Business Rules

TrackAbout uses data validation and workflows to enforce best practice and your own business rules — which makes sure your assets are tracked and billed accurately and leads your team through every process efficiently and consistently.

What is DATA VALIDATION?

Data validation is a crucial aspect of any data management process, ensuring that the data collected or inputted meets certain criteria or standards. Think of it as a set of rules or checks that your data must pass through before being accepted into a system or database.

Data Quality — By enforcing validation rules, you maintain the quality and integrity of your data. This reduces the risk of errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies, which can lead to poor decision-making.

Reliability — Validated data is more reliable and trustworthy. Stakeholders can have confidence in the accuracy and consistency of the information they are using.

Error Prevention — Validation helps catch errors at the point of entry, preventing them from propagating throughout the system. This saves time and resources that would otherwise be spent on identifying and rectifying mistakes later on.

Compliance — In many industries, there are regulatory requirements regarding data accuracy and security. Data validation ensures that you comply with these standards, reducing the risk of penalties or legal issues.

Field Validation — Checking that data entered into specific fields meets the required format or range. For example, ensuring that a phone number field contains only numbers and is of the correct length.

Range Check — Verifying that numerical data falls within an acceptable range. This prevents outliers or errors from being included in the dataset.

Format Check — Ensuring that data adheres to a specified format, such as date, time, or currency.

Cross-field Validation — Checking the relationship between different fields to ensure consistency and accuracy. For instance, making sure the last test date is not before the manufacture date.

Logic Check — Verifying that data conforms to logical rules or patterns. This could involve ensuring that a start date comes before an end date, or that certain conditions are met before data is accepted.

Common Business Rules Supported in TrackAbout

Preventing Entry Errors

  • Entering a last retest (hydraulic) date that is older that the manufacturer’s date.

  • Entering a last retest date or manufacturer’s date that is in the future.

  • Checking validity of valve lot and serial number entries based on patterns.

  • TrackAbout is aware of various common cylinder markings that can be mistaken for serial numbers, such as DOT numbers, and will not accept these as valid serial numbers.

 

Preventing Process Errors

  • Selecting a valve that isn’t applicable to the service of the cylinder.

  • Selecting a water capacity that isn’t applicable to the service of the cylinder.

  • Filling products at higher pressures than the fill ramp allows.

 

Validating Attributes

  • Retest period has not passed.

  • Valve expiration date has not passed .

  • Barcode scanned is valid based on a list of known-good patterns plus various checksum algorithms.

  • Cylinder working pressure must be equal to or greater than fill pressure.

  • Cylinder has not been in toxic/hydrogen service, preventing it from being in other product services.

  • Cylinder has all the required attributes recorded in the system in order to be filled (i.e. not missing serial number, manufacturer date, etc).

 

Validating Product Families

  • Cylinders being sorted onto a pallet are incompatible filling families.

  • Cylinders being filled together are in compatible filling families.

 

Validating Users

  • Operators can only fill using ramps to which they have been assigned.

 

Validating Cylinder Status

Status validations are configurable per client requirements.

  • Cylinders that are empty and haven’t been sorted (inspected) cannot be filled.

  • Cylinders that are full cannot be filled again.

  • Cylinders that are scrapped can not be used in any other process.

  • Cylinders requiring analysis that have not been analyzed cannot be delivered.

  • Cylinders that are in quarantine cannot be delivered.

  • Cylinders that are blocked or recalled cannot be used at any point in the process until the block has been cleared in maintenance.

  • Cylinders that are in a complaint status cannot be used until the complaint has been resolved.

Customizing Business Rules

TrackAbout’s built-in business rules are based on best practices developed by our own tracking experts along with leaders in a variety of industries. But we also recognize every business has their own way of doing things and their own workflows and expectations on what needs validated.

That’s why our validations and workflows can be customized to meet your specific needs. To find out how, contact TrackAbout Support.