Meghana Futnani, Assistant Director of Business Intelligence, leads a team of BI specialists to build solutions for end-users to view and interpret the complex data that comes from our enterprise systems. In a typical year, this includes all sorts of financial, human capital management, and research admin reports with a smattering of other work in support of student systems, academic staff management and our own ITSM initiatives. This year, in support of the response to the pandemic their efforts expanded into supporting other groups like Research Informatics, the PO Financial Office, Institutional Reporting, and have supported HR with the COVID-19 survey, reports to allow for the safe return of WCM staff to campus, and tracking eligibility for funding from the CARES act. Meghana's deep knowledge of, and enthusiasm for her BI solutions has even earned her the nickname "The Power BI Lady." It was a pleasure to chat with Meghana about the work she's doing at ITS, and what she's doing to stay energized and focused during this challenging year
Hi Meghana! Thanks for talking with me. Let’s jump right in - how many years have you been with ITS?
Coming upon 13 years complete now, and its been quite a journey. Sometimes it feels it was just yesterday that I joined, and other times I feel like I’ve been here for ages, and have actually “grown up” here.
And what did you do before you joined ITS?
I spent the first part of my career in consulting, in the corporate world. When the recruiter reached out about this offer, something about Weill Cornell sounded very intriguing. I researched a bit, and decided to give it a shot. I still remember this like it was yesterday - ITS was located at 46th street and 5th Avenue - I think that was the first office for the SAP team, and that’s where I first met all the people who interviewed me. I was quite blown away by the kind of questions the group asked, and panel itself was so excited about the conversation. Not to mention, the interview was so conversational and I instantly felt so comfortable. It was unlike any other panel interview I had taken! I think that drew me into making the decision, THE PEOPLE, and I would look back and say it was a good decision!
In your own words, what is your role in ITS?
Well, so for everything that is wrong in Business Intelligence and Reporting for administrative applications, I’m the culprit or the person to be blamed! (Laughs). Very recently, I heard a new phrase, “the Power BI lady!”, which I found hilarious. (Laughs)
On a serious note, our user community deals with complex data from numerous enterprise systems, SAP/WBG, InfoEd, Weill Research Gateway, Student System/Jenzabar, to name a few, and my team and I work with these datasets, along with other ITS teams and our sophisticated users, to help build solutions for presenting the data in consumable ways. Sometimes the reports built are picture-perfect canned reports, sometimes they are more ad hoc spreadsheets for analyzing data from those enterprise systems to find patterns and trends by using visualization and data navigation tools. Sometimes the solutions are meant to support strategic decision making by college leadership.
That’s a great description. What are some examples of projects or initiatives you’ve been working on lately?
The team has accomplished a lot over the last 12 months and continue to work on important initiatives. The first one is the COVID-19 Daily Attestation survey. In preparation for the safe return of WCM staff to non-clinical workspaces in early July, teams in ITS helped to build the COVID-19 Daily Attestation survey. In addition to the survey itself, the college required a way to track and analyze the answers submitted by staff each day. To meet this need, multiple reports were launched that analyzed the data collected.
Another high priority item that came our way and is relevant to the pandemic was for grant reporting. The requirement was to have the ability to financially separate the projects funded by the CARES Act, which will help determine which sponsored programs were established to support the COVID pandemic. This was necessary for FY2020 Single Audit and also Federal reporting for FY2020. The team completed adding the COVID indicator to multiple reports to support this need.
Another initiative that they’re working that I think is interesting is the Dashboards for Clinical Research. These are the various Metric Requests from clinical research. They would like to view metrics like IRB throughput, clinical research growth (grants, contracts, protocols, publications, etc.) for both COVID and non-COVID.
We’re partnering with the Institutional Reporting Office to build academic and non-academic dashboards. Their office does a lot of external reporting for US news, and provides metrics for use by the senior leadership at Weill Cornell, so partnering with them is obviously a great opportunity for the team.
