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Data Cleansing Module User Guide

December 2014 1

Adviser Office

Data Cleansing Module

User Guide

www.iress.com

December 2014


December 2014 2

Contents

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

Important Notes ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Setup and User Permissions ......................................................................................................................... 4

Launching the Data Cleansing Module ........................................................................................................ 5

Running a Health Check ................................................................................................................................. 6

The Dashboard ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Records with Potential Issues ........................................................................................................................ 7

Committing Changes ..................................................................................................................................... 11

Unused Title Files .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Conflicted Ownership Issues ....................................................................................................................... 16

Client Groups ................................................................................................................................................. 17

Refreshing Tests ............................................................................................................................................ 18

© 2014 IRESS


December 2014 3

Introduction

The Data Cleansing module helps you cleanse your data and keep it clean.

When data is entered into a system it begins to degrade and keeping it clean can be a big task. This module

helps you get on top of that task and more importantly, keep on top of that task.

Routinely using this module as part of your business as usual processes will enable you to keep you data in

good order and good data means that you will get better reporting and more value from the system.

Important Notes

It is imperative that you have a current backup of your main database before committing any

changes within the Data Cleansing module.

If you do not have a current backup when you come to commit the changes, or at any other time during your

cleansing exercise, you can close the Data Cleansing module. This will not lose any of the amendments that

have not been processed and will present these fixes the next time you go back into the module.

It is also important to understand that the changes are stored on a local computer before they are committed.

If a user logs in to the Data Cleansing module the second time elsewhere, they will not find their changes

ready to go as these will remain on the original local computer. Similarly if a second user logs in on the first

PC, they will find the first set of changes made ready for committing.


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Setup and User Permissions

The Data Cleansing module gives users the ability to change/delete a number of records in one process

from the main database. For this reason we recommend that you limit access to this module to just the

system administrator or system supervisor, or to someone in your business that understands how you

classify unit prices, schemes, managers etc.

Please note that whoever you give access to

must not be restricted by branch or division. In

other words they must have full visibility of the

whole database and not a subset of the main

database.

Access to the Data Cleansing module is

granted through the User Details, Module

Access screen.

To access this screen, from the Taskbar select Database Administration > Display > User Monitor > and

select the user. In the example below I have selected Supervisor. Once the user has been selected, click on

Module Access and tick the option for Data Cleansing.

Once access to the module has been granted the Taskbar will need

to be configured.

Select the Taskbar and then Customise Taskbar. Under Maintain

Adviser Office scroll down and select the option for Data Cleansing

This will then display the Data Cleansing option on the Taskbar through

Maintain Adviser Office > Data Cleansing.


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Launching the Data Cleansing Module

When launching the module for the first time the following prompt is displayed:

This means that this is the first

time the user has accessed the

module so needs to manually run

a health check on the database. It

also reminds the user that a

backup of the database is required

before any changes can be

committed.

Important Note: - Please note

that the health checks do not automatically run when the module is opened. This is because databases can

vary in size and if the database is large, it could take a long time for the health check process to run. For

that reason we allow users to manually select when they would like to run these checks taking into account

their network traffic.

Some users on opening the module may also be presented with the following message.

This means that the user who has been granted access to this module has been restricted by Branch or

Division. As per the permissions policy set out

above, the user needs visibility of the whole

database in order to use the Data Cleansing

module.


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Running a Health Check

There are two ways to run a health check:-

For the whole database - to run a health check for the whole database click on the icon in the top

menu bar, this will then pre prepopulate the data and return potential issues. Please note that this option

could take some time depending on the size of your database.

For a specific category within the database - to run a health check for a certain category of records on the

database click on the icon in the top menu bar. If the icon is greyed out then please select the category

from the left hand menu that you wish to run the heath check against. For example select Clients option

from the left hand menu and the icon will be displayed.

When running a health check for the whole database, clicking the icon in the top menu will display the

following screen.

To begin the test, click on the Start option. This will run

through the health check tests

A total number of issues found are displayed. Select Close to view these issues on the dashboard.


December 2014 7

The Dashboard

Once the health check test is closed, the dashboard screen is shown displaying the potential

issues with the records on the database.

Records with Potential Issues

The first section of the dashboard looks at the records with potential issues. These are broken

down by the following categories.

Clients

Activities

Policies

Unit Prices

Schemes

Documents

The dials show the number of potential issues per category, based on the number of records entered.


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By clicking on one of the dials, a breakdown of the issues is displayed to the right of the screen. This tells

you what/where the issue is located and how many items are affected.

Important Note: - The unique record count dial totals will not match the invalid items totals in the

breakdowns screen. This is because a client may have several issues with a piece of data that in return

affects more than one row of data. For example a client record may have a ‘Client without a valid Client

Type’ and also has an ‘invalid Client Agreement Type’

To clear these issues the user will need to select the relevant category from the left hand menu. In the

following screenshot the category of ‘Clients’ has been selected.

The top part of this screen displays the tests that have been run and shows the number of invalid items that

have been found. By highlighting a test, a description of what needs to be corrected is displayed in a text box

to the right of the screen. A lists of the records affected are then also displayed below.

Important Note – It is good practice to read the description displayed to understand why the issue has

occurred and how to resolve it.

Users will now need to work through the list displayed to clear the issues.


