While the decision to use the Justice Department's XML model to do data translation means each region can continue to use its own applications as part of FLEX, law enforcement officials still needed to find a way to extract existing data definitions from each region and to create a common vocabulary for statewide data exchanges, Phillips said.

Most of the regions have been manually mapping the metadata needed to exchange information with other regional agencies, a method that would not allow FLEX to be completed by its March 2007 deadline. To speed up the integration process, the state will use Dublin, Ohio-based Sypherlink Inc.'s Harvester metadata discovery and mapping tool to map data from the disparate systems to the data model for the project.

"We got the groups to agree that we will use a tool to import the data schemas of the applications that are already there, [and] then we are going to determine the common elements as our strategic points to share data," Phillips said. "We saw that as an area where we could save a considerable amount of time on the front end and on the back end to maintain these data mappings as the sources change."

Because that plan won't require agencies to rewrite their applications, it was seen as the least threatening way to encourage participants to share data, he said. In addition, using a tool to discover and map metadata will be 50 percent faster than traditional manual methods.

State officials plan to wrap up the data-mapping phase of FLEX by June. They are now completing the training of users on Harvester and already have compiled a dictionary of basic data elements within the regions, Phillips said.