STL to CJs
“FGI’s work auditing our existing queries has provided invaluable insight into our end users’ behavior and needs.
Coupled with FGI’s nuanced understanding of the wide range of user experience with Configurable Joins, they have equipped us to identify high-impact training areas, which will help us ultimately reduce our workload and empower our end users.”
Helen Williams & Elizabeth Storrs
Tufts University
Query Analysis
Feeling overwhelmed by the idea of migrating hundreds of legacy queries that have accumulated over the years?
With FGI’s Query Analysis, you’ll understand how your team is currently using Slate Template Library queries so you can set them up for success with CJs. FGI will:
Analyze which legacy queries are still run regularly
Identify the exports and filters that appear most frequently
Estimate the complexity of rebuilding those exports and filters
Prioritize queries for migration based on usage and complexity
Avoid distractions and reduce clutter: you’ll learn which queries are truly needed and where to focus your attention to have the most immediate impact.
Customized Query Libraries
Recreate the experience of selecting from a pre-built set of exports and filters using Query Libraries, saving your users clicks—and ensuring consistency.
FGI can provide our standard set of libraries, based on the exports and filters we tend to find are most used, and work with you to adapt them to the unique needs of your institution, from permissioning options to recreating complex custom local export blocks.
Query & Report Building
Need a helping hand with the most critical queries and reports? FGI can rebuild queries and reports for you, validating the results against your legacy versions so you can have confidence that your lists and counts are correct.
When an instance contains many queries that were saved as copies, FGI can perform a similarity analysis using TF-IDF vectors, cosine similarity, and hierarchical clustering to identify clusters of queries where most exports and filters are the same. Don’t duplicate work by rebuilding queries one by one: rebuild representative queries that can serve as templates moving forward.
User Training
While full- or half-day workshops can be a start for certain types of users, we find that query training is a process, with users benefiting from time to reflect on what they’ve learned and bring questions to a future session.
In most cases, the baseline recommendation we make for power users who are not yet comfortable with CJs is to meet once a week for several weeks in groups of fewer than four, working through live examples and sharing their screens as they think through common scenarios together.
FGI’s approach to training emphasizes learning strategies that prompt participants to actively recall information covered in earlier sessions, apply past insights to novel situations, experience common user mistakes, recognize underlying patterns, and reflect on their developing skills. Our goal is to ensure that users feel confident in their Slate knowledge and equipped with the appropriate resources for continuous learning relevant to their role.