What is QA/QC and why does it matter?

PEARS data are used by federal, state, and local agencies for reporting and evaluation. To facilitate the availability of high-quality data in PEARS, the NPI PEARS team implements regularly scheduled quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) and data cleaning processes.

How does PEARS QA/QC work?

At regular intervals, NPI exports LHD PEARS data entered to date during the federal fiscal year (FFY), reviews the entries, and flags potential issues for review and correction (also known as QA/QC). LHDs are required to review and resolve data quality issues promptly. NPI hosts office-hours to support LHDs with their PEARS reporting and quality assurance/ quality control (QA/QC) processes.

The PEARS modules reviewed for QA/QC are:

• PSE Site Activities
• Program Activities (DE)
• Indirect Activities (IE)
• Partnerships
• Coalitions

All flagged issues for an LHD are contained in a “QA/QC Issue File”, which is a single Excel workbook organized into separate worksheets by PEARS module. The workbook also contains worksheets with instructions on how to review QA/QC Issue Files, a codebook explaining the contents of the Issue File, and a summary worksheet that shows the status of issues (e.g., have they been resolved). LHDs can access their QA/QC Issue Files in their LHD's NPI LHD Evaluation OneDrive folder.  

In place of flagged issues, LHDs may see one of these messages:

• No issues flagged: we reviewed your entries for this module and found no issues
• No entries found: your LHD has no entries for this module as of the date of our export

In addition to these QA/QC reviews, the NPI team conducts annual data cleaning for any issues that remain unresolved at the end of the PEARS reporting year, after PEARS has closed for data entry. During this brief review and data cleaning window, LHDs should be prepared to respond promptly to emails from NPI staff.

Questions? Need help with QA/QC?

Please contact the NPI PEARS team with any questions about QA/QC Issue Files or the QA/QC process. We’ve also created brief Mastering PEARS video tutorials to help you better understand how to resolve some of the most commonly flagged issues.