by MarkC
28. July 2010 11:40
Have you tried to pick up some work when a colleague was away, only to discover you couldn't find where some necessary information was?
Data transparency is a hot topic in the public sector, ensuring that data is made available to the public often for the first time. But even within a private organisation, you need to ensure that all the valuable data within the enterprise is made available to the right people.
Just providing access to the data isn't enough, however. You have to be able to find what you're looking for, and for that data to be complete and accurate, in order for it to have any value.
A regular data cleansing programme ensures that your data is up to date and accurate, as well as making the data easier to search. For example, a name stored in one field is much more difficult to search efficiently than one where the title, forename and surname are all split into separate fields, and addresses are easier to search when the town, county or postcode can be easily identified.
Duplicate data can be identified and merged so when you see 1,000 records you know you've got 1,000 customers, not 500 that have each entered their details twice.