In this blog post we will discuss the importance of open access to the data about data. Having staff access to data about data should be part of the data governance and data-driven culture at your organization. One requirement for this requires the data about data to be severed from the data and the developer tools. We will also discuss why the non-report developer staff need access to the data about data.
Who
IData believes in the importance of having a data governance knowledge base (including the data about data) that is open and accessible to as many people within your organization as possible. The reality is that metadata or data about data is critical information for any data related project.
Data about the data is not just needed by your database administrators or report developers. They get enormous value by having access to the data about data. You want to create as much self-service as possible (saving staff time). Some of your data users or staff members need access to the data about data so that they do not funnel questions around where something exists in the tables to very busy or high-cost kind of technical resources. This is not a very efficient technique or, even more importantly, can prevent your staff from even knowing what is possible without having access to this data about data.
Educate your staff, as they might not know how:
- to ask for information
- to ask for access to data
- to ask for a report because they do not know what exists
- to ask where the data in the report came from
- to ask what data systems are accessed in the reports
- to ask for what data systems are available with information that might be valuable to them
Provide the staff with education and point of engagements where they can ask their questions. Having a data request process in place assigned to knowledgeable data stewards is critical. And having staff see information about reports (specifications about reports or a data processing catalog) and data systems is important. You understand why data about data would be important to a report developer but think about extending this data about data to a much broader set of users. If you are working with a SQL database to figure out what is going on in all the tables, you need to have access to an administrative tool that often pairs access with the actual ability to query the data. Most of the concern is around getting access to a data system that they should not see. It is important to note that it is okay to broaden the access.
It is okay for them to know about the existence of the data because they may be able to request a report so that they can make better decisions. If they do not have access or if they do not know that it exists or are not able to look at that data about data, then that is a problem.
Sever Tie
Access to the data about data has often been paired with access to the data. This is why you want to sever the tie between the data and the data about data. Once you have severed the tie, let the staff know about the new access to data about data and control access. Allow staff to have open access to the data about data with an entry point to request access to the known data. Unfortunately, having access to data about data usually means having access to developer tools such as SQL developer. Of course, you do not want to give all your staff access to these developer tools from a cost and security point of view. You want to sever the data about data from your developer tools and have this information in another tool such as the Data Cookbook. By doing this your report writer and staff member who are trying to do self-service reporting both can have access.
Staff must know what data systems exist. Therefore, it is necessary to have an inventory of data systems at your organization. You must know who to ask to get access to a particular data system. If you are lucky there is online documentation available. Maybe there is something provided by these vendors.
For online access to data about data in developer tools, what would a non-developer have to do? Maybe something like this:
- Request access to data system and receive permission to do so, along with the appropriate information to access.
- Install some VPN or remote desktop software on their computer.
- Determine which tool to use for the data about data and get access. Maybe they are going to get SQL developer or SQL server management studio or some other tool that they can install locally and hook up to this data system.
- After developer tool installation and configuration, an individual will start poking around and realize it gives them access to more data and more data about data than they need. And not have the necessary context they need. They can see all the tables. But they do not understand what this “ABCXYZ” table is. There is supplemental information or curated information that is not always there in the developer tool documentation. This additional information is usually found in a data governance and data intelligence solution like the Data Cookbook.
The above is probably too much effort for a normal data user and is a barrier to access.
IData understands the real security concerns around the data. Severing the access to the data about data from the access to the data by tool and by policy is incredibly helpful. One of the things that we have discovered over time is that there are technical people, developers, and DBAs who are competent in their own skills. They have been doing this for a long time. But they do not understand how difficult this is for the average person to go through these hoops. That is why severing the ties with the data is important.
Culture
You want to create a data governance culture within your organization. If you are not helping to facilitate the use of data, then you are standing in the way of that goal. A data governance culture requires that staff have access to the data about the data. Having clean, high-quality data, from a central source, and with clear data about data, is ineffective if staff cannot access it. Data-driven organizations tend to provide access wherever the data about data can help. These organizations foster a culture whereby individuals know what data is available, have a good data dictionary in place, and have staff that are comfortable requesting access as well as asking questions. This does not mean handing over the keys to all the data to all the staff
Assess the needs of staff members, not just the report developers and key decision makers, across the whole organization, out to the front-line of operations. It is the customer service agent dealing with an angry customer on shipment, or a warehouse worker facing a pallet of damaged product, who can leverage data immediately to determine the best next steps. If suitably empowered, they are in the best position to resolve a situation, determine changes to a workflow or handle a customer complaint. An organization needs appropriate approval and oversight processes in place so that data access can easily be revoked. Allow staff to get access without jumping through too many hoops. With broader access, and more users of analytical tools, the organization will need to commit to providing training and support.
We hope that we have conveyed the importance of allowing staff access to the data about data. Feel free to view our video titled “Value of Open Access to Data Catalog and the Data Knowledge Chasm”.
IData has a solution, the Data Cookbook, that can aid the employees and the organization in its data governance and data intelligence efforts including data requests. IData also has experts that can assist with data governance, reporting, integration, and other technology services on an as needed basis. Feel free to contact us and let us know how we can assist.
(image credit StockSnap_Z1TKDI29FZ_KeyOpenDoor_AccessDataAboutData_BP #1242)
