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Edition: 14 February 2001
D.3 SPECIFIC STEPS INVOLVED IN PREPARING THE STAFF DATA
It is recommended that
institutions adhere to the following sequence of steps in the order shown when
preparing the returns required for the staff collection:
3.1 Prepare, import, validate and assure the quality of the
data required for the Staff Profile table
The detailed steps involved in
respect of the Staff Profile table are:
(a) From the institution's production database outside the
VALPAC.Net environment, prepare the ASCII
file containing the data to be imported into the relevant VALPAC.Net Access
table.
(b) Place the file in the correct folder on the PC that VALPAC.Net
is installed on. Folder details are
given in Section L.
(c) Use VALPAC.Net to import
the data from the file into the VALPAC.Net Access table.
(d) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the validation report for the
table. Identify any FATAL errors. Evaluate WARNING errors and identify any data
conditions that need to be fixed. The
validation rules that VALPAC.Net checks are shown in Section
K.
(e) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the distribution report for the
table. Inspect the report and identify
any data conditions that need to be fixed.
(f) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the Staff Profile Summary Report. Inspect the data in this report and identify
any data conditions that need to be fixed.
(g) Fix any errors in the data.
It is advisable to fix the errors in the production database outside
VALPAC.Net, and then go back to step (a).
However, errors may also be fixed using VALPAC.Net's editor facility. If you use that editor to fix errors, then
loop back to Step (d). If VALPAC.Net's
editor is used to fix errors in the table, the user may wish to generate an
ASCII file that will contain the corrected data. This ASCII file is not required by the
Department, but it may be useful for the institution to have for other
purposes. This ASCII file can be
generated using VALPAC.Net's File / Export function.
3.2 Prepare, import, validate and assure
the quality of the data required for the Staff FTE table
Because
some edit validations check relationships between the Staff Profile table and
the Staff FTE table, validation of the Staff FTE table can only be fully
completed after there is a clean Staff Profile table available. When it is available, these steps must be undertaken
in respect of the Staff FTE table:
(a) From the institution's production database outside the
VALPAC.Net environment, prepare the ASCII
file containing the data to be imported into the relevant VALPAC.Net Access
table.
(b) Place the file in the correct folder on the PC that
VALPAC.Net is installed on. Folder
details are given in Section
L.
(c) Use VALPAC.Net to import
the data from the file into the VALPAC.Net Access table.
(d) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the validation report for the table. Identify any FATAL errors. Evaluate WARNING errors and identify any data
conditions that need to be fixed. The
validation rules that VALPAC.Net checks are shown in Section
K.
(e) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the distribution report for the
table. Inspect the report and identify
any data conditions that need to be fixed.
(f) Use VALPAC.Net to generate the Staff FTE Summary Report. Inspect the report and identify any data
conditions that need to be fixed.
(g) Fix any errors in the data.
This may require errors to be fixed in the Staff Profile table. If errors were fixed in respect of that
table, the import, validation and quality assurance steps detailed for them
would need to be undertaken again.
(h) It is advisable to fix the errors in the production
database outside VALPAC.Net, and then go back to step (a). However, errors may also be fixed using VALPAC.Net's editor facility. If you use that editor to fix errors in
the table, then loop back to Step
(d). If VALPAC.Net's editor is used to
fix errors in the Staff FTE table, the user may wish to generate an ASCII file
that will contain the corrected data.
This ASCII file is not required by the Department, but it may be useful
for the institution to have for other purposes.
This ASCII file can be generated using VALPAC.Net's
File / Export function.
3.3 Generate the encrypted compressed
return and send it to the Department
When you are satisfied with the
quality of the data in all the Access tables:
(a) Use the VALPAC.Net function to generate a compressed file in ZIP format, containing
the institution's Access database plus the validation reports. The database and reports are encrypted. You will need to specify an encryption key at
the time that VALPAC.Net requests it.
(b) Send the compressed file to the Departmental contact person
specified in Section C via ftp (File Transfer
Protocol)