PDW Student – Degrees Star Rollout Update
As announced in the Spring 2025 Term End Freeze All Clear, the Student Degrees Star will be the first to roll out in the new Purdue Data Warehouse Student (PSDW) for Summer 2025 Term End. The Student Degrees Star is scheduled to be live in production on Monday, August 11th. Read below for more information about what to expect during the transition. For additional context on terminology used in PSDW, see the Understanding the Naming Conventions of Purdue Data Warehouse article.
Training Resources
The following training resources are now available in Success Factors to help with the transition to warehouse:
- Degrees Awarded – Explores data related to degrees awarded in PDW Student and is designed for data consumers who need to track students through the graduation lifecycle. (Approximately 10 minutes)
- Star Schema Overview – Focuses on the fundamental components of how the warehouse was built and how authors can utilize the data structure. (Approximately 25 minutes)
Metadata
Metadata for the Student Degrees Star is in Data Cookbook and under review. Some items will remain unapproved until the rollout is complete in production. You can identify relevant metadata in two ways:
- Filter on Tag
- Utilize the tag filters when browsing definitions, specifications and collections. A new tag for PDW Student will identify all objects related to the transition.
- PDW Student Naming Convention
- Definitions, specifications, and collections all include “, PDW Student” after the object name. This is useful if you need to compare objects in the old ODS to objects in the new warehouse.
Cognos Packages
Cognos authors and consumers will now see the new warehouse data in Cognos under Packages > Boiler Insight, labeled Boiler Insight: Student Beta. While the word “beta” appears in the package name, as well as on report prompt pages and default filter selections, this data is fully ready for use. Think of it like Gmail’s long-standing beta phase: stable, reliable, and actively used. The content is currently in a separate package, allowing us to gradually introduce new data elements (such as stars and dimensions) as they’re finalized. This approach ensures that what you see in the Student Beta package is ready for reporting, while anything still in development remains behind the scenes. Once the project is complete, this content will be merged into the main Boiler Insight package.
Dashboards and Reports
As part of our ongoing data infrastructure improvements, the Degree Count and Time to Degree (TTD) Data Digest dashboard will be split into two separate dashboards. The Degree Counts dashboard will transition to the new data warehouse immediately, while the TTD dashboard will continue to be sourced from the ODS until further development around retention topics is complete.
Users may notice very minor cosmetic changes to the Data Digest as a result of this split, but overall functionality and experience should remain largely unchanged.
Standard Content in Cognos will undergo more noticeable updates. In addition to moving to the new warehouse, we’re introducing a more robust template with enhanced prompt pages. We’ve also focused on improving usability, so users can expect cleaner formatting that makes reports easier to use on a regular basis.
As part of this transition, two reports will be renamed to better reflect their purpose:
- Degrees Conferred – Term End report will be renamed Degrees – Conferred and Student Earners – Term End
- Pending and Award Degrees report will be renamed Degrees – Intent and Award Status
While the names are changing, the core use cases and audiences for these reports will remain the same. As a reminder, users can see a list of all sunset content in the Data Cookbook Obsolete Content, Student specification.
We’re excited to take these first steps into our warehouse transition and hope you find the updates helpful. Bigger changes are on the horizon, especially in areas where users have experienced pain points and usability challenges. If you have any questions, please contact idata@purdue.edu or submit a request to our ticketing system.
Cautions for Report Authors
Several fields within the Student Dimension are not yet validated for reporting and have not been added to Data Cookbook. Impacted fields include:
- Enrolled flags
- Registered flags
- New beginner flags
Since these fields are not applicable for degree reporting, they will be placed in a holding bucket and revisited during the next phase of the project. This will not impact end users. Definitions will be added during the admissions and enrollment validation phases over the coming months.
