In late 2002 the Office of Institutional Research (OIR) at Purdue University began to seriously consider building a Web-based reporting system. Purdue had launched its first strategic plan the previous year and was under the leadership of a very data-driven president; unit-level (colleges, schools, administrative areas, departments, majors) data requests and needs had increased as a result. During conceptualization, OIR set two primary goals for the Web-based reporting system: to easily provide for many of the unit-level reporting needs (with the hope of reducing the OIR ad hoc reporting burden) and to provide much-needed standardization of the data extracted (units using the same data definitions and time stamps). The system would be designed so that extracted information could be added to official totals whenever possible, enabling consistency in unit-level reports and strategic plans. This article explores the political and technical challenges posed in launching a Web-based reporting system, along with lessons learned over four years of operation. (Contains 10 figures.)