Changes

==Data Types==__NOEDITSECTION__===Core Data===__NOEDITSECTION__In the IMSMA^NG {{IMSMANG}} information model, items are the containers for core data, such as mine action core data. An item is an area, activity or event that a mine action programme records information about and stores in IMSMA^NG{{IMSMANG}}. There are six categories of items, which are described in the table below. Each category can be characterized characterised by a type that reflects whether the item is designed to track process or activity information or the object or product of an activity. 

| HazardLand| Information about an area affected by a hazard

| Hazard reduction activityActivity| Information about an activity , such as efforts to survey, clear, or reduce the threat of a hazard

| Information about an accidental event involving a hazard

| Information about a person injured or affected by a hazardan accident

| Mine Risk Assistance| Information about assistance for a person injured or affected by an accident| Process/Activity|-| Education (MRE) activity| Information about an activity designed to inform or educate people about hazards(e.g. Risk Education or Victim rights)| ObjectProcess/ProductActivity

| Information about an quality-improvement activity , such as an effort to control and monitor the clearance and/or reduction of hazards land or hazard reduction activities| ObjectProcess/ProductActivity

Items are entered into IMSMA<supcenter>NG</sup> by means of a field report. Typically, each category of items has its own field report template for recording information specific to that category. When entered into IMSMA^NG, all field report items must be assigned to a location, which is tied to the country’s gazetteer, or political or administrative structure. The items can then be traced back to the country structure so that users can easily report data such as the number and size of hazards within a particular province. Part of defining and documenting an information model includes defining the useful information attributes for each IMSMA^NG item. IMSMA^NG comes with more than 1,000 data elements already defined as well as the capability to create additional custom-defined fields (CDFs). This makes it important to critically assess which data elements are useful to a programme for decision-making, analysis and reporting and to focus on those while ignoring data elements that don’t provide additional value. Limiting information to only that which is useful to the programme provides long-term benefits including reducing the data collection and data entry burden and improving system performance. And, while many data elements may be collected for each IMSMA^NG item, some elements may be more important for analysis than others. For example, whether a victim has been injured or killed may be more important for analysis than the victim’s nationality.  

|+ Item Subcategories

! Subcategory Category Examples

| HazardLand

* Battle area* Dangerous area* MinefieldSHA

* UXO spotEOD Spot Task* Ammunition Storage

| Hazard reduction activityActivity

Each of {{note|<b>Document the six categories of following decisions about items can :</b>* data to be collected and managed in {{IMSMANG}}* data fields that are not predefined in {{IMSMANG}} and should be divided into subcategories created as CDFs* particularly important, or key, data for the programme* relevant categories/types so users can collect information for each subcategory. For example, users can specify different types of hazards such as dangerous areas, confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs), minefields and battle areas and manage item* status values for each kind of hazard differently. Using subcategories, information managers can:item}}

* create separate workflows for each type [[Image:Understanding IMSMA Information Model - Example of hazardDocumented Land.png|center|300px]]* create and manage separate data entry forms<div align="center">* differentiate between item categories on the map''Example of documentation''</div>

Additionally, ===Auxiliary Data===__NOEDITSECTION__In addition to defining the required information managers can customise the subcategories so that unused subcategories can be removed and other subcategories added. The same is true for all top-level {{IMSMANG}} items within IMSMA^NG, which lets it is important to define the relevant information managers specify their exact information modelto be collected about Auxiliary data. This includes defining and documenting the [[Standardising_Auxiliary_Data#Country_Structure|Country Structure]], including the relationships among item categories[[Standardising_Auxiliary_Data#Ordnance Classification | Ordnance classification]], [[Standardising_Auxiliary_Data#Organisations |Organisation]] and adjust the model [[Standardising_Auxiliary_Data#Places|Place]], such as their needs change over time. To accurately map the information model for a programmemilitary bases, it’s helpful to evaluate the available item subcategories hospitals and determine if changes to the information model in IMSMA^NG are required. While these values can cultural sites; any additional CDFs that should be customized after system setup, understanding the types of information created; and any subcategories for each item is critical to implementing an effective workflow in IMSMA^NG. Table 5 shows examples of the possible subcategories of IMSMA^NG itemsAuxiliary data types.

