Institutional Data Feed Service

Service Description

The Institutional Data Feed Service (IDFS) provides institutional data feeds to be used for official Newcastle University applications, systems and processes. The service enhances those systems by ensuring accurate and timely delivery of data to those systems so that they can fulfil their function. The provision of data centrally via sophisticated integration tools means that application owners don't have to create their own data provisioning processes.

The IDFS also supplies advice and guidance on core institutional data, and assists developers in clarifying their requests, whilst also assisting in the documentation of data flows throughout the University.
These records enable developers, and the University to retain a clear overview of data flows, ensuring compliance with Data Protection and Freedom of Information regulations.

Features

  • Secure, consistent, accurate and timely institutional data feeds
  • A single, reliable source of data
  • Data dictionary presenting the available data
  • Fully documented, extensible, standards-based architecture
  • Data feeds tailored to the developer’s requirements
  • Documented records of data feeds to help with Data Protection and Freedom of Information compliance

Users

Newcastle University members of staff who are responsible for or are involved in the development of an official University application or system can request data.

External systems developers who require data must make a request through an appropriate University member of staff.

Service Hours

Consultation, advice and guidance: 09:00-17:00, Monday to Friday, excluding University closure periods.

Data feeds can be set up to run at any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The “at risk” period is 07:00-09:00 every Tuesday. Further planned maintenance times will be publicised in advance if there will be a disruption to the service.

Level of Service

All data is stored securely and backed up daily on a nightly basis. In the case of a database outage, depending on the severity, it would be expected that the database could be restored within one day. Data feeds would be temporarily suspended until the database has been restored.

All data is transported via secure transfer methods to ensure that data cannot be intercepted or manipulated when being sent to an application.

All data feeds will be documented to ensure that the University has a clear overview of data flows throughout University systems. This is a process that involves the IT Service and the requestor, to ensure that documentation is a continuous process throughout the lifecycle of a data feed.

Support and Documentation

Data Integration Template

Additional support is available via the IT Service Desk on 0191 208 5999 or https://nuservice.ncl.ac.uk 

All incidents relating to this service will be handled according to the Incident Management and Major Incident Management processes.

Request Process

New data request:

  1. Make an initial data feed development request via self-service or the IT Service Desk.
  2. A service request ticket will be created with the initial details of your request and assigned to the IDFS team.
  3. This will initiate a response from the IDFS team to discuss your request. This will normally involve a consultation meeting in order for us to work through the details of your request. This is also an opportunity to clarify any questions or uncertainties you may have. Once the consultation has been arranged, the service request ticket will be closed and the development project will be managed through the IDFS work process.
  4. A data integration template must be completed for any data request. This can be a joint effort that we can go through in the consultation meeting.
  5. Once the initial consultation is carried out, the project will be prioritised against other IDFS projects and an estimation for the time to implement the data feed will be provided. Various factors can influence the time it takes to develop a data feed, including whether the data is already available to IDFS.
  6. Communication will be a continual process throughout the service request to ensure user's requirements are fully satisfied.

Change to existing data feed:

  1. Make an initial data feed development request via self-service or the IT Service Desk.
  2. A service request ticket will be created with the initial details of your request and assigned to the IDFS team.
  3. This will initiate a response from the IDFS team to discuss your request. The service request ticket will then be closed and the agreed development will be managed through the IDFS work process.
  4. The data integration template must be updated. (We can provide a copy of the initial completed data integration template.)
  5. The agreed development will be prioritised against other IDFS projects and an estimation for the time to implement the data feed will be provided. Various factors can influence the time it takes to develop a data feed, including whether the data is already available to IDFS.
  6. Communication will be a continual process throughout the service request to ensure user's requirements are fully satisfied.

Termination of data feed:

  1. The requestor must notify the IT Service Desk if any data is no longer required for its original purpose. A scheduled termination process will then be agreed.

Requests for any other aspect of the service should be made via the IT Service Desk.

All requests relating to this service will be handled according to the Request Fulfilment process.

User Responsibility

With assistance from the IT Service, data protection responsibilities and procedures associated with the application are clearly defined; these will be documented within the Data Integration template.

The use of data is bound by wider University and IT Service policies and regulations, including (but not limited to):

  • Information Security
  • Data Protection
  • Freedom of Information
  • Records Management

The requester should ensure that the data is only used for the purposes set out in the initial data feed request. Any change to the use of the data should be reported to the IT Service, to allow for necessary consultation.

The requester must ensure that the data is stored securely at the application level and that the data is stored to meet data protection requirements.

Costs

N/A