Process Group/Policy Details
Subject: Reports (infoAdvantage) Policies
Title of Policy: infoAdvantage Management and Usage Policy
Effective Date: 02/01/2019
Approved/Revision Date: 03/02/2022
Approved by: Robert Jaros
Process Group Description
Policy Statement
infoAdvantage (IA) management and access is overseen by the CORE Operations Unit, Office of the State Controller. Report access, creation, and modification must be managed through a controlled process as described in this policy.
IA Organizational/User Structure
User access to IA occurs as part of CORE access approval. Specifically, once a user is approved in CORE that user is automatically granted access to IA. Similarly, when a user’s access is deactivated in CORE it is also deactivated in IA. Additional access for Department IA Administrators or to department folders, Labor Distribution Costs (LDC) data, and report development are defined below:
Central IA Administrator
This role is granted to the CORE System Administration team and grants access to the IA Central Management Console (CMC). The CMC is used for creating and modifying users, groups, universes, access levels, and report administration for IA.Department IA Administrator
This role is granted to the Department Controller and/or the Deputy Controller by the Central IA Administrator for the department folders under their purview. A request is sent to the CORE Help desk (core.help@state.co.us) by the Department Controller to grant the role to their Deputy Controller. Each Department IA Administrator may approve:
Report developer access
Delegated Department Folder Administrator
Department and LDC report access
Additionally, the Department IA Administrator has the ability to move reports within their department folder and create folders to
organize reports as needed. It is recommended that Departments maintain their folder; remove unused reports and purge data that is
saved in a report at the time of creation.
Delegated Department Folder Administrator
This role is approved by the Department IA Administrator and granted by the Central IA Administrator. A request is sent to the CORE Help desk (core.help@state.co.us) by the Department IA Administrator. This role allows a Department report developer to move/create reports outside of their Team Member Developer folder. The user can also create/modify the Department report folder structure.LDC Report Access
Enables a report user to run reports that contain LDC data.
Statewide Report User
This role (FinanceStandard) allows users the ability to run reports within infoAdvantage to the folders they have been granted access to.Report Developer
This role is granted to IA users and grants them the ability to create new or modify existing reports within their department.Requesting Report Developer Access
Report Developer access is requested by the Department IA
Administrator based on agency needs. To request a report developer be added, the Department IA Administrator should send a request to CORE Help. The request should include the name, email, user id, and Department information of the user who needs to be added as a report developer.
Report Developer Training Requirements
Prior to being granted report developer access a user must complete the report development training that is available at the time of the request.
Department Report Developer Role
Department Report Developers administer new and existing reports within their Department Report Developer Team Member Folder. They also work with their Department IA Administrator or Delegated Department Folder Administrator to move reports within the folder outside of their team member developer folder. As part of the Department Report Developer access users are to provide initial support to their department report users, who have a need for an ad hoc report or a modification to a report.
The Central IA Administrator and CORE Operations team reserves the right to monitor report developer system usage & report development and work with the Department IA Administrator if access needs to be taken away from a report developer.
Department Report Developers are advised to follow these best practices when creating Department specific reports.
A Department Report naming convention should be created and maintained at the Department level to clearly identify the report as a department report vs a report from the Statewide folder.
When saving a report to Department folders the prompts and data set used during creation/validation should be purged before saving Maintain Report Developer Team Member folder so that old reports, reports that have been migrated to the Department folder, and nonfunctional reports are deleted on a regular basis.
Work with Department IA Administrator or Delegated Department Folder Administrator user to validate and move report to the Department folder to allow Department users access to the report.
Developers should limit report development to FIN Universes and reach out to IA Tier 2 support if data elements are not available.
Developer Tier 2 Support
Department Developers can reach out to CORE Help Desk (core.help@state.co.us) for support on report development (e.g., what universe to use, object availability, etc.)
IA Reporting
IA contains multiple universes (data sources) which pull specific data from CORE. These universes are used to create reports. Reports are saved to either the Statewide Reports or Department Reports folder. Statewide Reports contain reports for all functional areas including budget, general accounting, accounts payable and receivable, and procurement. These reports can be viewed by all IA users. Department Reports are specifically created by a department and can only be viewed by the users within that department. Users that have report creation or modification access have an additional folder called Report Developers.
