Bring it together, verify it, and make it useful. Collecting raw responses from business areas is only half the work. This step is about turning that raw material into reliable, useful inventory. And making sure people know it exists and can use it.

Consolidate and clean

As responses come in, bring them together into your master inventory. Check for:

• Completeness — all in-scope assets captured, all core attributes populated.
• Consistency — uniform use of controlled vocabulary, formatting and naming conventions.
• Accuracy — does the information make sense? Follow up with business areas where entries are unclear or contradictory.
• Duplicates — the same asset listed multiple times by different areas. Consolidate with clear ownership noted.
• Out-of-scope entries — remove or flag for a separate register.

Apply data quality assessment

For each data asset, consider applying a simple quality rating using the ABS Data Quality Framework dimensions:

• Relevance — does the data meet the needs of current and likely future users?
• Timeliness — is the data current enough to be useful?
• Accuracy — does the data correctly represent what it is supposed to measure?
• Coherence — is the data consistent with related data assets and over time?
• Interpretability — is there sufficient context for users to understand and correctly use the data?
• Accessibility — can the right people find and access the data when they need it?

Even a simple three-level rating (High / Medium / Low) for each dimension adds significant value, helping users understand the fitness-for-purpose of a data asset before they invest time in using it.

Test with users

Before publishing, share the inventory with a small group of intended users — staff from different areas who would realistically need to find or use data — and ask:

• Can you find what you are looking for?
• Is the information accurate and sufficient for your needs?
• What is missing or confusing?

Their feedback will surface gaps and usability issues that are invisible to the team who built the inventory.

Publish and promote

Publish the inventory in an accessible location — an intranet, SharePoint site, or a dedicated data governance platform. Let staff know it exists and explain how to use it. For organisations using Dataplace, consider publishing your inventory to the Australian Government Data Catalogue via Dataplace, making your data assets discoverable by other agencies, researchers and the public. 

Dataplace supports organisations manage their data inventory as an internal only inventory or to publish for external discoverability. By publishing their inventory, their data will become discoverable to other organisations, including research bodies and universities. access to the data asset will continue to be managed and controlled by the owner organisation.