A healthy data lifecycle
for Groceryrama and GreenVillage requires a robust monitoring and
reporting system. The data needs to be consistently monitored so that
it remains fit-for-purpose for your organization. Why is this so critically
important? You just spent time, energy, and resources to get your
systems to a point where the business users have a consistent and
validated view of your organization. Is it not time to just enjoy
the success of all this effort?
Actually, the opposite
is true. Very few organizations are static. They are forever growing
and evolving. For example, you add new partners that bring new data
to the table. Your business changes, sales regions are created or
modified, you take on new initiatives, and you develop new products.
All of these changes must be reflected in your data, which makes the
evaluate phase so important.
Your mantra for success
at this point needs to be as follows:
-
Monitor: Data
should be monitored and validated as it enters your organization to
verify it is meeting your rules. Those rules need to be constantly
monitored to ensure they are still meeting the needs of your business.
-
Review: Efforts
in discovery, design, and execution enable you to consolidate the
rules and requirements into a single environment.
-
Optimize: With
the ability to centralize the required data management rules, the
changes can be immediately propagated across the organization, without
duplication of effort.
DataFlux Web Studio,
SAS Business Data Network, SAS Visual Analytics and Reporting, and
SAS Lineage are key applications in this stage. Broadly speaking,
these applications help you keep track of your data management architecture
and ensure that you and your coworkers share a common understanding
of its component parts.
DataFlux Web Studio
includes the DataFlux Monitor Viewer and Dashboard Viewer, which provide
web interfaces for viewing exceptions to monitored business rules.
It also contains the Reference Data Manager, which provides a web
interface for creating and managing reference data. Some examples
of reference data included are a list of valid values for a Gender
field and a list of valid ZIP codes with their associated cities and
states.
SAS Business Data Network
enables you to manage business terms. You can set up workflows and
establish relationships between terms and processes. These tasks promote
a common understanding of the key concepts and practices used in an
enterprise.
SAS Visual Analytics
and Reporting provides visualization and reporting capabilities to
help you visualize your data, level of data health, and remediation
issues. You can also share information using the in-memory capabilities
of the SAS LASR Analytic Server.
SAS Lineage lets you
view your data and relationships between your data objects. It can
use a dedicated SAS relationship service to view a wide variety of
data objects including most types of SAS metadata and data taken from
third-party sources. It can generate a network diagram that displays
all available relationships or specialized impact analysis diagrams.
It includes powerful search and filtering tools so that you can see
exactly the data that you need.
You can use the processes
in the monitor stage to test the efficacy of the work that you have
done in the earlier stage. Then you can prepare for the additional
work that you need to keep your data current and relevant. This stage
requires an ongoing commitment to the quality and utility of the data
management practices of your organization.