Ascential Software is playing a pivotal role in the coordination of aid to victims of the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York. Donating software to the value of $420 000 (more than R4.2 million), Ascential is helping integrate data across 13 human services organisations for United Services Group (USG), the body set up to ensure donations are correctly channelled from logistical, legal and governance perspectives.
USG was established in December last year as a consortium of the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Safe Horizon, and 10 other agencies and charities.
In the period immediately after 11 September, various aid bodies got in each other`s way as they provided financial assistance, mental health counselling, housing, and employment services to the thousands of people affected by the disaster.
People seeking help had to fill out paperwork at multiple agencies, and aid was duplicated. A coordinated programme was identified as a vital necessity. "There was so much need that the individual organisations couldn`t fulfil on their own, and their efforts had to be coordinated," says Richard Flynn, CTO of USG.
A major priority was the establishment of a data warehouse combining data from the various organisations to create a single view of people being helped.
This posed its own challenges. The IT systems at the charities were incompatible and old, and USG had to surmount a number of legal and political hurdles to get the organisations to share data they deemed confidential.
Negotiations took care of the legal issues. In the technology side, USG assembled a data warehouse using IBM`s DB2 and DB2 Warehouse Manager. The system was up and running in February. Every week, each agency sends updated information about its 9/11 clients, benefits and other data to USG via FTP.
Caseworkers access the database via the Web to see what aid and services clients have received, making it easier to determine what else they need. As the information is usually in different formats, USG uses Ascential`s Integrity software to standardise the data format and identify duplicate records for elimination.
The 120 000 to 125 000 client records sent by the agencies were soon reduced to around 75 000.
"The success of Integrity on this project underscores the importance of data quality, and data profiling in particular," comments Julian Field, GM of Ascential Software South Africa. "This is such a profound solution that it is being touted as a possible blueprint for a centralised data system for the Office of Homeland Security."
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