This is an Excel document, with a tab for each table and additional tabs for further information. The TOS may appear incomprehensible at first, but it is vital that you become familiar with how to use it, as it is the only document that contains information on every single field in the MHSDS.
The Technical Output Specification can be downloaded from:
Implementation tools and guidance (v5.0)
One thing you will need it for is to view the options that you are allowed to submit to certain fields. These can be found in the National Code and National Code Definition columns.
You can also see the unabbreviated names of each of the fields in column Data Item Name (Data Dictionary Element) and a description in the column Data Item Description. The column IDB Element Name will match the column headers in the access database.
The TOS also tells you whether a field is Mandatory, Required, Optional, Pilot or Derived. You can see this information in the column ‘M/R/O/P/D’.
The column ‘Format’ tells you what format the data has to be in. For example, “max an20” means that it accepts an alphanumeric value up to a maximum of 20 characters long. These formats are described in the Technical Glossary tab.
The TOS has many more useful columns and tabs, which you can start to investigate as you become more comfortable with the MHSDS. We will look at the columns ‘Validation Rules’ and ‘Record Level Error/Warning Messages’ in the validation reports and data quality section.
