Historical Perspective

The University of California facilities inventory system was originally designed and implemented in 1971.  At that time, the system was centralized with all campuses sharing in a common computer environment.  In 1981, the responsibility for maintaining the campus inventory system was decentralized to the campuses and corporate reporting requirements were established.  Subsequent enhancements have been made to the corporate reporting requirements, most recently with the Fall 1996 cycle, to recognize the changing and expanding needs for facilities data.

Classes of Data

Facilities inventory data may be classified according to three basic types:

1. building data

2. room data

3. department (organizational unit) data.

Building data may be biographical (e.g., age, condition, structural type) or area-related (e.g., gross, assignable, circulation).  Room data describes the current use of the room (e.g., room use code, occupant, area size, stations).  Department data are largely the name:ih1 id=dept.facilities department and functional classification of each user of space.

File Submittal Schedule

The Corporate Equipment and Facilities System is updated once a year, although campuses may opt to update their local systems more frequently. The "date of record" for each update to the corporate system is the end of the third week of Fall term classes.  The two input files -- building and room -- should be sent electronically by the tenth working day of December to the Office of the President (Information Resources and Communications) via FTP.  

For instructions on how to FTP a file to UCOP:  

http://www.ucop.edu/irc/campus_specs/ftp/appendixb.html

Database Update

After the completion of the edit process (see Chapter 5, Edit and Standard Output Reports, for a brief overview), the files are merged into a FOCUS database which is used to produce certain standard reports (i.e., EFA series 3000-3999).  At this point, the database is also made accessible to the functional units in the Office of the President (e.g., Resource Administration, Capital Planning, Budget Office, Costing Policy and Analysis, Risk Management).  File security restricts access to the master file to authorized users.

System Interfaces

The Corporate Equipment and Facilities System interfaces with a number of other corporate computer systems, among them:

• the equipment database - this database is built as of the end of the fiscal year and is matched against the facilities database to create the equipment unit cost database.  This database is used to produce reports for analysis to determine equipment costs per assignable square foot within program disciplines.
• the facilities-equipment conversion file - this conversion file maps equipment custody departments to facilities program codes.
• the plant asset database - this database is built from campus input and provides the value of buildings and improvements.  For example, the database is used extensively in the Comprehensive Rate information System (CRIS) processing to conduct analyses such as prorating dollars to facilities departments based on their assignable square feet.
• the real estate information management system - this system tracks all real property (land and structures) owned by the University (excluding investment properties).  There is a sub-module on structures which is fed by CEFA data.

Corporate Facilities Data Requirements

The required data elements for each file are listed below in alphabetical order.  Specifications for each of the following data elements are described in Chapter 3, Building Data Elements, and Chapter 4, Room Data Elements.

Note:

Certain data elements (e.g., outside gross square feet, program standard code, room code name) are not required in the campus files because they can be calculated, decoded, or derived from one or a combination of valid values from other campus-supplied codes or data.