When I started overseeing the Office of Institutional Research, it was a one-person shop with support from Information Technology (IT) and the Registrar. The teams were steady but shared cross-campus priorities, so every new request forced a choice: What could we automate, templatize, or say no to? I learned quickly that a solo IR office isn’t a disadvantage; it’s an invitation to design a right-sized toolkit and to work in the open. Below is the exact playbook that helped reduce fire drills, improve data quality, and deliver results that leaders could act on. Everything here is low-cost or free, and all of it is adaptable to your context.

Why This Matters for Lean IR Teams

Small shops juggle compliance, survey administration, accreditation evidence, executive dashboards, and ad‑hoc analysis often without dedicated data engineers or report developers. The right mix of tools and habits turns a one‑person office into a high‑leverage function. Think fewer manual steps, consistent outputs, and faster turnarounds with the exact headcount.

The Solo IR Stack (What I Actually Use)

Intake and Triage

• Forms (Google/Microsoft) for a single front door to IR: Request purpose, audience, due date, data sensitivity.
• Canned email responses that clarify scope, definitions, and standard timelines. (Tip: Publish these timelines on your site.)
• Shared inbox labels or rules so IT/Registrar can see and tag items that require their input.

Lightweight Data Storage and Collaboration

• Airtable/SmartSuite (entry tiers) to track requests and hold small, curated datasets (with fields for data owner and refresh cadence).
• SharePoint or Google Drive with clear folder stages: 01_raw → 02_clean → 03_published.
• Metabase (open source) or Looker Studio for shareable charts when licenses are tight.

Analysis Environment

• R or Python with Jupyter/VS Code for reproducible scripts and scheduled jobs.
• A simple, repeatable project layout: /data-raw, /data-clean, /scripts, /outputs.
• GitHub or campus Git for version control (private repos for sensitive work).

Dashboards and Briefing Materials

• Power BI (campus license where available) for executive dashboards with 3–5 high‑value visuals per page. (Tips: Add a one-sentence “So what?” under each visual to drive action and minimize follow‑up emails. Include metric definitions and data refresh dates directly on the dashboard.)

Automation and Orchestration

• Zapier/Make for no-code triggers (form submit → tracker → Teams/Slack post).
• n8n (self‑hosted) when needing more control and on‑prem options.
• Windows Task Scheduler or cron to run R/Python scripts nightly or weekly.

Documentation and Knowledge Base

• Notion or Confluence for SOPs, a metric glossary, and runbooks.
• One‑page runbooks for recurring outputs: Inputs, owner, steps, schedule, QA checks.

Templates You Can Steal

• IR Intake Form: Fields for purpose, timeline, sensitivity (FERPA), and decision-maker.
• One‑Page Runbook: Purpose, source tables, business rules, QA checklist, refresh schedule.
• Metric Definition Sheet: Name, definition, inclusion/exclusion rules, data owner, update cadence.
• Executive Brief Template: One-page summary with three visuals, three takeaways, and one decision prompt.
• Survey Report Template: Methods, response profile, top findings, recommendations, appendix.

Five Automations That Changed My Week

1. Intake → Tracker → Teams: New requests post to a tracker with tags (unit, priority) and ping a shared channel.
2. Nightly CSV Cleanup: Script standardizes term codes, dedupes IDs, and flags FERPA‑sensitive columns.
3. Survey Close‑Out Pack: On survey close, auto‑generate a deck shell with charts and a narrative scaffold.
4. Refresh and Drift Alerts: If a source field changes or a job fails, send an alert with a link to the runbook.
5. Pre‑Refresh Nudges: Before dashboards refresh, ping data owners to confirm assumptions or add a note.

A One‑Month Rollout Plan (Minimal Lift)

Week	Focus	Deliverables
Week 1	Single Front Door	Live intake form; canned responses; SLA page; shared labels with IT/Registrar.
Week 2	Automation and Cleanup	Nightly cleanup script; intake → tracker → chat notifications.
Week 3	Dashboards	One executive page (3 KPIs) with definitions and refresh date.
Week 4	Docs and Templates	Runbooks for two recurring reports, metric glossary, and publishing checklist.

Pro tip: Hold a 30‑minute weekly ‘IR Office Hours’ with IT and Registrar. We preview changes, surface blockers, and celebrate small wins. It builds trust and reduces surprise requests.

What We Learned

Being small pushed me to be clear: what’s the decision, what’s the minimum insight that supports it, and what can be automated? With a lean stack, reusable templates, and a few humble automations, a one‑person IR office can deliver steady, credible value—and still leave on time.

---