{{note|<b>Document the following decisions about Auxiliary data:</b> * data elements to be collected and managed in {{IMSMANG}}* data fields that are not already configured in {{IMSMANG}} and can be created as CDFs* relevant subcategories for each data type}}  [[Image:Understanding IMSMAInformation Model - Example of Documented Auxiliary Data ver2.png|center|300px]]<supdiv align="center">NG''Example of Documented Auxiliary Data''</supdiv>* ==Data Entry Forms and Summary items==__NOEDITSECTION__A '''Data Entry Form''' is a template used for data elements entry of information e.g. about a victim. The Data Entry Form(s) for a specific object (e.g. the Victim ''Jane Doe'') are summarised and displayed in a '''Summary'''. '''Reconciliation''' is the process of deciding if information should update an existing object or creating a new object/Summary. Or with other words, when a Data Entry process is started the first decision is to choose which of the several different methods/actions for Data Entry to use.  With this approach, users can collect and store multiple Data Entry Forms about the same item over time so that the entire history of the item is preserved in the system. The approach also provides a complete [[Audit log | audit trail]] of all changes made to any information so that information managers can answer the question, "What did we know and when did we know it?" As subsequent information is collected about a specific attribute of an item, {{IMSMANG}} updates the item’s Summary on an attribute-by-attribute basis. The calculation of the Summary is done based on '''Date of Information''' and therefore it is important that are Date of information is reflecting the age of the information and not predefined in IMSMAthe date of entry into {{IMSMANG}}. [[Image:Understanding_IMSMA_Information_Model_-_Updating_CVs ver2.png|center|400px]]<supdiv align="center">NG''Example of Updating Summary items''</supdiv>  Data Entry Form #1 collects some initial information about a Land. It sets the priority to "Medium" and specifies that the land contains AP mines and should be created as CDFsis 25,000 sqm.  * particularly importantData Entry Form #2 updates information about the land area after a subsequent assessment. The report sets the priority to "High" and specifies the presence of AP and AT mines, but it does not change the size or key, data elements for the programmestatus of the land area. * relevant subcategories for each item* Data Entry Form #3 updates the land area's size and status values for each after clearance operations are complete. The figure above shows how the land area's Summary is updated after all three reports are entered into the system. {{Warning| A Data Entry Form that is changing existing information must have a Date of information that is later than the Data Entry Form that it is updating the calculation of the Summary item(s) are based on Date of Information. When the date is earlier or the '''same''', the Summary itemwill '''not''' be updated.}}

Below Using Locations, users can group data that belongs together or is an example of associated with each other and in that way get a fully-documented hazardbetter overview, facilitate searching and creating reports.The Locations is the link between the Country Structure, whether at the province, district or town level and the Mine Action data. As shown in the figure below, data in {{IMSMANG}} are governed by two simple rules:

[[Image:Understanding IMSMA Information Model - Example of Documented HazardUsing Locations to Link Mine Action Data to the Country Structure.png|center|500px|''Example of Documented Hazard'']]

''Example of Documented HazardUsing Locations to Link Mine Action Data to the Country Structure''

{{note|<b>Document the following decisions about Locations:</b>* what concept Locations will represent* what Country Structure level Locations will be linked to}}  ===Auxiliary DataAssigning and Linking===__NOEDITSECTION__In addition to defining the required information for IMSMA<supb>NGAssigning</supb> items, it is important refers to the assignment of an item to define a Location for the relevant purposes of grouping information to be collected about auxiliary data. This includes defining and documenting the [[Country Structure]], [[Explosive Ordnance]], [[Organisation]] and [[Place]], such as military bases, hospitals and cultural sites; any additional CDFs that should All items must be created; and any subcategories for each of the auxiliary data typesassigned a Location.

<b>Document {{IMSMANG}} provides the following decisions about auxiliary capability to assign items to Locations and create links between items, a function that shows the relationships between items and processes and that enriches the data collected. Assignments and links are defined during the Data Entry Form approval process. An item is assigned to one Location, which ties the item to the country structure and allows for reporting data:</b>by area. The same item can then be linked to as many other items as necessary. In this way, {{IMSMANG}} supports the idea of linking activities to land, victims to accidents or any item to any other item. When used with item categories, linking adds a powerful capacity to implement an information workflow and create rich and useful data for decision makers. To ensure the integrity of this data, system administrators must clearly specify the kinds of links to track in {{IMSMANG}}.

* data elements The example below shows how users can build a workflow of relationships among items to model the information management process for their Mine Action Programmes. The figure shows how the Summary changes with each activity that is linked to the original Land. # The Land starts its life-cycle as ''SHA'' with a status of Open in this example. # When the clearance starts and the first Progress report is linked to the Land, the status should be changed to ''Worked On''. # Finally, after linking the Completion Report the land's status should be updated to ''Closed''.  The result is one Land whose information is updated over time by the three Activities linked to the land. This way to track information can be collected used to represent the information management process and managed in status rules accurately for a Land Release, Risk management or other process model. [[Image:Understanding IMSMAInformation Model - Example of How Current View Statuses Change.png|center|400px]]<supdiv align="center">NG''Example of How Summary Statuses Change''</supdiv>* data elements The {{IMSMANG}} information model is flexible enough for each Mine Action Programme to customise the system to support its needs. For example, implementations that are do not cover Education activities do not already configured in IMSMA^NG need to complete information about Education activities, and they still retain full utility of the system. Similarly, implementations that only cover Victim tracking and Education activities only can disregard Land and Activities without any loss of utility.  Although any item can be created linked to any other item, not all relationships necessarily make sense for every implementation. The diagrams below describe some of the more common logical relationships among items and can serve as CDFs* relevant subcategories the basis for each data typean information model when implementing {{IMSMANG}}.

Below The rationale for each relationship or link should also be documented so the meaning is an example of a fully-documented placeunderstood. These relationships are used when entering data to ensure that the links between items are available for searching and reporting, like when searching for all Land that have Accidents linked to them.

===The Workbench===__NOEDITSECTION__[[Image:Understanding IMSMA Information Model - Example of Documented Auxiliary DataWB_Status.png|175px|center|500px|''Understanding IMSMA Information Model - Example of Documented Auxiliary Data'']]

''Understanding IMSMA Information Model - Example of Documented Auxiliary Approval workflow / DataEntry Form Statuses''

==Field Reports Until a Data Entry Form is approved, it exists only in the Workbench and Current Views==does not update any Summary items. The report can still be modified or deleted. The Approval will trigger an update of an existing item (Summary) or creating of a new item depending of chosen Action. If the Summary item has geospatial data, it may be visible in the Map Pane.