1.    Introduction
2.    Purpose and Limitations of the Database
3.    Structure of the Financial Database - An Overview
4.    Advice on use of database
5.    Data Table Definitions
6.    Lookup Tables & Helper Tables
7.    Field Definitions
8.    Central Administration Use: Table and Field Descriptions

The Planning and Budgeting (P&B) Financial Database was created in 1995, with data retrofitted to fiscal year 1992, as a response to the Budget Office's need to improve and simplify access to the University's financial information for ad hoc queries. It is comprised of monthly downloads of the University's Financial (FIN) and Budget (BGT) databases. These downloads are a "snapshot in time."  Data for previous biennia are maintained for the last month in each fiscal year, while data for the current biennium are available for each month.

The Financial Database is a research, analysis, and management data resource.  The data are organized around such subjects as budget, fiscal year, and department.  They are integrated in that subjects are related to one another.  They are non-volatile in that data is composed of condition snap shots and they are time-variant in that all data are current as of a particular point in time.

These data comprise a resource which should not be used to support ongoing administrative processes.  The database is not transaction processing systems.  The data reflect transactions processed only at the time the database is updated.  For example, the database could not be used to determine the current budget or expenditure balance at Bothell Campus (which could be determined using FIN).

All data in the Financial Database is taken from University Information Systems.  The accuracy of the database is no more accurate than the underlying data first created and stored in University Information Systems at the time the data is extracted.  Every effort has been made to reliably and properly extract data from these information systems.

The Financial Database is organized around six (6) primary data tables.  These tables are:

FI_BSR
FI_Operating_Budget
FI_Budget_Expenditures_Revenue (View of FI_Expenditures_and_Revenue and FI_Operating_Budget)
FI_Expenditures (Subset of FI_Expenditures_and_Revenue)
FI_Expenditures_and_Revenue
FI_Revenue (Subset of FI_Expenditures_and_Revenue)

In addition to the data tables, there are various Lookup and Helper tables to assist the user.  These tables can be linked to the data tables in order to run more efficient queries and to provide descriptions and labels that help interpret the data.

Data table:  A data table is one that contains data gleaned from the FIN and BGT systems, representing budget and transactions information.
Helper Table: A table that presents common query parameters, such as fiscal year or budget month, to facilitate the creation of queries with data tables.
Lookup Table: A table that associates intuitive descriptions with corresponding codes as they appear in FIN and BGT, e.g., FI_Budget_Index associates (among other things) budget numbers with corresponding budget names.
View: A subset of a table or combination of tables.

The FI database may be accessed via an internet connection.  To request an account and receive assistance in connecting to the database, send email to: pnbdb@u.washington.edu

An authorized user is required to use any Oracle Structured Query Language (SQL) tool or similar Oracle (version 8i) compliant database Structured Query Language (SQL) tool.  SQL tools may run on any operating system or platform (Windows, DOS, Unix, OS/2, Mac, etc.) utilizing an Open System Interface and TCP/IP communication protocol.   Example Oracle compliant SQL tools are MS Access with ODBC (Windows), GQL (Mac, Windows, and Unix), Q+E (Windows), Pablo Report Writer (Mac), SQL Assist Report Writer (Unix and Windows) and Brio Query Enterprise (Mac and Windows).  Please feel free to send email to pnbdb@u.washington.edu if you are unsure whether your SQL tools are compliant.