DATA Act Dashboard: An Instructional Case Using Data Visualization

Abstract

This case instructs students on how to extract, transform, and load data (ETL) from disparate sources to perform analysis on Federal Government agency spending transactions: the financial statements of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, DATA Act spending data, and Office of Management and Budget object class definitions. Students also learn to construct an interactive dashboard to allow users to discover and investigate agency spending data and to drill down to specific dimensions, such as program activity or object classification, and to specific standard general ledger accounts used by the Federal Government. A companion case demonstrates how to use robotic process automation to automate some of the ETL steps. This case is designed to be flexible so that it can be implemented in any undergraduate or graduate accounting course from government accounting and auditing to data analytics based on the instructor’s preference.