1. Standard lists of flags Working Party on Animal Production Statistics 13-14 March 2014
Item 8.4.

2. Standard lists of flags
Flags are needed for communicating important characteristics about the data, for processing data and for data users.
main problem is the partial mismatch between the nomenclature for flags used in Web-Forms and the SDMX standard code lists for flags.

3. Standard lists of flags
Standardisation is essential for improving the efficiency of data collection and processing and for maintaining and improving data quality;
SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange) is being adopted as the standard data collection format by Eurostat and by several other major institutions dealing with statistics (World Bank, BIS, ECB, IMF, OECD and the UN);
The benefits include improved data interoperability which can facilitate sharing of data resulting in efficiency gains for data providers and users;

4. New FLAG nomenclatures in WebForms
Fully SDMX compliant flags
Possibility to enter 2 flags for the same item (currently only one)
Likelihood of errors will decrease

5. NEW SDMX COMPLIANT CODE LISTS
OBS_STATUS:
B             break in the time series
P             Provisional
F             Forecast
E             Estimated
U             Unreliable
N            not significant
L             not collected (going to disseminated as ":")
D             definition differs
M            missing/not available (disseminated as ":")
 CONF_STATUS:
C             Confidential
N             not publishable

6. NEW SDMX COMPLIANT CODE LISTS

7. DIFFERENCES WITH THE CURRENT STANDARD
meaning for flag "F" changes to “Forecast” (currently “Final”).
"R" flag in Web-Forms will disappear
The special values ("NA", "-","C") in WebForms will become obsolete.
to indicate “zero by rounding” or “less than half of the unit value” (instead of using the special value "-"), "0" together with flag “N” should be used.
to indicate a "true zero" "0" (without any flag) should be used only.
Instead of the special value “NA” (not available) flag "M" is proposed. Flag “L” is not intended to be used in Animal Production Statistics.

8. Thank you very much for your attention!
SDMX website: