IMSMA Staging Area

What's the IMSMA Staging Area?

The IMSMA staging area is a flattened version of the IMSMA operational database. In terms of content, the data is an exact copy of the IMSMA database, but the structure is much less complex and therefore easier to query. While in the operational IMSMA database the core object data (e.g. the ID and name of a Land) is stored in one table (e.g. in the HAZARD table) and descriptive attributes (such as single- and multi-select standard and custom defined fields) are stored in separate tables, in the staging area all this information is available in one single table. Therefore, there is no need to write complex queries to get to the core information. Ultimately, reporting and data analysis tools can easily be connected to the staging area.

Structure of the IMSMA Staging Area

Flattening principles

The generation of the staging area follows the following principles, for all the tables:

• Standard text, numeric, and any single-select attribute values (known as imsmaenum) are stored directly in the main table
  • Example:
• CDF text, numeric, and any single-select attribute values are stored directly in the main table.
  • Example:
• Standard multi-select attribute values are directly stored in the main table as a comma-separated list and in a normalised way in the standard multi-select table associated to the object.
  • Example:
• CDF multi-select attribute values are directly stored in the main table as a comma-separated list and in a normalised way in the CDF multi-select table associated to the object.
  • Example:
• The guid, localid and name of the location an object is linked to are directly stored in the main object table.
  • Example:
• The guid, localid and name of an organization linked to an object are directly stored in the main object table.
  • Example:
• The guid, localid and name of classifications (country structure (gazetteer), assistance classification, cause classification and needs assessment classification) associated to an object are directly stored in the main object table. Since a classification can have several levels, there is a placeholder for each level, up to the maximum number of levels. For example, the country structure can have up to seven levels. Therefore, in a main object table like HAZARD, there will the following columns: gazetteer_level1_localid, gazetteer_level1_name, gazetteer_level2_localid, gazetteer_level2_name, ..., gazetteer_level7_localid, gazetteer_level7_name. If in IMSMA only four levels are defined, then the columns for levels five to seven will always be empty.
  • Example: