Audit Reports –Your Aspirin to Data Management

Daisy CliftonAdvancement ServicesOregon State University Foundation

Site Facts

The OSU Foundation currently usesEllucian’s Advance client server product.

• On Advance since 1996• Advancement Services – 20 staff• Total number of Users – 173• Semi-centralized maintenance• 444,368 total records• 176,509 living alumni

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Database Metrics

Alumni Lost rate - from15.25% to 1.3%

# of living individuals 372,451

# of Organization records 21,098

# of alumni with e-mail address 46.21%

# of alumni with employment 40.99%

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Topics of Discussion

Why is this important?

Getting Started

Types of Audits

Benefits

Q & A

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Why is this important?

Despite modern improvements, we still rely on data and held back by inaccurate data. Bad data comes from many possible sources but you might want to start your search at the very beginning, with your data entry operators.

Are they properly trained?

Do they have adequate guidelines?

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Getting Started

Know your database well! Armed yourself with knowledge.

Know everything about your data

Understand why certain data elements must be entered a certain way

Understand how/why the tables are inter-related

And, at every opportunity, educate your end-users

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Getting Started – cont..Assess the current status of your data & identify your current resources. Take inventory of your database.

- What is the volume of your mail returns?- What is your alumni lost rate?- How often do you run your NCOA

process?- Have you done an employment/email

append lately?

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Getting Started – cont..Establish & document protocols and business operations. Stay current & communicate!

- Having documentation is a must have

- Training is essential

- Communication is important – staff must know what is expected

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Types of Audit:So where do you start? You decide what’s critical that impacts how you do business. Here’s a few of our list at OSUF.

Addresses (including emails) Phone numbers Names Employment (multiples) Relationships (marriages, parents, children &

others Other attributes – such as events, memberships,

affinities, etc. Lapsed Tasks – due date has passed

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List of Audit Reports

4-Sharing Address Audit

Daily Address Audit

Daily Audit of Relationships

Monthly Email Audits

Daily Employment Audit

Plus many more (12) – contact me for more information

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Audit Reports – 4-SharingThis is a bi-weekly generated audit report.

• Look to find 3 or more individuals who share the same exact address.

• The cleanup consist of verifying that the individuals are related. If not, find a new address for them.

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Audit Reports – Addresses (daily)

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This is an audit report that is generated with every occurrence. Directed at maintenance staff only.

• This audit looks for missing items such as start date, county codes, source, etc.

• The audit is based on established protocols.

• Operators are notified via email when mistakes happen.

Audit Reports – Relationship

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This audit reviews the relationship table and generates a report if invalid reciprocal relationship is found or is blank. There are two different audit reports. One looks at all the person to person relationship and the other one looks at just the Parent/Child relationship.

• Generates a list of the affected data whenever it occurs. This is in the general relationship.

• The Parent/Child relationship looks at the hard-linked Parent/Child relationship but is missing from the relationship table.

Audit Reports – Other entry errors

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The Data Entry Audit looks all the other parts of the database such as employment, names, marital, record type, etc. It looks at Bio, Gifts, Prospect Tracking and the Membership module.

• This report is compiled daily and each director of the affected departments reviews the report and makes sure the problems are corrected.

• The errors vary from incomplete Primary first name, employment indicator is checked but no current employment, etc. Feel free to take a look at the sample report to get an idea.

Reinforce correct protocolsImproved efficiencySpot training opportunitiesCatch mistakes earlyProvide consistency across your

db.It gives you control

Benefits/Impact

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Questions?

Please feel free to email or call me if you have any follow up questions.

Daisy CliftonOSU Foundation

Daisy.Clifton@oregonstate.edu