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I have some great news to share, and it's something that I'm aware most of you have been waiting for. Blackboard has certified the new Pyramid Analytics business intelligence software, and we're ready to begin deployment. Let me give you a little more information about the application before we talk about the transition process...
Pyramid are replacing BIOffice with a brand new application called "Pyramid". You've probably heard of this as "Pyramid 2018" but, for obvious reasons, they've decided to drop the year off the name (though it's still used for versioning). It's a little confusing as I for one have been referring to BIOffice as "Pyramid" for half a decade, but I'm sure we'll get used to it. The big headline is that Pyramid is a full-html application and so no longer requires Microsoft Silverlight (yay!). There's also a bunch of new features, and many existing features have been fully overhauled to make them easier to use - let's just say that if you're a user of cascading prompts you're going to be very happy. Finally, there is comprehensive help documentation and tutorial videos, and I'm sure that those of you who are already confident users of BIOffice will quickly adapt to the new software.
With any significant upgrade there's bound to be some change management required - and remember that this isn't an upgrade, it's a completely new application - and this is no exception. Pyramid will need to be installed and the content and users migrated across from BIOffice. Pyramid Analytics has provided a migration tool to do this, but it's not comprehensive - some content will need to be manually recreated and, my own personal recommendation, automatically migrated content should be carefully checked. With this in mind, Blackboard have designed some services to help you through this process, with options to perform the installation for you, manually migrate high priority content and provide training.
To start the migration process, raise a ticket on Behind the Blackboard. If you're a Managed Hosting client you can request installation and this will be scheduled with you. For self-hosted clients, you can request the installer files. If you're interested in finding out more about the services we can offer around migration and training then please contact your Blackboard Account Executive.
And, of course, do please post on the Community about your experiences so that we can all learn together.
This sounds very exciting. I have several questions, though. I've reached out several times to various Blackboard contacts and haven't gotten a response. We are beginning our budgeting and planning for next year and will probably need to get some requests in.
1.) I need some information on making the move to the new Pyramid and would like to start planning for that move and would like it accomplish in FY20.
2.) Since we will be making this move, this is a good time to also inquire about the option to move to cloud-hosted and how that would work?
3.) We only have student management module and are interested in both the Financial aid module and A4L module and I'd like to know how that would work with the move to the new Pyramid both if we remain self-hosted or go to cloud-hosted.
4.) Cost will play an important role in the decisions we make going forward, so I would need some estimates for these various options.
I do know that we do not want to stay where we are. We've had some issues with BI Office being dependent on IE and Silverlight and we need to at the very least resolve that as soon as possible.
Brandy Thatcher
Senior Business Intelligence Analyst
Institutional Research
Illinois Central College
1 College Drive
East Peoria, IL 61635
Phone: (309) 694-5285
Email: bthatcher@icc.edu