ALR Data File Specifications
There is a separate data file for each entity defined in the ALR chapter of the Data Book, plus a special Chart Number mapping entity submitted by some RCCs. Each file will contain all data elements corresponding to that entity.
The file format to be used is Comma Separated Values (CSV). The first line of a CSV file consists of the data element names, which correspond (one to one) with the individual data elements of the Data Book entity. The data element names to be used are listed in the ALR Data Book Physical Entity and Data Element Names list that appears later in this section. Note that some of these CSV field names differ from the more descriptive business names that appear in the ALR chapter of the Data Book, so it is important to review this list to ensure that your CSV files have the correct field names in the header row.
Subsequent lines in the CSV file contain data, one record per line. The values for each data element are listed one after another, separated by commas and in the same order as their corresponding data elements listed on the first line. If a data element has no value to be reported, it should appear as a null or space in the CSV file.
Any data element value that contains a comma should be enclosed in double quotes at the beginning and end of the data value. Double quotes are also allowed around any other data value, but are not mandatory unless being used to delimit a value with a comma. Numeric fields cannot contain commas separating the thousands digits.
A sample of the content of a CSV file appears below:
