Skip to content

Enterprise Analytics · University of Central Florida

Institutional data,made decisive.

Power BI, PostgreSQL, and federal reporting for higher education. Built inside the institution, designed for the boardroom.

Power BI · PostgreSQL · Microsoft Fabric · Orlando, FL

Featured report

One cohort, every question.Answered before it's asked.

FTIC retention and graduation, tracked end to end from PostgreSQL views: 1- to 4-year retention and 4- to 6-year graduation with IPEDS demographic breakdowns.

app.powerbi.com · FTIC Retention & Graduation
FTIC Retention & Graduation report in Power BI
FTIC Retention & Graduation · Power BI
Argos reports migrated to Power BI
22+
Colleague ODS tables modeled
300+
Departments under BI governance
15+
IPEDS surveys authored end to end
5

Selected work

Four production dashboards.One side project.

Power BI reports built from PostgreSQL views on the Colleague ODS, plus a SQL learning platform I built on the side. Select any report to see it full size. Screenshots use sample data.

Admissions dashboard (sample data): applied, admitted, deposited and enrolled by term; acceptance, yield and conversion rates; and a detail table by location and admit type.

Power BI · Admissions

3 pages

Admissions funnel

Inquiry to enrolled: application volume, conversion rates, and yield by term, program, and demographic segment.

View all pages
Student enrollment dashboard (sample data): gender and full/part-time splits, headcount, FTE and FFTE trends by fall term, and enrollment by department and program.

Power BI · Enrollment

Student enrollment

Census snapshot and historical trends: headcount, credit hours, and term-over-term comparisons across academic levels.

View full size
FTIC retention and graduation dashboard (sample data): 3- to 6-year graduation rates by fall cohort with a 4-year projection, and 2nd- to 5th-year retention by cohort.

Power BI · Retention · IPEDS

FTIC retention & graduation

End-to-end cohort tracking from PostgreSQL views: 1- to 4-year retention and 4- to 6-year graduation with IPEDS demographic breakdowns and forecasting.

View full size
Faculty and staff demographics dashboard (sample data): headcount, gender, full/part-time and position type, ethnicity, age bands, faculty rank and years of service.

Power BI · People

Faculty & staff demographics

Workforce composition, representation, and trends across departments, roles, and demographic dimensions.

View full size

Testimonials

In their words.From colleagues.

Davenee deserves most of the credit. His ability to resolve the data discrepancies with past reports was invaluable.

Colleague

On the ACTS federal submission

Your diligence and attention to detail directly prevented potential fines of $20,000 per report, and that impact cannot be overstated.

Colleague

On the final IPEDS reports

Your hard work, persistence, and attention to detail made a significant difference, and this outcome speaks volumes about your professionalism and dedication.

Colleague

Campus-wide announcement

How I work

From source systemto boardroom.

Every dashboard starts in a database and ends in an executive meeting. I own the whole path: the SQL, the model, the report, and the version history behind them.

  1. 01

    Source system

    Student, HR, and finance data lives in the ERP: Ellucian Colleague exposed through PostgreSQL views, or Workday and Huron feeding Microsoft Fabric. The first job is knowing where the truth actually lives.

    • Colleague ODS
    • Workday
    • Huron
  2. 02

    SQL engineering

    Business rules become governed views: cohort logic, census snapshots, status filters, title standardization, race and ethnicity classification. One CTE, one job, readable by the next analyst.

    • CTEs
    • Window functions
    • Views
  3. 03

    Power Query

    Power Query connects to the warehouse, applies final shaping, and structures the load so the semantic model stays a clean star schema instead of a pile of flat tables.

    • M language
    • Import & DirectQuery
  4. 04

    Semantic model & DAX

    DAX measures calculate retention rates, headcount, FFTE, demographic shares, and year-over-year deltas that hold up across every slicer. Definitions live once, in the model, under version control.

    • Star schema
    • Time intelligence
    • TMDL
  5. 05

    Executive dashboard

    Executive-facing reports with drill-through, cross-filtering, and scheduled refresh, so leadership opens a page that is already current and already answers the follow-up question.

    • Power BI
    • Drill-through
    • Scheduled refresh

Production SQL

Readable today.Defensible at the next audit.

Real views behind the production dashboards. One CTE, one job, and comments that explain the why.

FTIC cohort retention

Tracking First-Time-in-College retention is critical for accreditation and strategic planning. This view follows federal cohort groups across subsequent fall terms and produces 1-, 3-, and 4-year retention flags that feed the executive dashboard directly.

Cohort definition first, returns second, derived flags last. Active-credit verification and enrollment status checks are applied at each fall checkpoint so the numbers survive an audit.