Statewide Reports
Statewide Reports contain reports for all functional areas including budget, general accounting, accounts payable and receivable, and procurement. These reports can be viewed by all IA users. (excluding those that contain sensitive information and are limited to a specific user community).New Reports
All requests for new Statewide Performance Budgeting reports must be submitted to the Performance Budget Steering Committee (PBSC) by the Office of State Planning and Budget (OSPB), or the Department Budget Director or IA Administrator. All other requests for new Statewide reports must be submitted to the CORE Governance Committee (CGC) by the Department IA Administrator.
CGC-approved or PBSC-approved requests will then follow the CORE Change Management Policy found on the CORE website at core.state.co.us.Modification of Existing Reports
Outside of an OSC auditing activity or reconciling Statewide reports to the current Fiscal Procedures Manual, requests for material changes to Statewide reports (adding/removing objects, adding filters, etc.) must be submitted to the PBSC (for Statewide Performance Budgeting reports) or to the CGC (for all other Statewide reports) by a Department IA Administrator. CGC-approved / PBSC-approved requests will then follow the CORE Change Management Policy.Statewide Report Updates for OSC Audit / Policy Alignment
Periodically, the Financial Analysis & Reporting Unit (FAR) and/or the Financial Services Unit (FSU) within the Office of the State Controller (OSC) may conduct audits of Statewide reports to validate alignment with the current Fiscal Procedures Manual. Changes to Statewide reports for this purpose will be identified and approved by FAR / FSU. Approved requests will then follow the CORE Change Management Policy.OSC Diagnostic Reports
The Office of the State Controller (OSC) Diagnostic Reports within the Statewide folder are maintained and updated by OSC Financial Analysis & Reporting Unit (FAR); therefore changes to these reports must also be approved by FAR. Approved requests will then follow the CORE Change Management Policy.
Departmental Reports
Department Reports are ad hoc or modifications to Statewide reports to meet the general needs of department report users. These reports can be viewed by users that have been granted the department report access.
New Department Reports
Department reports are created and maintained by approved department report developers. These reports should be validated by department users to ensure accuracy of the data retrieved.
Central IA Administration Procedures
Central IA Administrator Role
Administrative access for infoAdvantage is requested on the user’s CORE UDOC. The request is approved by the systems administration manager. Once approved, a separate administrator login is created for the user.Changing Dept Folders/Access
To request access to Department reports the Department IA Administrator should send a request to CORE Help to have users added. The request should include the user id and Department information of the user who needs access.LDC Reports
Access to LDC reporting is granted by the Department IA Administrator. A request is sent to the CORE Help desk (core.help@state.co.us) by the Department IA Administrator and the user is added to the LDC reporting group. The request should include the user ID and Department information of the user who needs access.Universe Security
Based on business needs or to mirror security in the Financial Application it may be necessary to apply security on specific objects (ie TIN Number masking) found in the reporting Universe. Requests to apply security to an object are processed through the change management process. The object is modified in Non-Production (NPD) test environment by creating a duplicate copy of the object, applying security to the original object so that reports are using the original object in a restricted form, and making the unrestricted version available to any groups that need to report on the object.
Requests for universe security must follow the CORE Change Management Policy.Universe Modification
Not all objects in the data dictionary have been defined in the IA Universes. Changes to Data Warehouse objects is limited because of Extract, Transform, & Load (ETL) process between CORE and IA. However, Operational Database objects can be added to the Universe by following the change management process. The object is modified in NPD using the Universe Developer tool and added to reports. Universe changes need to be weighed against ongoing maintenance during upgrades and potential effects on table indexing, query run time, etc.
Requests for new objects or modifications to the universe must follow the CORE Change Management Policy.Yearly Report Updates
Several Statewide reports require yearly updates to the report query/filter. These requests are tracked as system maintenance and follow the change management process when the updates are performed.Report Data Validation
Report functionality is completed during the Change Management Process for new reports or modification of existing reports. User testing is completed at this time to validate data against financial data.
Data Assurance (DA) Mismatch
Daily reports of mismatches between the financial database and IA data warehouse are provided as part of the cycle-ending report. These mismatches are reviewed and corrections for the DA mismatch follow the change management policy for system maintenance.