MortarCAPS Faire d’une pierre cinq coups : le pouvoir d’une norme de données

Charlsey Pearce, MortarCAPS
Andrew Drinkwater, Plaid Analytics

Description à venir!

Shiva Mostafavi, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
Kevin Chen, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)

This session presents a Term-to-Term Retention Predictive Model, a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) that assigns every enrolled student a risk scores each academic year, identifying who is most likely to leave before they do. With 88.5% classification accuracy, the model enables early, targeted intervention rather than reactive response. We demonstrate how these predictive outputs were translated into an interactive Tableau dashboard, empowering advisors, schools, and senior leadership to act early and target resources effectively.

Andy Hu, Queen’s University

Institutional researchers know how an innocent-looking survey becomes a Power BI survival exercise. It starts with ten questions. Then somebody adds thirty more, requests favourable percentages for every question, asks for comparisons by different level, and casually mentions that another file will arrive next month.

In this hands-on workshop, let’s tame a realistic student-services survey using Power BI. We will begin with a familiar wide survey file containing multiple Likert-scale questions and explore why traditional measure-by-measure development quickly becomes difficult to maintain, and more importantly, how can we make our lives just A LITTLE BIT easier. Finally, we will see how Microsoft Fabric can take our project to the next level….

Intended audience: Institutional researchers, BI developers, analysts, and data professionals.

Recommended participant experience: Participants should be comfortable with:

• Basic Power BI Desktop navigation
• Importing CSV files
• Simple Power Query transformations
• Introductory DAX measures

No requirement on prior experience with Microsoft Fabric.

MortarCAPS Faire d’une pierre cinq coups : le pouvoir d’une norme de données (Suite)

Charlsey Pearce, MortarCAPS
Andrew Drinkwater, Plaid Analytics

Description à venir!

Matthew Busilla, Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (MITT)

Institutional Research offices are increasingly asked to do more with limited resources. Better process automation, systems integration, and data collection/retention can free up time and expand what a department can take on, but implementing these kinds of technical solutions is often difficult without dedicated developer support (and budget!).

The Microsoft Power Platform, specifically Power Apps and Power Automate, offers a no-code/low-code path to building these solutions in-house. Most IR professionals already know and use Power BI, but Power Apps and Power Automate tend to be less familiar, and it’s not always clear what these tools can do, how they can add value, or whether they’re worth taking the time to learn.

This 90-minute hands-on workshop answers those questions. It introduces the Power Platform as a continuum, ranging from quick personal productivity tools to enterprise-grade solutions, and covers how no-code/low-code development differs from traditional software development. From there, the session turns to common IR-relevant use cases, along with an honest look at the platform’s limitations and the situations where it’s not the right tool for the job.

The presenter will also draw on their own experience learning the platform to discuss the realistic learning curve, particularly for professionals who are curious but unsure if they have time to commit to something new.

Participants will leave with a working understanding of what the Power Platform can do, plus hands-on experience building a basic approval flow in Power Automate, a practical pattern that transfers directly to many common workflows.

Audience: IR professionals with no prior Power Apps or Power Automate experience who want to understand what’s possible and whether it’s worth pursuing further.

Milla Motrich, Dann Sioson, Irina Belaya, and Laura Ferlito
University of Toronto Mississauga  

Explore how the UTM OVPP Data Strategy and Analytics Team evolved from fragmented reporting to a coordinated analytics ecosystem supporting enrolment management, academic planning, and student success. In this hands-on workshop, we will demo the tools powering UTM’s analytics practice, enrolment monitoring dashboards, waitlist analytics, snapshot-based reporting, Azure DevOps for project management, and Microsoft Fabric as the governed data platform behind it all. We will share practical lessons learned: what consolidation really costs, how to earn stakeholder trust, and what governance decisions matter most. Walk away with frameworks and tools you can apply at your own institution.

Francois Beneteau, Account Executive, Explorance

In this hands-on workshop, you’ll see how easy it is to launch surveys and forms, manage campus-wide feedback with role-based sharing and approval workflows, and review live analytics and respondent tracking right within the platform. Explore how BlueX streamlines communications by going beyond surveys, giving you tools for newsletters, non-graded quizzes, and interactive content, all through one intuitive editor. No technical skills are needed.

Audience: Open to everyone

Materials needed: laptop

Krimo Bouaou, Account Manager, Explorance

Elevate your understanding of Explorance analytics suite for course evaluations through hands-on experience building dynamic reports and interactive dashboards, including integrated AI-powered analysis of qualitative data with MLY (mi-lee). Learn how to better leverage each component to turn student feedback data into actionable insights that improve decision-making across academic units.

Audience: Intended for Explorance customers using Blue for course evaluations.

Materials needed: laptop