Data Cleansing 101

The great benefit of using a data cleansing tool is that the special program is designed to automatically and systematically look at the data, analyze it, and then determine errors.  The way data cleansing can do this is by using three primary dynamics built into the program to include look-up tables, rules, and algorithms.  This means specific types of errors are found and corrected.

Let us say your company had a database that contained all of the employee and vendor contact information.  This data would be comprised of the business name, person’s name, address, city, state, zip code, landline phone, mobile phone, and email.  With data cleansing, as the program scours through this database, if it were to find a blank city field or perhaps it found three identical records, it would have the capability of creating a report to let the database administrator know.

Now, depending on the size of the company, trying to maintain a large database such as this is a full-time job.  Then when you consider that this is likely only one of several databases that need to be managed, you can easily see the extensive of the administrator’s responsibility.  However, by using a data cleansing program, the tool performs a very important part of the administrator’s job, which ultimately saves a tremendous amount of time and effort, not to mention money.

In fact, there are many data cleansing programs that not only identify problems within a database but also fix them automatically.  In this instance, time that would have otherwise been spent by the database administrator to go into each record, look for errors, and make corrections, is cut in half, if not more.  Obviously, this type of savings allows the administrator to focus his or her time on some of the more critical aspects of database management.

Other important questions that business owners have relating to data cleansing and the ways in which it works includes:

• Location of Data being Cleansed – The administrator always want to use the data cleansing program so the source database is cleaned if there is still data being used from the source database.  After that has been completed, it is moved to warehouse or internet center storage.  If the data cleansing process is not done in this way, the following would be potential risks:
  • Lack of equivalency between the source and warehouse data would develop
  • Warehouse data is put at risk for corruption
  • In addition to risks, if data cleansing is done with bad or defective data, the company would experience a tremendous financial burden

• Longevity and/or Frequency of Data Cleansing – Business owners will also need to determine if there is a point that the database no longer needs to be cleaned.  To ensure the company is not spinning its wheels in trying to salvage corrupted or defective data by using data cleansing, several factors should be looked into:
  • Company reputation
  • Legal ramifications
  • Wasted time, money, and material expense
  • Missing value to customers or losing customers

• Balancing Automated Data Cleansing with the Database Administrator – Obviously, each company will need to determine if a data cleansing program is the best solution.  This means looking at the value of the tool opposed to the services of the database administrator to see if the two can work in tandem or if one benefits more than the other does.  We do know that data cleansing saves a lot of time by performing the identification and correction of errors found within the database.

Running a business requires detail to things that most people never give thought to until they are faced with some kind of question or challenge.  This is the way it is with data cleansing in that it is a valuable tool but unless it is known about, a lot of work is being done manually, which only adds in yet another risk of human error.  You can work closely with company that designs, sells, and implements the data cleansing tool and if needed, have some customized features added in so your business will be as efficient as it can possibly be associated with internal and external databases.