The Errors and Warnings page lists issues that agencies must fix (errors) or may fix (warnings) in order to produce accurate NIBRS data that will be accepted by the FBI. Incidents with errors do not appear in most reports and are not sent to the FBI. Incidents with warnings appear in all reports and are sent to the FBI.
Standard users may review the information for all ORIs that they are allowed to view. Administrators may review the information for all ORIs, as well as being able to dismiss errors and clear warnings. Other roles can be added to the system with the ability to see and work with errors and warnings by assigning the roles the permissions:
- View Errors and Warnings Menu Item
- Dismiss Error(s)
- Clear Warning(s)
The table below explains the information provided on the page.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Agency | The friendly name of the agency whose submission was flagged as including an error or warning. The table may be filtered using this column, to show only issues for a specific agency. |
| Incident / B-Arrest / Report Date | The unique identifer of the submission generating the error or warning. When the Incident Editor module is available, the values are hyperlinked to open the incident for editing. The table may be filtered using this column, to show only issues generated from a specific submission. |
| Type | Whether the issue is an Error that must be fixed or a Warning that may need to be fixed. The table may be filtered using this column, to show only Errors, only Warnings, or All issue types. |
| Status | Whether the issue is Unresolved and still requires action, or has been Dismissed/Cleared previously. The table may be filtered using this column to show only Unresolved issues, only Dismissed/Cleared issues, or all issue statuses. |
| Uploaded By | The user name that uploaded the file containing the issue. The table may be filtered using this column to show only issues from files uploaded by the specified user name. |
| Upload Date | The date the file containing the issue was uploaded. |
| Filename | The name of the file containing the issue. |
| Data Type | The type of record that contains the issue.
The table may be filtered using this column to only show the specified type of data. |
| Line Number | The line number in the file Crime Insight identifies as having the issue. The number shown is very reliable for text (flat) files, but for XML files the line number typically only identifies the correct element in which the issue has been identified. |
| Error Code | The error code associated with the issue being identified, as described by the governing specification or state-specific custom extensions to the specification. The error codes are hyperlinked to help files which may provide more guidance. The table may be filtered using this column to only show issues identified with the specified error code. |
| Description | A brief description of the identified issue. |
| Action Date | The date upon which the issue was dismissed or cleared. |
| Actioned By | The user name that dismissed or cleared the issue. |
| Explanation / Justification | Notes left by the user name who dismissed or cleared the issue. |
Dismissing Errors
When an Administrator determines that an error will never be fixed, they have the option to dismiss the error. This helps keep the page free of errors that cannot be resolved, but does not change the handling of an incident or cause it to be accepted. Instead, Crime Insight continues to track the error internally but offers no further reminders to agencies to resolve it.
The errors can always be seen on the page by changing the filter on the Status column. This will show errors that have been dismissed, but not those hidden by error number or those that have been resolved by a fresh upload of the incident.
Clearing Warnings
Clearing warnings is similar, but agencies are expected to do it themselves. A cleared warning disappears from the Errors and Warnings page unless filtering is used to reveal it. Crime Insight tracks that the warning has been cleared, and matches this clearance up with warnings from the FBI. Doing so means agencies only need to notify administrators once that a warning is no longer relevant, and where the Repository site uses the Web service to submit data to the FBI, the system helps by notifying the FBI.
Generating Warnings on Ingestion
Repository reports the complete set of possible warnings. This includes all of the warnings from the FBI technical specification, as well as the custom warnings developed by Beyond 20/20 to improve the consistency and quality of your data.
The Agency QC report will be retired at some point after all 2021 data is complete. The improved Errors and Warnings page provides all the same information, but the data is available immediately upon each submission.
Having the warnings available in the system means you are better able to manage them and ensure agencies are responding appropriately.
See Also
Video-How to Review and Clear Warnings