Going underground!

This week we are concentrating on the data mining bit of the project, and particuarly the storage of employer data at the College.

Dave and I met with Brian Hollis, the MIS Manager to find out what information is stored on Eclipse. We discovered that the only information is a an account code, the employer name and a post code if you are lucky! This information is added to the system by one of the finance team when an employer is paying for one of their employees to attend a course. There is no link between the MIS and the finance system, in fact the employer even has a different code on each system (numeric in the finance system and alphanumeric in the MIS).

Brian has pointed us in the direction of the Marketing and Business Development departments who supposedly use a CRM system called Goldmine. We are awaiting confirmation of a meeting later this week.

Brian has left us with a priceless gem - Apparently some employers give their employees the money to be on the course, so the employees pay the money and attend the course in their own time. So in these instances we would never have contact with the employers at all!