New Features & Enhancements
The latest CUSP updates and enhancements.
Release: March 2023
Feature
Benefit
Features
Improved ETL process
3Si made significant improvements to the CUSP ETL process to enhance speed and responsiveness to client needs.
Benefits
- Improved speed and performance of the ETL process.
- ETL process more agile and responsive to client data requirements.
Expanded geocoding capability with ArcGIS integration
3Si enhanced the CUSP geocoding algorithm to integrate out-of-the-box with ESRI’s ArcGIS in addition to the Google Maps API.
Benefits
- Expanded geocoding options available to all CUSP clients.
- Greater consistency across data systems and applications for clients that already use ArcGIS.
- Allows clients to save costs by leveraging their existing investments in an ArcGIS infrastructure.
- Enhanced accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness in the use of mapping and location-based services.
Load time reduction & runtime automation
3Si has continued to improve and automate CUSP internal processes to reduce load time. With the latest update of CUSP, we reduced the average load time from 1.5 hours to under 30 minutes.
Benefits
- Users have access to CUSP outputs based on the most recent available data that can inform up-to-date analysis and insight.
- Reduced latency and faster load times mean that users can get results quickly.
- More rigorous, extensive quality assurance to enhance reliability and accuracy of CUSP data outputs.
- Runtime automation to enable system efficiencies, more consistent results, and reduced risk of errors and discrepancies.
Monthly data releases & data report cards
Monthly data refreshes on a semi-automated release schedule, with monthly data report cards to on the quality and completeness of data ingestion.
Benefits
- With monthly data drops on a semi-automated release schedule, clients can receive timely and up-to-date model outputs.
- CUSP’s automated data selection process reduces the likelihood of errors, thus increasing the overall accuracy of CUSP data model outputs.
- Improved data quality.
- Increased transparency and regular communication around data quality and completeness issues.
- Consistent reporting to identify areas of improvement.
- New analytical insights for CUSP users, partners, and other stakeholders.
Updated population base & boundaries to 2021 Census data
CUSP population base table now reflects the most recent data available from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), with updated estimates of populations and population characteristics such as age, income, and household employment status.
Benefits
- 3Si now offers a comprehensive, industry-leading child care services database that consolidates up-to-date Census data, residential address data, and licensed child care data across the United States.
- 3Si’s child care data assets can be used for analysis and mapping of the child population and child care providers and programs across the country.
- 3Si’s data allows analysis at multiple geographic levels within a state and cross-sectional comparative analysis across states.
Enhanced QA process
3Si created and implemented a new semi-automated Quality Assurance (QA) process with fine-grained data segmentation, systematic data checks, and cross-sectional and over-time trend analysis across multiple dimensions.
Benefits
- Increased rigor in the quality assurance of data output accuracy and validity.
- Deeper insight into cross-sectional and over-time patterns, such as trends in child population, provider distribution, provider capacity, and program reach.
- Automated processes in the QA workflow increase efficiency and consistency.
Maintenance Updates
- Platform improvements to seamlessly support more databases. Specific code refinements now allow CUSP to connect to and perform the read/write function on different types of databases more easily.
- With the latest release of CUSP, we can now upload and query a Databricks SQL database.
- New function to enable the transfer of data between CUSP databases, e.g., staging and production. This update increases platform efficiency by eliminating the need to run a release multiple times for different databases.
- Refined and streamlined census tract and county fields in the CUSP code, thus reducing the risk of errors and inconsistencies that may arise in the ETL process.
- Engineering R&D into future enhancements related to new data, e.g., National Address Database version 12.
- Refinements in CUSP data elements, e.g., synthesizing database column names and output tables, for greater cross-functional standardization.