Get an overview of information management

This page provides a general overview of the areas related to mapping an organisation's data and data processing systems.

First, determine what kind of data your organisation produces and maintains.

Take advantage of the work already done:

• Your organisation’s information management model describes what kind of data is processed in your organisation.
• The direction of information management plan and archiving plan, on the other hand, describe both the substance and management of the organisation. They also describe the publicity of information, the nature of personal data and the retention period.
• Your organisation’s enterprise architecture work has produced documentation describing operations, data, information systems and technologies as well as digital security.
• Data may also have been mapped earlier, for example, in connection with risk management or quality assessment.

If your organisation has just started mapping its own data management, you should prioritise your work by starting with the most important datasets. These may include data which you already know are in demand or which your organisation is obliged to share or open.

Check the good practices related to enterprise architecture in the Enterprise Architecture in Operational Development guide (in Finnish).

Read more about the identification of datasets on the Operating model for sharing data (avoindata.fi) pageOpens in a new window..

Map what information your organisation needs in its operations.

Do you need e.g.

• population data for the provision of your services
• spatial data for the development of your operations
• statistical data to support your decision-making?

Read more about finding information on the page Map sources of information.

When mapping the data in your organisation’s possession, also determine the publicity of your data.

The data can be:

• public
• provided on a discretionary basis 
• confidential.

Pay particular attention to which of your datasets contain personal data. Personal data is subject to specific obligations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

Get an overview of the information systems and processes that your organisation uses for transferring data between different systems. If possible, obtain documentation for your systems.

Also find out how and in which information systems the structure of data has been described. What kind of enterprise architecture descriptions have been prepared for the information systems? What kinds of glossaries, code sets and data models have been used?

Determine if data is transferred in systems

• as individual file packages, such as in the SV or JSON format
• via an API (Application Programming Interface).

Find out if your organisation’s data has been described and where the descriptions have been published.

To make it easier to find, understand and utilise information, the information must be described. The data have been described when the metadata describing and defining it has been published. It is also important that the descriptions of the data have been published in a place where those who need these can utilise them.

Please note that public sector actors are also obliged to describe some of their data. For more information on the description of data, please see the Pay attention to laws and provisions page.

Read the detailed instructions for describing the data and familiarise yourself with the tools on the Describe the data page.