data, data, data

Severe Labor Day weekend brain fade recovery moment...

I am in the midst of documenting something for management consideration in a
status meeting 3 hours from now.  Please consider the following:

<begin>
Need to identify data that is analyzed (or has the potential to be) versus
data that is only required to be archived.  Square footage, job type, and
inspection scores are examples of data that can be analyzed.  Comments,
photos, drawings, and signatures are examples of data that would not be
analyzed and need only to be archived so that paper storage can be
eliminated.

It is important to remember that all elements that have at least the
potential to be analyzed should be stored in a database file, even before
the need for doing so is recognized.
<end>

The idea that I am attempting to convey to management types is that some
information does not need to be kept in an online database file.  There are
some forms that are basically "comments only" that truly could be scanned
for archival purposes, and no need (that I can see) for the comments to be
typed into the system as data.  Such a scanned form would need only some
kind of "pointer" to an IFS file (or other archival platform) that would be
stored in a database file.

It's all data, but of what kind?

tia,
db