17 About Sentinel Common Components

All routine Sentinel distributed SAS program packages require that the Sentinel Common Components package is setup at each Data Partner (DP) site prior to execution of any Sentinel Operations Center (SOC) distributed packages. Before a newly approved ETL of SCDM tables can be used for production queries, Common Components needs to be customized by the Sentinel Operations Center (SOC) and Common Component successfully executed by the DP to make the new SCDM tables visible to distributed SAS program packages. Common Components testing functionality confirms that the ETL-specific parameters has been properly set up by the site. Results from the Common Components package are evaluated by the SOC prior to final approval of an ETL/refresh.

After approval, DPs are able to provide a single path to the Common Components package associated with a given Data Refresh that will be used for each production request. This is acheived by allowing Common Components to restructure itself during this initial run to allow subsequent distributed queries to run select portions of the Common Components package without re-running the entire program or overwriting any existing files. More detail on this functionality is provided in 17.2 and Example 17.1.

17.1 General Functionality

17.1.1 Execution of ETL Metadata Checks

Common Components executes a set of metadata checks to ensure SCDM table integrity by comparing the metadata of each SCDM table to metadata captured by the QA Package and ensuring that the following attributes are consistent:

  • Dataset name
  • Date/time created
  • Date/time modified

17.1.2 Execution of MIL Table Logic

For each ETL, the Common Components package executes logic to ensure that the MIL table is available for use by distributed queries if present at that Data Partner site. This logic performs the following steps:

  • Determine if a MIL table exists or not
  • Confirm that the MIL table contains a dataset label in the format ETL[#] and matches the expected ETL

17.1.3 Execution of Housekeeping Macros

The Common Components package executes a set of housekeeping macros that perform the following tasks:

  • Cleans up filepath(s) according to SOC conventions
  • Validates that each of these filepaths exist
  • Creates concatenated SAS library INDATA for path(s) to the SCDM table paths, allowing a single path to be specified by Data Partners in the master program of subsequent distributed programs

17.2 Utility Functionality

Common Components is capable of restructuring itself during initial execution to allow subsequent distributed queries to run select portions of the Common Components package without re-running the entire program or overwriting data found in the msoc or dplocal folders. This allows later distributed queries to use a single SAS %INCLUDE statement to run macros needed to create all required parameters—e.g. librefs, global macro variables.

17.2.1 Create Package Subfolder Paths

The Common Components request defines a root-path for each standard workplan subdirectory. These root-path parameters are specific to the ETL and Phase, not to the request itself. When combined with parameters from the master program file for a specific production request, the full path(s) for that request are dynamically generated. It is important to note that, for most Data Partners, all root-path parameters will point to the same directory.

Example 17.1 (Resolution of parameters to to dynamically build the full path to dplocal subdirectory for request cder_ahr_soc_wp005_b03)

  1. A Data Partner specifies the parameter _ROOT_DPLOCAL in Section 1a of the CC master program file.
  2. These values are then written to a metadata file for use by all production queries executed on the associated ETL—e.g., _ROOT_DPLOCAL = //sentinel/requests/etl_22/
  3. The production request package creates the global macro variable &ReqID for the distributed query—e.g., ReqID = cder_ahr_soc_wp005_b0310
  4. Common Components package creates the global macro variable &DPLocal by concatenating &_root_dplocal.&ReqID./dplocal/ , which resolves to /sentinel/requests/cder_ahr_soc_wp005_b03/dplocal/

17.2.2 Create global macro variables using metadata about each SCDM table

The Common Components package creates a set of global macro variables using metadata about each SCDM table. These variables are used by distributed queries to dynamically resolve the path to the SCDM tables. The metadata is sourced from an input file created by the QA Package (and QA MIL Package where appropriate) and included as an input file in the Common Components package. These macro variables are used by all distributed queries executed on the associated data refresh. The following macro variables are created by this process:

  • DP: Data Partner abbreviation—e.g., SOC
  • ETL: ETL version number—e.g., 5
  • PHASE: ETL approval phase—e.g., A or B
  • DP_MINDATE: Overall DP minimum date of data completeness
  • DP_MAXDATE: Overall DP maximum date of data completeness
  • ENRTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Enrollment table
  • DEMTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Demographic table
  • DISTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Dispensing table
  • ENCTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Encounter table
  • DIATABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Diagnosis table
  • PROTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Procedure table
  • DTHTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Death table
  • CODTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Cause of Death table
  • LABTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Laboratory Results table
  • VITTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Vital Signs table
  • IPHARMTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Inpatient Pharmacy table
  • ITRANSTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Inpatient Transfusion table
  • PRETABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Prescribing table
  • PVDTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Provider table
  • FACTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Facility table
  • MILTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Mother-Infant Linkage table
  • PRSTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Patient-Reported Survey table
  • PRRTABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Patient-Reported Response table
  • FEATABLE: DP and ETL-specific name for the Feature Engineering table
  • _SAS_GRAPH: SAS/GRAPH available
  • _SAS_STAT: SAS/STAT available
  • _SAS_ACCESS: SAS/ACCESS for PC Files available
  • SCDMVER: SCDM version number (in format #.#.#)—e.g., 8.1.0

17.3 Dependencies

  • The main QA package master program header will be unique from the production request program header in that it will not use Common Components to set any parameters. ETL number and Phase will be specified by SOC and Data Partners will need to specify path(s) to the SCDM tables under review
  • The QA package will create additional metadata files that contain all data required to populate the Common Components global macro variables
  • The MIL table needs to have the ETL # stored in the dataset label in order to check that the MIL table is from the same ETL as all other production SCDM tables

  1. Note: This is separate from the ReqID for this CC request↩︎