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In this example these clients have no valid Client Type so one needs to be applied. There are various

options on how to deal with this depending on your requirements and these are highlighted for this example

below:

Autofill

This will apply a default to all the clients in the list. Choose your selection on the Autofill Default list and then

click Select All.

Manual Selection

Click on the row for a client and select the type you wish to apply to that particular record. This will need to

be repeated for each client record individually.

Applying a default to multiple clients but not all

In the example above you may have 10 clients you wish to apply the Client Type ‘Personal’ to and another

10 you wish to apply ‘Corporate’ to. You can achieve this by selecting the default at the top e.g. ‘Personal’

and ticking all the clients you wish to apply this default to, then change the default to an alternative selection

e.g. ‘Corporate’ and tick the remaining clients.

None

By selecting None it removes all of the ticks. This means that nothing will be updated but it leaves behind

any data selections for future sessions.

Clear All

Clear All removes all ticks and all selections, to take you back to your original starting point.


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Important Note: There is an option to export these lists to Excel by using the export to Excel option

which is located in the top toolbar menu

.

By selecting this option the results of the test highlighted will be exported to the following location.

From this location the Excel spreadsheet can be printed.


December 2014 11

Committing Changes

Once all issues have been resolved, the changes will need to be committed to the database.

Up until this point the changes are stored on a local computer before they are committed. If a user logs in to

the Data Cleansing module the second time elsewhere, they will not find their changes ready to go as these

will remain on the original local computer. Similarly if a second user logs in on the first PC, they will find the

first set of changes made ready for committing.

To commit the changes select the

commit changes icon from the top

menu bar.

The following screen is displayed

The message reminds the user that an up-to-date backup of the database should be taken before

committing any changes. These changes are irreversible so it is imperative that a backup is taken and ideally

users should also be logged out at the point of running this wizard.

Important Note: If the user does not have a current backup, they can cancel this screen and close the Data

Cleansing module. This will not lose any of the fixes made, and will present these fixes when the user next

logs back into the module.

If a current backup has been taken then user should tick the checkbox and select Next,


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This screen will confirm the number of fixes

that will be applied. To run these, select the

Apply Fixes tab.

Select OK and Finish. The

test screen is updated and

now displays the items that

have been fixed under the

relevant Fixed Items

column.

Please note that these items will still appear in the Invalid Items column until a new health check test has

been run.

To run a health check test just this category click on the

icon. The following message is displayed


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The Data Cleansing module recognizes that a test has already been run for the Clients Category and asks if

you wish to re – run the tests. This will overwrite the existing results displayed. Select Yes and run the test.

Close the test and the health check test for clients has now

been updated and the screen has refreshed to show that the

Clients without a valid Client Type have been cleared and the

dashboard dial is also updated.

Users should now work through the category headings to resolve any potential issues with the database.


December 2014 14

Unused Title Files

The unused title files section on the Dashboard displays a graphical analysis of those title files

that are in use and those that are not. In other words those title files that are not attached to anything.

If these title files are not in use then they can be deleted from the database.

By hovering over a bar on the graph it breaks down the numbers that are in and not in use.

To work through these fixes click on

the ‘Remove Unused Items’ heading

on the left hand menu. This opens up

the screen for the user to select a title

file category.

In this example Managers has been

selected.


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If the user is happy that the Managers are not in use, they can click the Select All option to delete all, or

manually tick the ones that need to be deleted.

Once the Managers have been selected, the process for committing the changes needs to be followed.

Please see the relevant section earlier in this guide on how to commit changes.


December 2014 16

Conflicted Ownership Issues

The conflicted ownership issues on the dashboard looks for data where the record/policy is set

to joint or partner, but no partner record exists.

Please note that some of these issues maybe valid, for example an asset maybe jointly held but the partner

is not recorded against the client record on Adviser Office. However this will show as an issue on the

dashboard as a check for the user to ensure that this is the case.

To work through these fixes click on the ‘Ownership Issues’ heading on the left hand menu. This opens up

the screen to resolve the issues.


December 2014 17

The top part of this screen displays the tests that have been run and shows the number of invalid items that

have been found. By highlighting a test, a description of what needs to be corrected is displayed in a text box

to the right of the screen. A lists of the records affected are then also displayed below.

Important Note – It is good practice to read the description displayed to understand why the issue has

occurred and how to resolve it.

Users will now need to work through the list displayed to clear the issues.

In this example there is a problem with a mortgage showing for this client that is set to joint where no partner

record exists. To fix this, tick the box and then following the instructions set out in this guide to commit

changes.

The dashboard will update next time the health check tests are run and the conflicted ownership issues

section will reflect the changes that have been committed.

Client Groups

It is possible to run the data cleansing module by Client Group.

To do this, select the Client Group icon from the top menu bar prior to selecting the run test options.

This will then limit the health checks to that client group.


December 2014 18

Refreshing Tests

In the image below, a series of tests are shown in grey type rather than the black you may

expect. This indicates that the tests were run several days ago, and consequently may be out of date.

The refreshing of tests is done on demand, rather than automatically, because running them all may take

some time depending on the size of your database.

There are two ways to refresh the data. Firstly, on the tool bar, there are two icons showing pairs of arrows,

one in blue and one red. Clicking the blue arrow will refresh the test group that you are currently looking at.

Clicking the red one will refresh all groups.

Secondly, as with all toolbar commands, there are equivalent

options in the menu bar.


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