UCD Guide to Application Data Gathering

Overview and Benefits

The University is undertaking a systematic effort to gather information on the digital applications (on-premise hosted and cloud services) in use in UCD.

The purpose is to obtain a comprehensive view of the University’s digital campus, covering both university-wide and local applications that have been deployed.

Heads of School/Unit will be asked to nominate Data Gatherers to cover their School/Unit as well as all associated Institutes, Centres, and Wholly Owned Subsidiaries under their remit.
The nominated Data Gatherers will be responsible for collating information on the applications deployed in their areas. This may take 1 - 2 days for a large unit or school.
To ensure transparency, the Head of School/Unit will be copied on the final version of the captured information.

This is an important step in building a clearer picture of the University’s digital landscape. The information gathered will:

Help identify duplication and potential risks and inefficiencies
Strengthen security and compliance
Support effective planning that benefits the entire University community

The Enterprise Architecture team will provide support at all stages of the process and will assist with any difficulties encountered.

Data Gathering Steps

Common process repeated for each School/Unit/Institute/Centre, undertaken for each College/VP area, across the University.

Step		Activity
	1 - Chat	Initial meeting to discuss the 5Ws (who, what, when, where, why) of the project & approach. This will include What is an application? overview of Application Ownership Roles & Responsibilities and Data Capture Template
	2 - Issue Template	We’ll supply the Data Capture Template that should be used for the data capture. This details all the attributes that need to be captured / fields that need to be completed, and will be prepopulated with any applications already identified as owned by the Unit/School/Institute or Centre.
	3 - Fill in Knowns	The prepopulated Data Capture Template should be updated, filling in any gaps e.g. description or contact information.
	4 - Find Unknown	The Data Gatherers will then engage within their Units/Schools/Institutes and Centres to identify any other applications in use (but which aren’t already captured in the “University-wide Application Catalogue”), recording them in the same Data Capture Template. This should take 1 -2 days. HINT - The EA Team are happy to check through with you a partial capture (e.g. application names and descriptions) before you collate all the details.
	5 - Save	The completed Data Capture Template is then sent back to the EA Team to review. We’ll work together to fill in the remaining blanks. Once agreed, we’ll import the signed off data into EA repository – updating the Application Portfolio