RAE Beta Updates

Lonnie Morgan | January 6, 2020
As the Data and Analytics team continues to march towards the full go-live launch of the RAE in July 2020, we are incrementally updating the Beta version of the new environment. This week, we are making a few updates to refine the data and processes that were a part of the Soft Launch in August 2019. In summary, the following changes were applied to the RAE Production environment:
  • Renamed the database schemas that contained the soft launch datasets according to a new naming standard. All schemas that contain data for user consumption will now be prefixed with "data_" and have a suffix that represents the layer of the RAE that it covers. For example, base data from SIMS that lives within the Bronze layer will be called data_sims_brz. Whereas, views and tables that represent value-added Silver layer datasets will be stored in data_sims_slv. Accordingly, all security configurations that were in place for these schemas will be updated to reflect the new schema names. The following schemas have been renamed as a part of this month's update:
 etravel
 data_etravel_brz
   oesar_dbo
 data_oesar_brz
   sims
 data_sims_brz
   sungard_dbo
 data_sungard_brz
   ps_hr
 data_ps_hr_brz
   ps_fin
 data_ps_fin_brz
Note: that table name changes will have occurred with the SIMS dataset. In the previous iteration of the RAE, Bronze tables were prefixed with "b_" before each table. With this update, all Bronze tables will now live in their own schema, data_<sys>_brz, there was no need to include a prefix on the table name. Thus, if you were referencing a SIMS table through your READ schema as: read99999999.sims__b_snbuildings_main, the new name of the table is now: read99999999.data_sims_brz__vw_snbuildings
  • In coordination with the schema name changes, the three Tableau Data Sources that were deployed as part of the soft launch in August 2019, will be updated to point to the relocated datasets. There should be no impact to the users of these data sources, as all columns, attributes, and measures within the TDS will not be affected. The following Enterprise TDS have been republished (note: folder path is included):
    • Enterprise > Cross Functional > Reference > SL CERT OSU Building Data (SIMS)
    • Enterprise > Payroll > Time & Absence > SL CERT Sick Balance for Terminated Employees
    • Enterprise > Student > Enrollment > SL CERT Degrees Conferred (OESAR)
  • A key goal of the RAE is to provide consistent and regular updates of data. While the majority of the datasets loaded during the soft launch in August 2019 were one-time demonstration loads, our intention was to enable SIMS to be refreshed daily. With the January update, this is now in affect. Each night, the SIMS dataset within the RAE will be updated from the source systems within the Facilities department. The Bronze layer tables will contain the most current view of the SIMS data. With this change, we are also introducing a new History layer set of datasets, data_sims_hst. The History layer datasets within the RAE will contain all versions of a particular dataset as it changes over time. This will allow users to go back in time to see previous snapshots of data if needed for reporting. For more information about using data in the History layer, please contact the RAE Team at CIO-RAE-Admin@osu.edu.
Tags: 
RAE, Data and Analytics