1. Evaluation & Experiences ‘YTY-System’ Statistics Finland
Antti Santaharju 24 September 2015
CoE on DWH Workshop Dublin

2. What is YTY?
Statistics Finland’s integrated production system for business statistics
Integrates the production processes of the business register and 13 different business statistics
Dissemination from integrated data warehouse
micro data and aggregates
Introduced in November 2013
The first production cycle (reference year 2013) 11/ /2014
The second production cycle (reference year 2014) 11/ /2015
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

3. YTY integrates production processes of Business register and 13 different statistics
Structural business and financial statement statistics (preliminary t+9, final T+12)
Regional statistics on entrepreneurial activity (preliminary t+9, final t+12)
Industrial output (t+11)
Enterprise openings and closures (Q1:t-5, Q2:t-2, Q3:t+1, Q4:t+4,)
Index of turnover in industry (t+75 days)
Index of turnover of construction (t+75 days)
Turnover of trade (preliminary t+22 and t+45 days, final t+75 days)
Turnover of service industries (t+75 days)
Wage and salary indices (t+45 days)
International trade in services (preliminary t+5, final t+12)
Foreign affiliates in Finland (FATS) (t+12)
Finnish affiliates abroad (FATS) (t+16)
Business Services Statistics (t+10)
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

4. Users of the YTY S-DWH YTY S-DWH has about 300 users
150 users edit the database
150 users have read-only rights to data warehouse
Main users:
Data collection department
Business statistics department
National account
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

5. 13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

6. ETL procedures (SAS, .Net, SQL, SSIS)
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

7. Treatment of the single observations: YTY-application
Unit level analysis
Unit level editing (Production database)
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

8. Dissemination Data cubes User specific dissemination tools
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

9. BR into the core of data on enterprises – project schedule for 2009-2014
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

10. Planned project costs and benefits in 2010-2019
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

11. Realized efficiency effects
1-8/2009
1-8/2013
1-8/2014
1-8/2015
Staff years spent on the production of YTY statistics*
28,4
24,0
27,7
23,4
* Business register and 13 YTY statistics
Productivity gains have not yet realized completely
YTY was introduced uncompleted
Development continued in 2014 and 2015
Organizational reform was introduced at the same time
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

12. Technological debt
When implementation started Statistics Finland’s technological infrastructure was outdated
MS SQL server, .Net, SAS server, SAS DIS, Olap cubes, MS Windows, MS office…
The decision to update on of the software caused that some other software's didn’t interact with updated software
Chain of software updates
Results
Updates were not planned -> Delay in project schedules
YTY project did lot of infrastructure testing for Statistic’s Finland -> loss of project recourses
Statistics Finland has latest versions of all key software
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

13. Shared and transparent micro data
All business statistics and national account use same
Unit base
Variables
E.g only one turnover value
Less work
All the edits are done only once -> efficiency
Possibility to perform more editing -> increasing quality
Improved coherence
Challenges:
How to satisfy the needs of every statistics -> Expert groups to handle most important units
Impossible to satisfy every statistics needs -> compromises
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

14. Ownership: Responsibility and decision-making
Statistics Finland’s organization was formed in accordance with the stove pipe processes
The job profiles responded to the needs of individual statistics
Didn’t meet the requirements of the new tasks
-> a broader cross-statistical approach
The reorganization was implemented at the same time with the introduction of YTY S-DWH
Former departments: Business trends & Structural business statistics
Current departments: Business statistics & Data collection department
Owners of some processes are not defined completely
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

15. Importance of metadata
Importance of metadata increased when S-DWH was introduced
Positive experiences:
Process metadata
Planned and implemented processes and their order
Variable descriptions
Statistic Finland’s generic Variable editor application
Intra web page YTY wiki
Negative experiences
Lack of quality reports
No of generic tool for control metadata (e.g. formulas)
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

16. Content of the dissemination database
At first only validated micro data was transferred form the production database to the dissemination database
User needs were not satisfied
Some information was waiting for manual editing in production database
Users ask for more timely data from dissemination database
Operating logic was changed:
All data are transferred to the dissemination database
Control and quality variables indicate the level of editing
Published micro data are stored in dissemination database
Versioning
Published data can be analyzed at the micro level afterwards
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

17. Change management
Extensive system -> First release didn’t satisfy all the users needs
Several demo versions were published before the first release
Still all the user requirements were not reported/implemented correctly
Large number of system changes
Need for agile change management
Flexible organization
Change sustainable systems
Adhoc-changes would lead to chaos
Common release cycle for all the critical components
To ensure work is focused on the most important changes, all tasks are ordered by priority
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju

18. IT support organisation
Data Collection department
(incl. BR)
IT department
developer team 1
(e.g. SAS)
Decision
team
Coordination team
Planning team
Business Statistics department
developer team 2
(.Net)
13 January 2019
Antti Santaharju