Cohort years
4
Cohort groups
8
Retention points
3
  • PostgreSQL
  • CTEs
  • IPEDS

vw_cohort_retention_analysis.sql

-- FTIC Cohort Retention Analysis View
-- Tracks student retention across 4 years by federal cohort
WITH cohort_base AS (
SELECT DISTINCT
ost.sttr_student AS studentid,
LEFT(sal.sta_fed_cohort_group, 2)::integer AS cohortterm,
pnc.gender,
xie.ipeds_ethnicity AS raceethnicity,
pnc.first_name AS firstname,
pnc.last_name AS lastname
FROM dbo.ods_student_terms ost
JOIN dbo.spt_student_acad_levels sal
ON sal.sta_student = ost.sttr_student
JOIN dbo.spt_person_non_corp pnc
ON pnc.id = ost.sttr_student
JOIN dbo.x_ipeds_ethnicity xie
ON xie.id = ost.sttr_student
WHERE sal.sta_fed_cohort_group IN (
'21FF', '21FP', '22FF', '22FP',
'23FF', '23FP', '24FF', '24FP'
)
),
returns_by_term AS (
SELECT sttr_student, sttr_term
FROM dbo.ods_student_terms
WHERE sttr_term IN (
'2022FA', '2023FA', '2024FA', '2025FA'
)
AND sttr_current_status IN ('R', 'T')
AND x_sttr_active_cred > 0
GROUP BY sttr_student, sttr_term
)
SELECT
c.studentid,
c.cohortterm,
CONCAT('20', c.cohortterm, '-', '20', c.cohortterm + 1)
AS academicyear,
c.gender,
c.raceethnicity,
CASE c.cohortterm
WHEN 21 THEN CASE WHEN r22.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
WHEN 22 THEN CASE WHEN r23.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
WHEN 23 THEN CASE WHEN r24.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
WHEN 24 THEN CASE WHEN r25.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
END AS oneyearretention,
CASE c.cohortterm
WHEN 21 THEN CASE WHEN r24.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
WHEN 22 THEN CASE WHEN r25.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
END AS threeyearretention,
CASE WHEN c.cohortterm = 21
AND r25.sttr_student IS NOT NULL
THEN 1 ELSE 0
END AS fouryearretention
FROM cohort_base c
LEFT JOIN returns_by_term r22
ON r22.sttr_student = c.studentid AND r22.sttr_term = '2022FA'
LEFT JOIN returns_by_term r23
ON r23.sttr_student = c.studentid AND r23.sttr_term = '2023FA'
LEFT JOIN returns_by_term r24
ON r24.sttr_student = c.studentid AND r24.sttr_term = '2024FA'
LEFT JOIN returns_by_term r25
ON r25.sttr_student = c.studentid AND r25.sttr_term = '2025FA'
ORDER BY c.cohortterm, c.lastname, c.firstname;
Davenee James

Experience

Two institutions.One data model.

Enterprise analytics at UCF by day. Consulting for the university that trained me.

  1. Current

    Jul 2026 – presentOrlando, FL

    Enterprise Analytics Specialist II

    University of Central Florida

    Analytics & Integrated Planning, Office of the Provost

    • Transitioning legacy paginated reporting from AURORA and PARIS into modern Power BI dashboards, leading wireframing and design sessions with functional stakeholders.
    • Turning source-of-truth systems (Huron, Workday) into governed star-schema semantic models in Microsoft Fabric, version-controlled in Git and reviewed by pull request.
    • Delivering recurring and ad-hoc analyses for university leadership, and training end users on the reporting they own.
  2. Consulting client

    2024 – presentKeene, TX

    Analytics Consultant, formerly Data Analyst & BI Developer

    Southwestern Adventist University

    Office of Institutional Research & Effectiveness

    • Led migration of 22+ production Registrar reports from Ellucian Argos to governed Power BI semantic models.
    • Built the PostgreSQL reporting layer on the Colleague ODS: admissions funnel, census and FFTE, retention and graduation cohorts, financial aid, faculty workload.
    • Authored IPEDS submissions (Fall Enrollment, Graduation Rates, ACTS, Human Resources, 12-Month Enrollment), including the late-added ACTS supplement: seven years of historical data on a short deadline, submitted accurately and on time, preventing more than $214,635 in potential fines.
    • Continuing as an outside consultant on IR analytics after joining UCF.
  3. Education

    2024

    Bachelor of Arts

    Southwestern Adventist University

    Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300), in progress.

Skills

Full-stack analytics,from the ERP to the executive summary.

Grouped by how I use them, not by a percentage. Everything in the first two columns has shipped to production.

Most used

Daily drivers

Tools I open every day.

  • Power BI Desktop & Service
  • PostgreSQL & SQL Server
  • DAX measures & calculated columns
  • Excel: Power Pivot, XLOOKUP, pivots
  • Git & GitHub: PRs, review, protected branches
  • Claude-paired SQL development

Production experience

Shipped and maintained in production.

  • Power Query / M
  • Star-schema data modeling
  • CTEs, window functions, regex
  • Microsoft Fabric: Warehouse, semantic models, TMDL
  • Ellucian Colleague ODS
  • Ellucian Argos DataBlocks
  • IPEDS federal reporting

Working knowledge

Used on real projects, still growing.

  • SACSCOC accreditation reporting
  • Power Automate, SharePoint, Smartsheet
  • Tableau

Consulting

Consulting for higher ed.Taking on new engagements.

Currently partnering with Southwestern Adventist University on institutional research analytics, and taking on new engagements across Power BI, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Fabric, Argos-to-Power BI migration, and IPEDS.

Services & engagement models
  • Power BI & Fabric

    Governed semantic models and executive-ready reports.

  • PostgreSQL pipelines

    Documented views your IR team can maintain.

  • Argos to Power BI

    22+ production reports migrated so far.

  • IPEDS-aware

    Five annual surveys authored end to end.

Contact

Let's talk aboutyour institution's data.

Project inquiries, dashboard requests, collaboration, or a role. I reply within one business day.

daveneejames@gmail.com · Orlando, FL · Open for consulting