Blogs

Supercharging your Day-to-Day with MyWork + WorkCenters in PeopleSoft

By Crystal Hotchkiss posted 11 days ago
Have you ever thought, “It would be so much easier if these queries would just tell me when something needs attention?” Welcome to the power of MyWork integrated with WorkCenters ! At Cornell University, the Office of the University Registrar has been steadily expanding the use of WorkCenters across more of our teams. Along the way, we've implemented three new WorkCenters—each enhanced with MyWork—designed to centralize daily tasks, streamline monitoring, and simplify how our teams manage information in one convenient place. What Are WorkCenters and MyWork? WorkCenters offer a centralized hub where staff can access the tools and activities they ...

The Ultimate User Manual for Claude in Excel: because Copilot Broke Your Heart (Again) - Part 1

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 11 days ago
Introduction Important Note: The examples in this blog series were generated using my personal access to Claude and do not represent or utilize any resources from my employer. Please review and follow your institution’s IT and AI policies before installing or using any similar tools. Welcome, brave spreadsheet warrior. You've been working with Copilot in Excel and have felt emotionally drained at all the things it just can't get right? You might argue, isn't that the same for any AI tool or add-on? AI is not perfect and certainly not the magic wand we might think it is. Plus it all can get pretty complicated with all the options that we have ...

Don’t overpay for a Fluid form/survey tool

By Ron Anderson posted 14 days ago
Attention PeopleSoft customers: Don’t overpay for a Fluid form/survey tool. Here are some facts about XTend from Lagniappe Software: Budget Friendly — 50-70% less expensive than the others Much faster deployment — Go live in under a week Familiar and easier UX for administrators — easier to build, easier to test. No need for AI help to build. Better UI for all end users — clean, modern, works on all devices. Zero weeks of training — your team is building forms Day 1 Stop settling for overpriced, overcomplicated solutions. Let’s schedule a short demo so I can show you how XTend checks every box — without ...

Finding a Gentle On‑Ramp with Power Query in Excel

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 18 days ago
For a lot of higher ed analysts, the scariest part of the job isn’t writing a PeopleSoft query—it’s what happens after the extract lands in Excel. Long columns to clean, messy values to fix, files to stack, and logic to repeat every census term or disbursement cycle. Many colleagues have lived mostly in PeopleSoft Query Manager and basic Excel, with little exposure to R, Python, or SAS, and suddenly find themselves asked to “prep the data” too. This post is for them. Why Start with Power Query in Excel? Power Query in Excel is a friendly, visual way to step into real data preparation without learning a programming language or buying a new BI tool. Power ...

Alliance 2026 - things to get excited about!

By Jamie Janazian posted 21 days ago
HEUG Alliance 2026 is going on March 8 - 11, 2026 in Orlando, Florida and is a great opportunity to learn, share, and network with your peers from all around the world! Orlando offers plenty of fun things to do for when you aren't attending sessions, Stop and Shares, or checking out the Exhibitor Hall. If you haven't registered yet, you can do so here . You'll have over 200 sessions to choose from, and the conference will offer Workshop sessions (require additional registration) starting 8 AM Sunday March 8th, and sessions will go through Wednesday at 2:45 PM. With tracks based on area of interest, various systems, and professional skills such as ...

Managing the Implementation Dip in Technical Training

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 01-09-2026
Overview Professional development for higher education technical staff—such as data or business analysts or information systems professionals—must address both unique challenges in skill transfer and the realities of team-based technology environments. High-quality training should anticipate and address the “implementation dip”: a temporary decline in productivity or confidence when new approaches or tools are first introduced, even among experienced technical teams. The Implementation Dip in Technical Training When rolling out new platforms, updating data governance standards, or introducing advanced modeling techniques, technical teams often ...

