Data Standards

Revision 29 Oct. 2004

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. INTRODUCTION

  2. DATA INTEGRITY

  3. record creation guidelines

  4. general person criteria

  5. name standards

  6. address standards

  7. telephone types

  8. APPENDICES

IV.  GENERAL PERSON CRITERIA

A.  GENERAL STANDARDS
B.  DATE STANDARDS
C.  GENDER CODE
D.  PERSON IDENTIFICATION NUMBER
E.  ALTERNATE  IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS
F.  VENDOR (NONPERSON) IDENTIFICATION NUMBER
G.  IDENTIFICATION NUMBER CORRECTIONS:  SEE “HOW TO” APPENDIX

GENERAL STANDARDS
 

  1. The pound sign (#), asterisk (*), and percent sign (%) are NOT to be used in any data field.  These characters are reserved for technical purposes.
     

  2. Commas (,), apostrophes (’), ampersands (&), and periods (.) are NOT to be used in any General Person data field.  (Alumni has created a duplicate address type designated by “A” in order to utilize punctuation for mailing only.)
     

  3. Data is entered using mixed case format (uppercase and lowercase letters) following standard capitalization rules.
     

  4. Abbreviations are often used when entering data.  If you are in doubt about an abbreviation, check the approved list first.  For example, Post Office Box should be entered as: PO Box. The approved lists can be found in Appendices A - C of this document. Weber State University requires that USPS standards be used. If you do not locate an abbreviation, spell the word.  See also http://USPS.com. 
     

  5. Search first, before creating a new record for a person or organization.  Conduct an ID and name search as specified in Section III, Record Creation Guidelines, to make sure the person or organization has not already been entered into the Lynx database.  All offices must conduct a thorough search to prevent entering a duplicate record.
     

  6. Changes to an employee, student, or vendor record will not be made without the proper documentation.


DATE STANDARDS

1.      Date fields appear on forms throughout the Lynx system.

2.      Lynx is set up to accept dates in the format MDY (Month, Day, Year).

3.      All dates should be entered as
MM/DD/YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY or MMDDYYYY
 (e.g., 08/21/2003 or 08-21-2003 or 08212003)

4.      For today’s date, enter a “t”.

5.      For dates within the current month, type just the day and press the Enter key.  Lynx will fill in the month and year.

6.      Lynx will always display the date as DD-MMM-YY no matter how it is entered. 

7.      When a Date is Not Available:  leave the field blank. 

GENDER CODE

A gender code is entered as male, female or not available.

Code

Description

Explanation

M

Male

A male person

F

Female

A female person

N

Unknown/
Non-Responsive

Use when the gender information is not available or if the gender cannot be determined by the name (i.e., Chris, Pat, Terry, etc.)

Note:  All employees MUST be classified as male or female.  ‘N’ is not an allowed entry in Lynx for an employee.  The use of ‘N’ must be minimized in student records as well. Additional research must be made to determine the gender code.

PERSON IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

  1. A nine-character identifier (ID) is used to access a person’s information in Lynx.
     

  2. All new-person records will be assigned a system generated identification number.  Procedures for adding new person records to the system are outlined in Section 3.
     

  3. System generated identifiers (ID) are in the form of W99999999 where 9 represents any digit.  The W sign is a Weber State University-wide defined value.

ALTERNATE  IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS

  1. Social security numbers should NOT be added via the ALTERNATE NAME/ID window on the XXXIDEN form.  This creates a confidentiality breach of security.  To search on Social Security Number, use GUIALTI.
     

  2. For employees, Human Resources has the sole responsibility for changing or adding social security numbers.  For Students SSN can be updated or changed by providing a SSN card at Admissions.  Financial Aid may also change or update a Student SSN when they have been provided with the SSN card.  Please use GUASYST to determine ownership of the person’s record.

Alternate Identification Number Types

Type

Description

Definition of Use

LGCY

LEGACY Identification Number

Used to store the student ID’s from any Legacy System

 

VENDOR (NONPERSON) IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

 

Vendors will be assigned a system generated ID.  Alternate search criteria will be the Federal Identification Number (FIN) or lacking that, the SSN.  The FIN or SSN will be entered on the XXIDEN form.  These fields should not be left blank, nor should they be zero filled or filled with repeating characters.

IDENTIFICATION NUMBER CORRECTIONS:  SEE “HOW TO” APPENDIX

v.  name standards