Working Party on the Application of New Technology to Population Data
Second Meeting
1-3 April 1998
Singapore

• Introduction
• Need for FASTAB
• The FASTAB system: technical features and benefits
• Current enhancements to FASTAB
• FASTAB for the census and future
• Appendix 1: the FASTAB system
• Appendix 2: cross tabulations in FASTAB : an illustration of marital status by sex on FASTAB's main module

1. The Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS) is planning to use FASTAB as the tabulation package for the Population Census 2000 database. FASTAB, which stands for "Flexible And Swift Tabulation", is a sophisticated tabulation software tool operating on a client-server, windows-based environment. FASTAB was developed to address the needs of DOS for a fast, flexible, easy-to-use and windows-based cross tabulation software system.

2. DOS, being the national statistical agency, require large amounts of statistical tables to be produced in a quick and timely manner to inform policy makers of the social, economic and demographic trends. As such, the FASTAB project was commissioned by DOS to address the needs of data users for a fast, flexible, windows-based cross tabulation package. Experience from the 1990 Census showed tabulations done with the mainframe-based Table Programming Language (TPL) required time and much effort. TPL tables needed extensive programming and users were dependent on the expertise of IT specialists. The need for an end-user product surfaced. DOS worked together with Kent Ridge Digital Labs (KRDL) to develop FASTAB.

3. The system operates on a Windows NT Server, with users interacting through Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) on a Windows 95 platform. Appendix 1 describes the system. Compared to TPL used for the 1990 Census, some of the features and benefits which make FASTAB a more desirable software include:

1. Cross and Multiple Tabulations

The distinct feature of FASTAB lies in its swift ability to perform cross and multiple tabulations. Cross tabulations involve relating 2-variables eg showing marital status by sex (illustrated in Appendix 2). Multiple tabulations cater to multiple levels of data being tabulated by the system eg showing the number of non-students by highest qualification attained, age and sex.

2. Generating High-Speed, High-Volume Tabulations

FASTAB can process millions of records eg from Census database in the minimum time possible. FASTAB is targeted to process 5 levels of tabulations at the speed of 60 seconds for 3 million records. This is a marked improvement compared with TPL tables which took 40 minutes to generate.

3. User-friendly Software

As FASTAB is a client-server application where the server handles the intensive computation, user interactions are done via the client. Users simply specify the parameters and FASTAB does the rest. Users also see the GUIs and use drag-and-drop capabilities with online tips. Users can also share datasets and create new data sets from existing data fields. Comparatively, TPL is not as user friendly as it requires extensive programming in a mainframe environment.

4. Flexible Software

FASTAB is flexible as programs written in earlier sessions can be saved, modified and reapplied to new tabulations at the click of a mouse. The formatting of spreadsheets before and after tabulation eg moving & deleting columns and rows, grouping and renaming fields, is also possible. In contrast, any table generated in TPL requires additional programming and users depend on the IT personnel to program and re-define the variables.

5. Independent Usage of Data

FASTAB allows for independent generation of data to meet specific needs as tabulations are done at the user's end. There is no need to write specialised programs or code books and depend on the IT personnel, as in the case of TPL. This saves time and costs significantly.
6. Able to Export to Microsoft Applications

Tables in FASTAB can be exported as MS Excel spreadsheet for further computing, or embedded as tables in MS Word and in PowerPoint presentations.

4. DOS and KRDL are currently working to enhance the FASTAB prototype for use in the Population Census 2000. Some of the important areas identified include:
   1. Printing tables to a ?publishable? standard;
   2. Modifying existing tables without any re-specification of parameters;
   3. Giving users the option to display a code and/or code description;
   4. Performing additional statistical computations.

5. FASTAB would be the tabulation package for the forthcoming Population Census 2000, deemed to be Singapore?s largest national statistical project. It is an end-user product designed to perform swift and high-volume tabulations. FASTAB is a pioneering effort commissioned by DOS and developed technically by KRDL.
6. Although FASTAB is presently developed for DOS, it is a generic tool that can be extended and applied to other organisations and countries that foresee the need to perform cross-tabulations and multi-dimensional models on large databases. FASTAB is the ?way to go? for advanced data analysis techniques, allowing users to mine invaluable but hidden information contained in their databases.
7. With FASTAB being an advanced tabulation package, the needs of researchers and policy planners, who require in-depth information for analysis, would be met.

The Administrative module is the data source where all databases and datasets are created or stored. It caters to the following functions:

• Entry into FASTAB by registering with the database;
• Register past datasets or files into the database for future use;
• Create new datasets or files;
• Maintenance of datasets.

Presently, household records from the Census 1990 are stored in the database. Results from Census 2000 would be put into the database. Past records from the Census 1990 and the 1995 mini-Census General Household Survey (GHS) facilitates cross-sectional analysis for social, economic and demographic data at every 5-year intervals ie 1990, 1995, 2000.

The Main Module is where the results are tabulated based on records stored in the Admin module. Users simply specify the parameters with the selected criteria and the data source, and FASTAB does the rest.

The Batch Module makes use of previously saved FASTAB interactive sessions with existing datasets stored as batch jobs for cross tabulations at a later date. The status of all the jobs submitted is constantly updated for the purpose of job monitoring. Users can also print the results directly upon completion of the job.

The FASTAB server engine is the main work engine. It is an interactive work engine where everything stored, programmed and tabulated in the other modules are accessed by this server engine for data generation. This engine then feeds the required output back to the various modules to obtain the desired tabulations.

1. To Open the data source, click on the second icon at the top left hand corner.
2. To select the data source, click on the third icon and the "Select Data Source" screen showing the different databases will appear.
3. Select the 1990 Population Census database as denoted by "HHOLD_P90a"
4. Click "OK"

1. Go to the "Tabulation" pull-down menu and select "Fields Selection"
2. The "Select Fields" screen will appear as shown below.
3. Click on the required fields:
4. Marital Status (denoted by MARST_HD as shown) 
• Sex
• House Type
• Click "OK"

1. Drag the House Type field (denoted by "HSEHOLD_TY") to the Wafer button
2. Drag the Marital Status field (denoted by "MARST_HD") to the Row button
3. Drag the Sex field (denoted by "SEX_HD") to the Column button