Argos
An enterprise reporting and data-extraction tool used to build and run reports against the district's Banner administrative data.
Argos, developed by Evisions, is the district's primary reporting environment. It connects to the data held in the Banner student and administrative system and lets authorized users run, schedule, and distribute reports without writing database queries directly. The district runs Argos 5.x and maintains both a test and a production environment so that new and modified reports can be validated before they are released for general use.
Argos serves two broad groups of users. Report consumers — including deans, managers, and administrative staff — run pre-built reports to retrieve enrollment, scheduling, student, and operational data needed for day-to-day decisions. Report writers design and modify the underlying reports, dashboards, and data blocks. This separation means most users get reliable, repeatable outputs while a smaller group maintains the report library.
Reports in Argos can be delivered in several formats and viewed through the Argos Report Viewer, a web-based interface for browsing and running available reports. Because Argos draws on live institutional data, it is widely used for tasks such as preparing class rosters, reviewing enrollment trends, supporting enrollment management, and feeding data into other district processes. For example, the De Anza Film/TV account automation process relies on an Argos report to supply its enrollment data.
The district also maintains an Argos user community group on Yammer, where report users and writers share questions, tips, and announcements. Overall, Argos is the bridge between the district's core administrative database and the people who need to turn that data into usable reports.
Active Roster and Active Division
A pair of in-house tools that show student enrollment by division, department, course, and section, supporting attendance, scheduling, and enrollment-management decisions.
Active Roster and Active Division are in-house tools developed by the district to give staff a clear, current view of student enrollment. Active Roster works at the level of individual course sections, while Active Division summarizes enrollment across departments and divisions. Used together, they connect the detail of a single class roster to the broader pattern of enrollment across an instructional area.
The purpose of these tools is to support enrollment management — the ongoing work of making sure classes are scheduled, staffed, and filled in a way that serves students well. Deans, division and department staff, and faculty all need an accurate picture of who is enrolled where, and that picture changes constantly as students register, add, and drop. Rather than waiting for a periodic report, staff can review enrollment as it stands at any moment.
Active Roster focuses on the section level. It shows the students enrolled in a given class, along with related details such as enrolled counts and waitlists. This supports practical tasks such as taking attendance, identifying students who have not yet attended, and verifying the roster at census — the official enrollment count taken early in each term.
Active Division aggregates that same information upward. It allows a dean or department head to see enrollment across all the sections in their area at once, compare how individual sections are filling, and quickly identify both under-enrolled sections and courses where demand is high. This makes it easier to decide where an additional section should be opened and where a section with too few students may need to be cancelled.
These decisions are time-sensitive, particularly in the days before and after a term begins. In the California community college system, the census enrollment count is also tied to apportionment funding, so an accurate, up-to-date view of enrollment carries both an instructional and a fiscal dimension. Cancelling an under-enrolled section early gives affected students time to register for an alternative, while opening sections in high-demand courses improves access.
For the district, Active Roster and Active Division turn enrollment data into a practical, everyday decision-making tool — helping instructional leaders schedule responsibly, use resources efficiently, and keep classes available to the students who need them.
Inquiry Tool
An in-house data tool for exploring district information — including student success metrics, outcomes, and demographics — through interactive filtering and drill-down.
The Inquiry Tool is an in-house data tool that gives district staff direct access to information about students and their progress. It brings together measures such as student success metrics, outcomes, and demographic information, and presents them in a form that users can explore on their own.
The purpose of the Inquiry Tool is to make district data usable for the people who need it, without requiring a custom report for every question. Instead of submitting a request and waiting for a one-off extract, a staff member can open the tool, look at a measure, and investigate it directly. This puts consistent, shared data in front of more people and supports decisions that are grounded in evidence.
The tool is built around viewing, filtering, and drilling down. A user typically begins with a summary view of a measure and then narrows it — for example by college, division, department, term, or student characteristic — to focus on the population or area of interest. From a high-level number, the user can drill into the detail beneath it, moving from a districtwide figure down to a specific department, course, or group of students.
This kind of exploration supports a wide range of work, including program review, planning, accreditation, and scheduling. It is especially valuable for equity work: by disaggregating outcomes across demographic groups, staff can see where gaps exist and direct support and resources accordingly — a central goal of the district's student equity efforts.
Because the Inquiry Tool draws on student data, access to it is managed according to job role and business need, consistent with FERPA and the district's data-governance practices. Handling access this way allows broad, practical use of the tool for planning and analysis while keeping student information appropriately protected.
For the district, the Inquiry Tool is a key part of how data reaches decision-makers — turning the district's records into an interactive resource that supports informed planning, honest assessment of student outcomes, and continued progress on equity.