Key to the success of this project was the development of a data quality process that assured data were accurate. The need for a data quality review process was particularly cogent as the workbooks did not have data filtering and relational integrity controls; controls that are routinely built into contemporary information systems.
An unexpected, but welcome outcome of this project was an overall improvement in the ongoing data transcription effort. Errors detected in data entry through data filtering programs were managed and reported back to the data entry team. This feedback, previously unavailable, allowed for rapid corrective actions and improved the quality of the data entry effort in “real time”, as well preventing “bad data” from entering final-destination database tables.
Another objective of this project was to be able to provide the client with statistical summaries of the aggregated data; that is, to provide information about the data which were being collected. Traditional queries, views and SQL reporting tools were developed to establish various views and summaries about the data that could then be used by the client. As a result of the efforts undertaken, the government agency discovered that the data which had been collected had several uses beyond their original scope and that they were of immediate benefit for other related projects.