BRIM Collection Refresh Schedule

The BRIM data collection is refreshed nightly in the Data Warehouse, Monday through Friday, following the completion of XFERMAIN, the job that feeds BEN Financials data to BRIM. The Data Warehouse refresh job actually begins at about 4:30 a.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and is usually finished by the start of business.

The nightly refresh affects all tables in the collection. Most tables are completely replaced with refreshed data. However, three tables are snapshot tables: BRIM_FUNDS, BRIM_MASTER, and BRIMAUTOPAY_PROFILES. For the snapshot tables, records for the snapshot for the open accounting period are replaced nightly until the period is closed. Once the accounting period is closed, the data for the snapshot of that accounting period remains unchanged.

In months where the accounting period close falls during the business week, the BRIM data collection in the Data Warehouse will be refreshed during the same morning as the financial system month-end processing. At these times, the BRIM data collection will be unavailable for querying until the refresh is complete, which is usually by early afternoon.

To enable users to foot BRIM data to General Ledger data, the schedule to refresh the BRIM data collection in the Data Warehouse is synchronized with the schedule to refresh the General Ledger data collection in the Data Warehouse. These refresh jobs run 5 nights per week. However, the General Ledger data is refreshed in the operational BRIM system 6 nights per week (Sunday through Friday; actually, sometime after 4:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday). In the Warehouse, the BRIM data and the General Ledger data will be in synch. On most mornings, the operational BRIM data and the Warehoused BRIM data will be in synch. However, they will not match on Monday mornings. Anything posted to the General Ledger or to BRIM on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday will not appear in the Data Warehouse until Tuesday.

Source of the Data
The data in the Data Warehouse that is accessible via the Business Objects BRIM Universe comes from BRIM, the Billing and Receivables Information Management system used by the Office of Research Services. BRIM is used to track award payments due and received for sponsored project funds where the sponsors either send payments as they are billed for project expenses, or send payments based on a schedule. BRIM does not track sponsored project funds where payment is handled via letters of credit.

The ultimate source of the fund records, expense records, and most unapplied receipt records in BRIM is the General Ledger data in BEN Financials. Automatic payment profiles, invoice records, invoice line titles, and records for applied receipts were entered by ORS staff directly into BRIM, or were created by the BRIM system.

The BRIM Universe also includes data from the BEN Financials General Ledger system. Balances, General Ledger transactional data, and reference tables are included.

Time Span Covered
The BRIM data collection includes snapshots for accounting periods from the current open accounting period back to SEP-02 (the September, 2002 accounting period). The data includes records for funds that were active in fiscal year 2001, plus some invoices going as far back as Jan. 11, 1990, and some receipts going as far back as Apr. 8, 1992.