Managing the Extended Data Dictionary

Extensions to the Data Dictionary allow you to create multiple definitions of user-defined fields for certain tables in Aspen. These are most often used for workflows, special education, conduct, and health. Transcript definitions and analytic definitions are examples of these specialized forms of a Data Dictionary extension.

For example, the transcript record field FieldA001 may contain different kinds of data depending on the transcript definition. For one definition, it may contain a grade; for another it may contain a comment.

When creating a Data Dictionary Extension, you define an ID, name, description and a category, and then select you which table(s) the extension will affect. For that table(s), you define fields (name, length, etc.). Aspen automatically selects an available user-defined field in which to store that field’s data.