We also partnering with Physician Organization Financial Services on multiple dashboard solutions, as well as partnering with multiple departments to help set up a foundation for their self-service reporting needs.
But I do have to say, all this is not possible without the support of our extended arm, the Gemini Offshore teams who supports us from India. Also, all the other teams we collaborate with. We have a deep partnership with our functional counterparts within ITS and outside of ITS, Finance, HR, Research Administrative Computing, Education, Research Informatics, Institutional Reporting, PO financial services. The technical teams; Basis, Security, portal and testing, they are our silent warriors (as Barbara says). Other ITS teams who are always willing to help and support; PMO, ESAB, Support, Infrastructure, ITS Security, and the people who help us reach out to our customers, the Training & Communication team. It really takes a village.
We do all work together in a tremendous capacity – it continues to impress me about this department. Let’s get into what your experience has been like this past year as we transitioned to remote work and pandemic living? What are you doing to cope and adjust and make the most of it?
We are in different times now and life has definitely changed.
From a remote work standpoint – last year the team worked on many important initiatives, and l have immense respect for them for the amount of work they have done during this time and I can’t thank them enough. We check in with each other a lot more. I also feel I talk to people whom I work with regularly lot more than before as everyone is really a Teams call away. We try to have team bonding activities. And the credit for arranging them regularly goes to our very own Joey Chow.
However, we do miss the in-person interactions, and Zoom fatigue is real. There are times when we really ask people to take a break, give themselves a day to rejuvenate. I learned from my son’s school-teacher the concept of quick “screen breaks” a couple of times a day where they ask the kids to turn off their camera, and take a break from the device! I think the same applies to us as well.
On a personal level, in terms of coping - people who know me well will tell you that before I was either a workaholic or a homebody (laughs). What I found in the last year, while we had to stay at home for extended periods of time, I have looked for every opportunity to get out. I have tried to spend every weekend since last spring all the way into November hiking in the woods, and going for long walks, spending time with my son, and getting him excited about nature. We went on 22 hikes last year!
I decided to try new things, without overthinking, not sure if that is because of the times we are in, or I’m just getting older. I tried mountain biking which was such a thrilling experience. I loved every minute of it.
I find solace in daily meditation. It really helps me center myself. And lastly, one of the things most dear to me was getting back to dancing. I used to perform when I was young-er and I guess less busy. Over time, I lost touch. So I have tried to bring that back a little into my routine.
Oh wow – are you doing lessons online?
Yeah, I do end up taking lessons online – one of the silver linings of the pandemic, everything is online – some of the classes are offered back in India, like Bollywood or more classical. You’re getting to learn from very good dancers out there.
What is your favorite part about your job?
The creative aspect of working with people to understand what really on one hand are their challenges, and on the other hand looking at what drives people, and then getting both those opposite ends to a point where they meet their respective goals. That’s perhaps the most fulfilling part of what I do. And I also think, getting a team who is much smarter than you is the best thing you can do for yourself. I have a team that is so smart, and they question me, and I say, “I haven’t thought of that.”
You feel like you’re always learning from them?
Always.
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, who are some women you admire and why?
It is very easy to pick celebrities, and talk about the people who have overcome big challenges in life and have become icons either because of their gender or their specific race, or the specific demographic or society that they have come from, so if you ask me there are the obvious one that I look up to, A LOT. And the “who’s who” is there on that list. But, if I really look back to when I was growing up, people who really stand out are, for example, Sarojini Naidu, who was an activist, a proponent of women’s rights, and played an important role in India’s independence. Benazir Bhutto the first woman president of south-Asian country, Pakistan, If you look at their life journey and what they did despite being in the social structure that they had to climb up through, I think those are amazing achievements and it speaks to how much they believed in their values and their goals and what they were able to do to overcome all the challenges they lived through.
But two women who are very close to my heart and inspire me every day, are my mother and mother-in-law. My mom’s ability to hold her own always, in every situation is incredible. And my mother-in-law, who I refer to as Amma, her resilience is unimaginable.