Test Plans

By Sandra Asebedo posted 01-05-2026
Test Plan January 5, 2026 Sandra Asebedo UT Arlington – Connected Campus Council Member What is a Test Plan: It is a document that describes how to test a change or new page, process, query, or interface. Elements of a good Test Plan: 1. Describe what the change or new page, process, query, or interface is and its purpose. 2. Describe any applicable business rules. 3. Describe steps in how to test the change or new page, process, query, or interface. 4. Describe expected outcomes. In other words: 1. Navigation to the page, process query. 2. Where ...

Test Plans

By Sandra Asebedo posted 01-05-2026
Test Plan January 5, 2026 Sandra Asebedo UT Arlington – Connected Campus Council Member What is a Test Plan: It is a document that describes how to test a change or new page, process, query, or interface. Elements of a good Test Plan: 1. Describe what the change or new page, process, query, or interface is and its purpose. 2. Describe any applicable business rules. 3. Describe steps in how to test the change or new page, process, query, or interface. 4. Describe expected outcomes. In other words: 1. Navigation to the page, process query. 2. Where ...

A Year of Growth, Gratitude, and Community

By Renee Riley posted 12-31-2025
At the December Community Council call we discussed taking a moment to reflect on the past year. It inspired me to decide to take a moment to reflect on my own past year professionally and within HEUG. As I reflect on the past year, I’m struck most by how deeply community has shaped my growth. This year has been one of learning, visibility, courage, and connection—and much of that has been amplified through my experiences with the HEUG. Professionally, this year challenged me to step into new spaces and stretch beyond what felt comfortable. Those moments of growth were often accompanied by the support, encouragement, and inspiration of people who genuinely ...

2025 Impact Report: Connected Campus

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 12-15-2025
As we wrap up the year, we're excited to share our 2025 End-of-Year Report for this Connected Campus Community of Practice— a look back at the milestones and achievements that shaped our Higher Ed community. With a little over 4,900 subscribers across our four areas of interest, your engagement has helped us reach new heights. This year’s report highlights some of our most impressive numbers and collective wins. Thank you for being part of our journey!

Sorta One Step Wonder! Formula by Example using Power Query

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 12-09-2025
Hey Technical and Reporting wizards! Have you ever wanted to create a formula in Microsoft Excel starting with the result you need, even if you’re not sure how to get there? If you know what you want but aren’t sure of the steps, Power Query offers a simple and powerful way to make it happen! You will need to already be in the Power Query-verse for this one-step wonder. To enter Power Query Editor, simply click inside your data range or table, go to Data > From Table/Range Now for the one step to rule them all! Simply go to Add Column > Column From Examples. Then, enter sample values in a new column. Start typing in what you ...

Integrating Tech Through Peer Coaching

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 12-02-2025
Peer coaching is gaining momentum as a powerful tool for professional development and technology integration, especially in environments where teams want learning to be relevant, practical, and immediately impactful (Knowles et al., 2014; Robbins, 2015). Rather than relying on external trainers, peer coaching leverages in-house expertise, empowering colleagues to guide and support each other in solving real challenges and adapting to technological change (Robbins, 2015; Mattox, 2017). This article explores a scaffolded peer coaching approach based on a real example. Over six weeks, the coaching process centered on improving file management using Microsoft ...

From Queries to Conversations: Humanizing Data Analysis in Higher Ed

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 11-25-2025
Inspired by Alex Green and the HEUG community Just yesterday, I found myself deep in conversation with my HEUG friend, @Alexandra Green , about the intersections of analytics, human relationships, and the daily grind inside PeopleSoft, Tableau, Power BI, BI Publisher, and Artificial Intelligence. Our takeaway? The best data work starts with people—not platforms. This post unpacks the five most common traps analysts fall into, and what to do about them, based on years of creating and reviewing reports across campuses and institutions. 1) Start with the Question, Not the Tool It’s easy to get excited by Tableau’s latest feature or a slick Power ...

Learn more about Connected Query and BI Publisher at this year's Alliance!

