Technical Bulletin #10 State Receipt of AFCARS Summary and Detail Adoption and Foster Care Report Files REVISED: March, 2000

Purpose

The purpose of this technical bulletin is to provide information on the report files transmitted to a State by the Federal AFCAR system. These files contain the data compliance and data quality reports on the States' processed data.

1. Background
   
   When a State transmits their AFCARS data file to the Federal AFCAR system it is generally processed within 24 hours of being received. The Federal AFCAR system then generates reports on the States' AFCARS data. These reports are the Summary Data Compliance Reports, the Summary Data Quality Reports, and the Data Compliance Detailed Report. These reports are the same as the reports generated by the State version of the Data Compliance Utility and the Data Quality Utility. (See Technical Bulletins #8 and #9 for more information on these utilities.) The State should review these reports as soon as they are received to ensure that the file was received by the Federal AFCAR system, and to check if there are errors that may need to be corrected. The reports are transmitted to the State in the following four files:

   1. Summary Data Compliance and Data Quality Adoption Report File
   2. Summary Data Compliance and Data Quality Foster Care Report File
   3. Detail Adoption Data Compliance Report File

   4. Detail Foster Care Data Compliance Report File

2. Report File Record Length
   
   The record length is required when allocating space for a file; it specifies the size of the logical record. In order for each State to receive the AFCARS report files, it should have space allocated on the State's system for the four report files that are transmitted via CONNECT:Direct. In addition, each State should have provided the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) with its unique file naming convention for each of the report files that are transmitted. If the State is not sure whether this has been done, contact the Office of Information Services at (202) 401-1462.
   
   Due to the recent change to the AFCARS to collect multi-racial information, the logical record length (lrecl) for the Summary Data Compliance and Data Quality Adoption and Foster Care report files needs to be modified. The logical record length for the Detailed Adoption and Foster Care Data Compliance report files do not need to be modified.
   
   The Summary Report Files should now have a minimum record length of 105 (lrecl=105) and a minimum blocksize of 1050 (blksize=1050). The Detail Report Files have a record length of 86 (lrecl=86) and a blocksize of 860 (blksize=860). The old lrecl was 74 and the old blocksize was 740.
   
   The State may use this recommended record length or use what is most efficient for their system.
   
   Below is an example of the parameters the State may use when allocating the report file:

   DSN=(State's dataset name for the adoption summary report file)
   DCB=(LRECL=105,RECFM=FB,BLKSIZE=1050)
   DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE))

The State may allocate the space for a file either through a batch job or using the system utilities.