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IBIS-Q System Documentation - Updating With New Years

Updating Modules With New Years

In general datasets will be updated annually. This page will describe the basic procedure for updating a query module with a new year of data. In general the following steps need to be taken (order is not important):
  1. Add the new year to the year dimension file or dimension files if there is more than one year selection for the module. For example, if single years, three year groups and five year groups are available as selections in the module file then you need to add the new year to all three of these dimension files. For example: 
    <DIMENSION>
	<NAME>YearGrp3_99-Pres</NAME>
	<TITLE>3-Year Groups</TITLE>
	<DESCRIPTION>3-Year Groups, 1999 through present</DESCRIPTION>
	<PROXY_DIMENSION_NAME>YearProxy</PROXY_DIMENSION_NAME>
	<VALUES>
		<VALUE>1999-2000</VALUE>
		<VALUE>2001-2003</VALUE>
		<VALUE>2004-2006</VALUE>
		<VALUE>.<TITLE>Total</TITLE><NOT_ASSOCIATED_FLAG/></VALUE>
	</VALUES>
</DIMENSION>
  2. If the default selection is set to the most recent year then change the default to the new year. This is done in the SELECTED_DIMENSIONS tag within the year SECTION tag. For example: 
    <SELECTED_DIMENSIONS>
	<SELECTED_DIMENSION>
		<NAME>YearProxy</NAME>
		<VALUES><VALUE>Year99-Pres</VALUE></VALUES>
	</SELECTED_DIMENSION>
	<SELECTED_DIMENSION>
		<NAME>Year99-Pres</NAME>
		<VALUES><VALUE>2006</VALUE></VALUES>
	</SELECTED_DIMENSION>
</SELECTED_DIMENSIONS>
  3. If year is a dynamic variable then add the new year to the group file. For example, if YearGrp3 is a dynamic variable then add the new year to the YearGrp3.grp file. 
    1 1999-2000
2 2001-2003
3 2004-2006
  4. If the years for the denominator data are limited in the configuration file then change the data limits to reflect the new year. For example: 
    r pop_where 1999<=dthyr<=2006
  5. If there are measures that do not have data for the new year (very common with survey data) then:
    1. exclude the new year from that measure by using the CRITERIA tag within CONFIGURATION tag of the query module file. For example: 
      <CRITERIA>
	<EXCLUSIONS>
		<SELECTIONS>
			<SELECTION>
				<NAME>Year</NAME>
				<VALUE>2006</VALUE>
			</SELECTION>
			. . .
    2. exclude the year from the function file for that measure. For example: 
      f data_where year>=1999
or
f data_where year&in&(2004,2005)

      In the case of surveys the years may already be limited in the function file (as in the second example above) and the new year will need to be added to each function file that has data for the new year.
  6. Test to make sure that the appropriate years show up on the query builder page and the results page.