Verifying Data

One of the most important steps in generating ad hoc reports is verification of the results. Just because your request generates data without syntax errors, doesn't mean the results are correct. You should always test your report requests with a record limit and verify a sample of the data before generating the final report/output. Verification of the results is especially important if you are creating defined fields, using hold files or matching data.

Several resources are available in CIRS to confirm correct results and are discussed below. You can also use other reliable sources of information such as your campus personnel/payroll departments, other campus systems and/or publications from the Chancellor's Office. If you have access to the SCO applications (e.g, PIMS, HIST or CLAS), you can use the inquiry systems to verify the results of your report request.

Compendium Reports

The CIRS compendium contains hundreds of pre-generated reports, that can be used to verify your results. The reports cover a wide range of personnel and payroll data and are available at both the detail and summary level. Use the Search (F9) or the GuideMe (F2) functions to identify reports.

For example, if you are verifying a report containing data for your MPP employees, you could locate a compendium report for MPP employees (e.g., C03) and compare that data to your results.

Quick and Dirty Requests

This method of verifying results is useful when you need more information on a particular field or field value. This method is also useful for testing defines. 'Quick and dirty' reports can be stored as a separate report request in your library, or if you are testing in the online environment, you can issue your report request commands at the caret (>) prompt to quickly generate a report to verify your results.

For example, if you generate a count of employees by sex and the results show one record with a blank value, you can easily identify the specific employee with that coding value by executing the following commands at the prompt (press enter after each line of code).

> TABLE FILE AC

> PRINT AC:WNAME IF AC:SEX EQ ' '

> END

Employment/Payment History Dumps

This is a very reliable method of verifying results for a single employee or small group of employees. The idea of an Employment (EH) or Payment (PY) history dump is to see the data as it exists on the Employment History or the Payment History database. There are several report requests in the common library that you can use 'as-is' or that you can copy to your library and modify. Refer to HSTSUMRY, PIMSSCRN, PAYSUMRY and HISTSCRN.

To get an employment or payment history dump, the steps would be as follows:

Create a EH or PY extract file for the SSA(s) you are verifying.
Test the resulting extract file for employees with data overflow.
Generate a report using the EH or PY extract file.