Spring has sprung. High schoolers are tweeting offers of acceptance. Current college students are on break. If you don’t live in the Northeast, flowers are blooming. And…board meetings are on the horizon!

As you prepare for those meetings, you’re likely thinking about the various data points you’ll want to discuss and how you will incorporate them into the overarching narrative of your presentation. Depending on how your institution or role is structured, building reports in Slate may or may not be something you’ve done often. But, as with everything you do, you’ll want to start with your reporting goals in mind. Which data are most important to the board? Why? How can you make your reporting digestible?

Any data point within your Slate instance is accessible for reporting, but just because the data is there doesn’t mean that you need to use it. Reports in Slate can be incredibly sophisticated, so taking a tiered approach to reporting is key. This approach will not only save time, it will also make data extraction and interpretation much easier. As a result, your report to the Board or Enrollment Committee will be that much more effective.

Keep in mind that there are a few main elements to reports in Slate: the report itself, parts/data tables, data rows and data columns. One report may have multiple parts, so avoid starting out by attempting to get all of the data points within a single part. Instead, piece your report together with multiple parts, each with its own distinct role. Building your reports out in this segmented fashion will also make them easier to digest without a verbal narrative if your office compiles any pre-reads for your Committee or Board.

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