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 11-21-2025
When it comes to delivering dynamic reports in PeopleSoft, PS Connected Query and BI Publisher are the ultimate power couple. Connected Query ties multiple queries together, streamlining data extraction across related records. This means less manual setup, fewer data joins to manage, and a smoother path to rich, reliable reporting. Here is the main point: You can create a set of linked, simple queries to collect data from multiple tables instead of creating a complicated query with multiple equal, outer joins, and grouping conditions. A single row of data from a parent query results in a set of rows in a child query. This data is processed row by row and ...

Navigating Mixed Reactions: How Higher Ed Analysts Can Learn From Data Visualization Feedback

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 11-12-2025
Let’s be honest—getting a mix of feedback on a data visualization can feel like running a full emotional marathon. Some colleagues are delighted by the dashboards, saying things like, “The visualizations were really effective and helped me understand,” while others crave more familiar ground, hoping for tables or feeling lost in less user-friendly platforms. All these responses, positive and critical, are valuable signals for our work as data and business analysts in higher ed. Now, when negative feedback rolls in (“I don't like looking at graphs and am more of a numbers person”), it stings a little—but this is actually where the real growth happens. Research ...

Did You Know? How Term Activation Impacts Student Records and Student Financials

By Caitlin Haswell posted 11-05-2025
Welcome to the first installment of “Did You Know?” brought to you by the members of the Student Records Advisory Group. I'm Caitlin Haswell, Senior Assistant Director of Enrollment Services at The Catholic University of America, and I’ll be discussing how term activation impacts the Student Records and Student Financials modules. You might be wondering why a Student Records Advisory Group member is talking about student financials. My institution merged the Registrar and Student Accounts offices. My role in our Enrollment Services Office bridges both modules and has given me insight into how closely linked they are. (Note: For anyone less familiar ...

Got Viz? From Sketch to Screen to Share

By Anna Kourouniotis posted 10-30-2025
As a data professional in Higher Ed, I’m constantly inspired by the incredible work that colleagues across units—like the Registrar, Institutional Research, Student Affairs, and Alumni offices—are doing. Whether using Tableau, Power BI, Cognos, Oracle Analytics, or even MS Excel, there's a vast array of visualizations that showcase the creative potential of data. These works, often shared on platforms like Tableau Public, inspire me to think more about the process that goes into creating these visualizations and how sharing them helps us grow as a community. But, beyond the digital dashboards we create for work, there's an equally important process that ...

2 Days To Go! Manchester Here We Come

By Tracey Einig Jones posted 10-27-2025
Hi and welcome to our HEUG Europe Blog series to bring you all the action direct from HEUG Europe 2025 from Manchester, as we welcome colleagues from across the globe to the UK. The attendance planning is well underway, I've downloaded the HEUG App and had an initial browse through the many interesting presentations available. There will 35 sessions, presented by 35 brilliant people covering a multitude of topics from AI through to Transfer Credit and literally everything in between. HEUG Europe is a special conference and I can't wait to catch up with colleagues and friends and we (Sandra from the University of Nottingham and I) will blog as much as we can ...

Refreshing Peoplesoft lower environments from Production using Oracle GoldenGate

By Jeffrey Fineberg posted 10-24-2025
Hello All, We were wondering if anyone is using Golden Gate for keeping lower environments in synch with Production? It seems to be an interesting option for having near real-time data in lower environments and could be an interesting alternative to the complex refresh process we currently use. If you are using this, do you have any advice and lessons learned using this method? Thank you, Jeff ------------------------------ Jeffrey Fineberg Database Analyst University At Buffalo ------------------------------

Meet the 2025 - 2027 GT eForms Advisory Group Leadership

By Leigh Ann Drevs posted 10-22-2025
We are excited to introduce you to the GT eForms Advisory Group Leadership Team Clicking on the name will take you to their HEUG profile! Hannah Liu Professional Background Business Analyst, Concordia University, 10 years in higher education Admissions, Campus Community, PeopleUX, GT eForms GT eForms Background Since 2022 Campus Solutions Moving 5 major student request paper forms to digital format with augmented routing. Advisory Group Background I learned a lot from the people in the GT forum and I really like the group! Welcome new institutions who are onboarding GT eForms, create connections ...