The Challenge: Modernizing a Fragmented Data Environment 

For many years, Excelsior relied on a legacy Oracle data warehouse alongside a growing collection of shadow IT databases spread across departments. Over time, this created a highly fragmented data landscape. Operational data was scattered across systems, reporting definitions varied by team, and there was no reliable lineage to validate institutional metrics. 

Much of the analytical workload depended on Excel. Reports were often built manually, leading to delays, inconsistencies, and reduced trust in the results. As Jabbar Fagan, Associate Vice President of Institutional Research and Analytics, explains, reporting frequently involved multiple spreadsheets attempting to answer the same question, often producing different outcomes. 

Core data models took 5-10 months to deliver, and the lack of a unified institutional view limited Excelsior’s ability to make timely, data-informed decisions. With a 2-person BI team supporting the entire organization, it became clear that a different approach was needed. Excelsior required a governed, transparent platform that could accelerate delivery without increasing operational burden. With reporting dependent on spreadsheets and manual reconciliation, this approach was no longer sustainable as the institution grew and expectations for transparency increased. 

The Approach: Model-Driven Automation on Microsoft Fabric 

To address these challenges, Excelsior University selected VaultSpeed as the automation engine for building a Data Vault 2.0 architecture on Microsoft Fabric. This approach combined VaultSpeed’s metadata-driven and model-driven automation with Fabric’s unified analytics capabilities. 

Raw data is persisted in Azure SQL, OneLake provides centralized storage across the platform, and Power BI delivers governed reporting and analytics. VaultSpeed replaces manual pipeline development and spreadsheet-driven logic with standardized, repeatable modeling patterns, allowing the BI team to focus on defining business concepts rather than hand-coding transformations. 

A key benefit of this approach is collaboration. VaultSpeed’s low-code modeling environment makes data models understandable to business users, improving alignment and trust. According to Senior BI Engineer Peter Klotz, showing users their own source data within the model immediately clarified how the data fit together, something that had not been possible before. 

The platform’s portability also supports Excelsior’s longer-term plans to adopt IRIS and Spark compute without reworking the underlying models. 

Accelerating Delivery Through Automation and Unified Architecture 

VaultSpeed’s automated code generation enabled Excelsior to rapidly build a scalable Data Vault on Azure SQL and integrate data from multiple operational systems. OneLake became the institution’s central data repository within Microsoft Fabric, ensuring consistent downstream analytics and reporting. 

The shift to automated, model-driven delivery fundamentally changed how quickly Excelsior could deliver value. The impact on delivery speed was significant. Core models that previously required five months to develop were delivered in 1 month. More complex domain models, such as Teaching and Learning, were reduced from 10 months to 3 months. KPI governance shifted from manual compilation to automated and standardized processes, improving both accuracy and consistency across institutional reporting. 

These gains allowed the BI team to spend less time on data preparation and more time supporting strategic initiatives across the university. 

Applying the Platform Across Strategic Institutional Use Cases 

With a unified and governed foundation in place, Excelsior began delivering data products that support critical institutional functions. 

Course registration alignment analysis now spans multiple academic calendars, enabling teams to track student registration activity and identify misalignment that previously resulted in refund issues and missing nursing course data. Snapshot analysis by term is automated and consistent. 

Student journey modeling allows the institution to analyze progression patterns, segment learners, and identify intervention opportunities that support retention and student success. These insights also improve academic planning and financial forecasting. 

Marketing funnel analysis integrates data from Salesforce and student information systems, providing accurate visibility into campaign performance, conversion rates, and enrollment pipeline velocity. 

Teaching and learning insights are derived from rubric and assessment data, supporting program-level academic performance reviews. What was once a manual process is becoming standardized and repeatable within the Data Vault framework. 

Profitability and finance analysis now measures cost and revenue at the student, program, and course level. Previously missing logic in refund handling and revenue attribution has been corrected, enabling more informed financial decisions. 

Power BI dashboards provide consistent, governed visibility into student success, financial performance, marketing effectiveness, and admissions activity. Across departments, teams now work from a single, trusted view of institutional performance. 

The Operating Model: Enabling Agility with Governance 

Beyond technology, the platform introduced a new way of working. VaultSpeed enables Excelsior’s BI team to deliver data products quickly while enforcing governance by design. Standardization is embedded in the models rather than relying on manual review or spreadsheet reconciliation. 

By consolidating fragmented data sources into a standardized Data Vault 2.0 architecture within Microsoft Fabric, Excelsior eliminated recurring disputes about metric accuracy and strengthened collaboration across departments. As Jabbar Fagan, Director of Business Intelligence, notes, 

“Honoring the uniqueness of each student journey requires software that is flexible, nuanced, and reliable.” 

The Impact: From Fragmentation to Trusted Insight 

Excelsior University now operates on a data foundation that delivers transparency, speed, and trust. Development cycles are dramatically shorter, governance is stronger, and institutional metrics are consistent across the organization. The BI team can support a growing number of use cases without increasing headcount, and business users have greater confidence in the data they rely on. 

VaultSpeed plays a central role in enabling these outcomes by automating modeling and pipeline generation while preserving flexibility and clarity. 

The Takeaway: Building a Foundation for Continuous Innovation 

Excelsior University’s partnership with VaultSpeed has established a scalable and future-ready data platform. Next steps include deeper adoption of Microsoft Fabric, automated lineage through Microsoft Purview, and broader dashboard usage across academic and administrative teams. VaultSpeed’s Template Studio will support continued growth by maintaining standardization as new sources and use cases are onboarded. 

For institutions facing similar challenges, Excelsior’s experience shows that agility and governance are not competing goals. With a model-driven and automated approach, delivered through VaultSpeed, it is possible to deliver trusted insight at speed, even with a small team.