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# DWR Purview Solution
## ODGA Department of Wildlife Resources Purview Solution
**About the Office of Data Governance and Analytics (ODGA)**
The ODGA partners with Commonwealth agencies and public institutions to maximize the value of Commonwealth data through strategic governance, secure and appropriate data sharing, and enterprise analytics services informing actionable intelligence. The office is led by the Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia and is made up of a team full of talented professionals.
**What is the challenge that the Department of Wildlife Resources was facing?**
The Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) manages 2500 tables of data and needed an easy way to identify which datasets contain PII and curate metadata. Since some DWR tables are created by 3rd parties, DWR needed a better way to manage Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
**What is the ODGA solution for the Department of Wildlife Resources?**
ODGA has onboarded 2500 tables of DWR data into the Microsoft Purview solution. While this does not mean actual datasets are ingested into Purview, it contains names and descriptions of datasets along with identifying metadata, such as rows and columns. Purview scans this information and classifies it based on the type of PII it contains. The agency is also able to curate their data and update and maintain proper metadata through the solution. This allows DWR to better maintain what data they have in their environment. By better maintaining their data, better decisions can be made about how to protect PII.
**What technologies or processes are being used in this project?**
Microsoft Purview is being used to help with the scanning of DWR data. While DWR is onboarding information about datasets into Purview, it is not necessary for an agency to onboard the information in ODGA’s environment. ODGA can connect Purview to already existing market leading databases that agencies are using.
ODGA maintains top of class security while using the Purview solution. Firewall, network connection, and role assignment rules within Azure apply to anyone using the solution. ODGA has also set up private endpoints to ensure that the data remains within the Commonwealth. Purview is also HIPPA HITrust and SOC2 NIST 800-53 certified.
In addition to this, ODGA has kept future security measures in mind as the Purview solution grows. As more agencies use the solutions, security measures can be implemented up so agencies can only see their own data. Agencies can also limit access within their own organizations.
**Does this project make the agency more efficient?**
DWR is now able to better manage their data by knowing what datasets they have and what datasets contain PII. They receive ODGA assistance if needed and the agency has saved costs by not having to implement their own solution.
Purview will act as a data catalog for Commonwealth of Virginia datasets as more agency data is added to the solution, allowing agencies to be aware of both their own data as well as other agency data. This in turn will lead to better protected, documented, and shared data for the Commonwealth.
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* **Office of Data Governance and Analytics**
  P.O. Box 1475
  Richmond, VA 23218
  804-786-1201
  Email the Office of Data Governance and Analytics
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### Bits and Bytes
Stay up-to-date with everything data-related in the Commonwealth such as events, news, data governance, sharing, analytics, and intelligence. Click the button below to sign up for Bits and Bytes, the monthly Office of Data Governance and Analytics Newsletter.
# Operation Bold Blue Line Solution
## ODGA and the Operation Bold Blue Line Dashboards
*Thursday, July 27, 2023*
**What prompted collaboration of the Commonwealth with the ODGA?**
This collaboration was a part of Operation Bold Blue Line, a Governor’s initiative, to identify and reduce violent crime in 13 specific Virginia localities.
**What was the ODGA's role in Operation Bold Blue Line?**
The ODGA was engaged to manage the data collection and consolidation for Operation Bold Blue Line to support the resulting analytics. The data processing and management is hosted within the ODGA infrastructure. A key outcome will be increasing the reporting frequency on datasets that localities normally report to the Virginia State Police (VSP) from once a month to weekly at minimum. The ODGA was to be responsible for the presentation and visual layers of data analytics leveraged by the Governor’s Cabinet and Violent Crime Task Force to make critical business decisions that can benefit constituents in these areas. For instance, where the data shows areas of higher crime, increased law enforcement can be allocated, and the effectiveness of the increased police presence can be measured.
