1. Identify Data Systems

Identify where your department stores data

Your data may be housed in a variety of places - for example, in information systems or databases or in 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 and where did that information come from?

Add your data systems to our excel template:

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

• Here is an example of what a completed template looks like

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! Next, you will identify datasets within your data system.