Updating Dispensed Data

Data Updates

Overview

The Research Analysis Platform holds a copy of all UK Biobank data that is used to create all of the platform's projects. The UK Biobank periodically releases new data and makes updates to the existing data. Whenever the Research Analysis Platform updates its copy of the data, it will be indicated by a new data release version. The UK Biobank might expand or remove certain eligible fields within users’ applications at times. To get up-to-date data in their projects, users can check if an update is available and perform a data refresh to update the dispensed data.

The data update process will synchronize the project against the latest data release. This affects both tabular data and file data.

For tabular data, the update process will make in-place changes to the previously-dispensed database, including any schema changes (such as for new fields) and row updates. A new associated dataset will be generated. The previously-dispensed dataset will remain in the project, along with any previously-saved cohorts or dashboards. Although the previous dataset, cohorts, and dashboards will persist, they will be evaluated against the updated database; therefore cohort counts and field distributions may change. The new dataset will contain updated metadata as well as any new fields; to migrate old cohorts or dashboards to the new dataset to take advantage of updated metadata and new fields, please run the "Rebase Cohorts And Dashboards" app.

For file data, the update process will dispense any new files, potentially rearranging previous folders if folder names have changed. It will also re-generate *.fam, *.sample, and ukb_rel.dat files, removing any instances of previous ones (even if the previous ones had been copied to other projects).

Users can also dispense a new project if they want the latest version of the data in a separate area, instead of updating a project in-place.

Performing Data Updates

Check for Updates

To check for updates, go to the "Setting" page of a dispensed project and click the "Check for Updates" button in the "UK Biobank" section.

Data Update Availability

By clicking "Check for Updates", if the dispensed data is already up-to-date, you should see the below:

If there is a data update available for the dispensed data, you should see the below:

Show Updates

When data updates are available, you can click the "Show Update" button to see more information about the latest data update.

NOTE: We highly recommend not to launch a large number of jobs and perform clone/copy operations on a large number of objects in the requested project.

Start Update

By clicking the "Start Update" button, you kick off the data refresh process. You can check the progress of the update process from the "status" section.

After the refresh is done, the status will return to "Ready".

Cohort Rebasing

Updates to existing tabular data can be done using the Rebase Cohorts and Dashboards app.

Additional Questions

For additional questions about data updates, see the list of Frequently Asked Questions.