Targeted localities are:
* Chesapeake
* Danville
* Emporia
* Lynchburg
* Martinsville
* Newport News
* Norfolk
* Petersburg
* Portsmouth
* Richmond
* Roanoke
* Hampton
* Hopewell
 The ODGA Team worked with a combination of Data Warehouses and Azure SQL databases to receive data to create Power BI dashboards that showed a variety of violent crime statistics.
**Does this project make the Commonwealth more efficient?**
ODGA was able to combine 13 localities’ data into one clear and concise dashboard. While using the dashboard, Commonwealth leadership can view weekly updates that allow for the most informed decision-making regarding law enforcement resources and violent crime prevention.
ODGA worked with a many different partners to create the Operation Bold Blue Line Dashboards, including the Virginia State Police, which was an instrumental agency in the project. A staff member from the Virginia State Police commented on working with the ODGA team, stating “ODGA was able to work with our crime repository vendor to setup SFTP/FTP transmission of files on the cadence of our choice to update the table/visual dashboards easily.”
# Department of Motor Vehicle Dashboards
## ODGA and the Department of Motor Vehicle Dashboards
**Brief Description of Dashboard Project**
The ODGA partnered with The Chief Transformation Office (CTO) to automate an Excel Dashboard that recorded wait times and other metrics at Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) locations.
**Scope of Work**
Prior to collaborating with the ODGA, DMV monitored their Executive Performance data through an Excel dashboard, which measured metrics such as average wait time, number of customers served, and service time for DMV locations. The data was updated manually in a process that took on average one hour daily.
The ODGA created an automated Power BI dashboard that captured all the Executive Performance data. This dashboard could be instantly updated in the Power BI platform. This dashboard was visually effective, efficient, and easy to use.
ODGA’s automated Power BI dashboard provides instant updates, saving the Transformation Office an hour a day and removing the need for manual uploading. This in turn helps minimize opportunities for human error.
The Power BI Executive Performance Metric Dashboard has saved time and created more efficiency for the Transformation team. The time savings has been reallocated towards making the DMV more efficient and effective. The dashboard helps drive decision making that improves performance.
# BigID Data Scanning
## BigID Data Scanning for the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS)
 The ODGA partners with Commonwealth agencies and public institutions to maximize the value of Commonwealth data through strategic governance, secure and appropriate data sharing, and enterprise analytics services informing actionable intelligence. The office is led by the Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia and is made up of a team full of talented professionals.
**What prompted this project and the collaboration of the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) with the ODGA?**
ODGA was looking for agencies to act as pilot users of the new Big ID solution. ODGA is using BigID to help agencies scan their unstructured data. This solution will allow agencies to know what data they have, where it is, and allow them to make a plan to best protect the data. DCJS volunteered to be a pilot agency for this solution.
**Feedback:**
The ODGA BigID solution has helped the agency ultimately identify no longer needed information, including out of date documents that required software that the agency no longer has. This has given the agency “peace of mind” as they have more control of their documents. The DCJS team’s next steps include working on a plan to handle the out of date findings from the BigID scan.
When asked about working with the ODGA team, the DCJS team stated that the ODGA team is “easy to work with.” As pilot users, they were able to provide feedback about the solution to the ODGA team. When needing help navigating the platform, the DCJS team states that the ODGA team was very patient and helped walk them through the platform.
**Data Protection and Security**
BigID allows agencies to identify unstructured data and documents with credit card numbers, passwords, clear text, driver’s license numbers, tax IDs, passport numbers, personally identifiable information, and other custom categories without ingesting data. After scanning, agencies will be able to know exactly where sensitive data resides in their environments. For security purposes, this is incredibly important as knowing where sensitive data resides is crucial for mitigating risks and protecting against breaches.
**Helping Agencies Potentially Save Money**
Another benefit of scanning unstructured data for agencies is that they can potentially save money by eliminating the need for storage as they delete unnecessary data or documents.
