What We Did

• Conducted comprehensive discovery across 13 county departments to map more than 300 data sources.

• Developed a sustainable data governance framework, including policies aligned with CJIS, HIPAA, and state retention requirements.

• Migrated critical law enforcement data from a retired AS400 system into SQL structures and specialized data marts.

• Implemented Power BI dashboards for law enforcement, providing modernized reporting and secure data access.

The Challenge

A large county government in Minnesota faced increasing challenges from fragmented, project-by-project data integrations across its departments. With over 300 supporting systems and 13 departments, there was no unified governance or architecture to manage data lifecycles.

Law enforcement data, in particular, was trapped in a poorly documented AS400 system built decades earlier. The county needed to retire the legacy platform, bring decades of records into compliance with retention and expungement policies, and establish a foundation for sustainable data governance.

Lifescale Analytics’ Solution

Lifescale Analytics partnered with the county to establish a unified data strategy. Our team conducted a discovery analysis across departments, profiling data sources and documenting requirements for shared data. We created detailed data landscape models and implemented a governance council empowered to evaluate integration requests and enforce compliance standards.

At the tactical level, we migrated law enforcement records into SQL-based structures and developed a Power BI application for streamlined reporting and secure access. We also cataloged more than 300 data sources, classifying them for compliance with CJIS, HIPAA, and state retention policies.

Impact

• Retired a decades-old AS400 legacy platform while preserving critical law enforcement data

• Delivered the county’s first Power BI implementation, enhancing operational reporting and analytics capabilities

• Established a governance framework that ensures ongoing compliance and cross-department data sharing

• Enabled secure, efficient access to legacy and new data for multiple agencies

• Positioned the county for long-term modernization and a more data-driven approach to public services