data Warehouse, you must complete a "Data Warehouse Access Request Form" and submit it to Data Administration. Please make sure you have all of the required signatures before you send it along. In some cases, you will also need prerequisite training before you will be able to get access. For example: users of General Ledger data must first get a BEN Financials account (and have BEN Financials training); users of Student data must first get a SRS account (and have SRS training). Note that obtaining permission is a different step from obtaining software, and getting training.

A query tool (software)
The supported query tool at the University of Pennsylvania is Business Objects. Starting in 2004, we have two types of licenses available at Penn: Business Objects full-client, and InfoView-only. If your office needs to purchase a license for you to use this tool, you may contact ISC Data Administration. Please note that attending a formal training class in Business Objects and having the software is not enough; you still may need data training, and you will still need permission.

Training
Formal training in the use of whatever query tool you use is recommended, but other training is also available (CBT, user manuals in .pfd form, etc.) Data training in the use of whatever data you plan to query is also strongly recommended, and in some cases, is required before you will be given permission. Consult the "training" section in each of the data collections for more detailed information. Please note that attending training it not enough; you still need permission and you will still need a query tool installed on your computer.