# DVS Veteran Identification Project
## ODGA and the DVS Veteran Identification Project
*Thursday, September 14, 2023*
The ODGA works with Commonwealth agencies and public institutions to maximize the value of Commonwealth data through strategic governance, secure and appropriate data sharing, and enterprise analytics services informing actionable intelligence. The office is led by the Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia and is made up of a team full of talented professionals.
**What is the problem that the agency was facing?**
The Department of Veteran Services (DVS) had difficulty identifying all the veterans in Virginia, making outreach and marketing of services difficult. Ideally, the Department of Veterans Services needed to know where veterans are located in Virginia to better allocate resources such as Veteran Affairs hospitals, mental health services, Veteran cemeteries, and more.
**What is ODGA doing for this agency?**
DVS collaborated with a third party to find an overlap between Virginian Veterans listed in the Department of Defense’s database and the third party’s database to create a holistic view of Virginia Veterans. ODGA gathered DVS data from multiple file sources and systems and ingested them into ODGA’s internal database systems. A data mart was created and made accessible to DVS staff members to give them data analysis capabilities.
The ODGA is working with DVS to perform data analysis to determine what insights they can glean from the data.
**What technologies or processes are being used in this project? What is the general flow of information to the solution?**
ODGA is using their full Azure Cloud environment Azure data factory, Azure data warehouse, and an Azure SQL data mart.  The Veteran data was loaded into Azure Data Lake. The team was then able to pull data with data factory into a data warehouse. In a data warehouse, the ODGA team was able to analyze data, curate, run data quality checks, and combine data if needed/applicable. The data was then put in data mart for analytics and reporting.
**Agency feedback**
The Department of Veterans Services commented on working with the ODGA, stating that the staff is “Very responsive and efficient.... a pleasure to work with.”
The ODGA solution for the Department of Veterans Services has made their agency processes more efficient. DVS states: “...Visualizing our data is made easier by housing the data in a SQL database which can be linked to visualization tools directly. We also have eliminated the high number of disparate data files by merging them into one deduplicated data set.”
# ODGA Azure Migration
*Tuesday, September 26, 2023*
**How was data stored prior to the migration?**
Prior to the migration, ODGA data was hosted in an on-premises data center. The on-premises consisted of over 15 servers including SQL servers, App servers, Power BI instances, etc.
**What prompted the migration to the cloud?**
ODGA was presented with a case where an agency had over 25 terabytes of data that would need to be ingested into the on-premises environment, a task that would have been time consuming and would create a competition for resources. With an existing Microsoft stack, ODGA made the decision to migrate to the Azure cloud, an efficient and highly scalable solution.
**What are some benefits to hosting data on the cloud?**
Agency data is also siloed within the cloud, as opposed to being stored on the same server on-premises. This segregation of data makes pricing more transparent, where with the on-prem solution, it would be impossible to determine exactly which agency was utilizing the most resources. Additionally, hosting data on the cloud makes integration with other organizations much more efficient. With ODGA’s migration to the cloud, ODGA can now serve as a resource to other agencies who are looking to make a similar transition.  The switch to the cloud from an on-premises environment has saved taxpayers around $108,000 a year, and as the ODGA environment grows, the cost is still less than the cost for an on-premises environment.
**How does this migration affect the security of ODGA’s environment?**
Additionally, moving from on premise database servers to the Azure cloud meant a change in the way ODGA manages the security of the data hosted at ODGA. Microsoft Defender constantly monitors our Azure environment to ensure compliance with key regulations and standards such as SOC-2, HIPAA, FedRAMP, and NIST 800-53 R5 and identify security vulnerabilities. While ODGA has not been audited for these security certifications, Microsoft Azure is SOC-2 certified.
When issues are identified, the Governance team is responsible for remediating the findings or providing compensating controls to address the regulatory need. Once the data was migrated to Azure, ODGA’s governance team ensured all databases were encrypted at rest and in transit and required any data columns that contained confidential information like social security numbers, to be masked to ensure it cannot be viewed by unauthorized personnel.