12 quarterly data fields
Quarterly Data Fields
The quarterly data occurs 6 times, once for each quarter in a 1½-year time period. Each occurrence is 113 bytes in length, for a total size of 678 bytes. The first occurrence represents the most recent quarter. The remaining quarters represent preceding quarters, progressing from newest to oldest in consecutive occurrences. Most often, the first occurrence in the quarters' table will represent the current quarter. The second occurrence would then represent the most recent prior quarter, and so forth to the sixth occurrence, which would contain the data for one year before occurrence 2. For example, if the current quarter is 2nd quarter, 2006, the subscripts would be defining the following quarters-
- (1) = Quarter 06/2 (April to June, 2006)
- (2) = Quarter 06/1 (January to March, 2006)
- (3) = Quarter 05/4 (October to December, 2005)
- (4) = Quarter 05/3 (July to September, 2005)
- (5) = Quarter 05/2 (April to June, 2005)
- (6) = Quarter 05/1 (January to March, 2005)
Despite this general usage of the quarters, the IMT record does not need to be restricted in its selection of a quarter. The first occurrence could represent the immediate future quarter or one of the prior quarters. However, two restrictions apply to this quarter selection:
- The first element's year and quarter must be the same for all records on the IMT File (i.e., you can't have one record with quarter 06/1 in the first slot, and the next record with quarter 05/4 in that position).
- Any of the older quarters on the IMT record which do not appear on the Micro File will be ignored, as they have no production data to update.
When the State develops a State-specific program to generate the six-quarter build file (for the initial installation of the EXPO/EARS system only), that program will need to fill in data for all six quarters of the IMT File, since this information is needed to produce not only current but historical Micro File data as well. Other State-specific programs (Quarter Extract and Late Reporter Update) generally will contain only one or two quarters of data, since there is no need to bring in the same data for older quarters that have already been finalized.
For at least one extract each quarter, both current and prior quarter will need to be updated, according to BLS multi-quarter processing requirements. The EXPO IMT interface allows for that multi-quarter update, and then some. Even if older quarters (two or more quarters before current data) show changed data, it is not mandatory to bring this information into the Micro File. However, any significant back-quarter changes (such as code changes) that are extracted in the IMT File will eventually be passed on to the EQUI deliverable so that BLS micro data will be in sync with the State's Micro File. Once again, be sure that the quarters appear in the same relative placement for all records. If an IMT file uses the first quarter slot for current quarter data, but there are only changes available for the prior quarter, the first quarter slot will show low-values, while the second quarter occurrence will contain any available prior quarter data.
Some States have chosen to update both current and future quarter data simultaneously, using the first quarterly data area for any future quarter data that may be available, and the second occurrence of quarterly fields for current quarter information. This may seem like a time saving method, but it can be detrimental under certain circumstances. Since current quarter data are more prevalent than future quarter figures, more IMT records will have the second quarter slot populated than the first. But the most thorough pre-editing of input data by the EXPO interface program (ES2MI01) occurs for the first quarter slot's data. Therefore, if the current quarter fields are incomplete, there may be instances of less than optimal defaults applied to some of the missing items. It is important in this light to be certain that thoroughness be employed when filling in the data of the second IMT quarter slot if there are no corresponding data present in the first occurrence of the quarters table. Also note that the third quarter slot will be needed in this scenario to load the prior quarter IMT data as well.
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