1. Identify Data Systems

Identify where your department stores data

Your data may be housed in a variety of places - from inside information systems or databases to shared drives and folders. This can also include 3rd party vendors and data hosted on vendor systems.

Questions to help identify and discover data sources:

• What information systems does your department use?

• What databases does your department use?

• What applications capture information or are used in your business processes?

• Are some data resources kept in spreadsheets (on shared or individual drives)?

• What information are we already publishing and where did that information come from?

For each of the data system:

• Create a list of data systems using this attached template ("Systems Inventory" tab)

• We have an example template here

What counts as a data system?

See "what is an enterprise data system?"

By filling out this form, you are completing the first step of the data inventory - Inventorying your data systems!