Spring Data Cleaning Reminder

As we approach the beginning of Spring, we would like to remind members to complete the following data cleaning tasks to efficiently maintain your records and keep track of any Student duplications, which will ease the burden of end-of-year cleaning.

Members can use the HEAT Data Cleaning tools to check that Activities have been added correctly, in line with the Database Activity Typology (members only), and Students required for tracking are complete. Regular reviews are recommended as clean data is essential for accurate internal and national reporting, including tracking.

Recommended Data Cleaning Checklist

• Activity record search filters: Review the Activity record search filters to clean your data, and easily identify erroneous or missing records. Records can be amended either within the database or by using the import function to make bulk changes. Links to the Activity search filters can be found within the Data Management and Cleaning User Guide  (members only).
• Duplicate Student records: Check for potential duplicate Student records using the Duplicate Clean tool (members only). This feature is only available to Users with the relevant database permissions.
• Data Collection summary: Review the database Data Collection tab (members only) for an overall summary of the quality of your data, and identify any missing or invalid information which may impact tracking. This feature is only available to Users with the relevant database permissions.
• Student record ‘Complete’ field: Check Student data is accurate on their record and the fields required to submit the individual for tracking are populated so the record is ‘Complete’. Members can search for ‘Complete’ Student records using the filter on the database.
• Student record ‘Expected Higher Education Entry Year’ field: Check Students are assigned the correct ‘Expected HE Entry Year’ on their record, as this field will determine when a student is expected to progress to higher education, and therefore when they are entered into the HESA Track by HEAT. Members with the relevant Role can use the Student HESA Tracking tab on the database to return a grid of Student records which are marked as complete, have permission to be tracked and are expected to be included in the next HESA Track.

The Data Management and Cleaning User Guide (members only) contains comprehensive guidance which can help support you maintain clean records on the system.