Finding Your Data’s “Mr. Clean” Solution

• Category: Blog
• Tuesday, 04 January 2011 00:00

I know it's not right - but what can I do about it? Only the business can clean the data, isn't that true?

So you did all the right things, profiled the data, found some issues and now the only way to fix it is to give it to the business to update – that is what a lot of people think, but it is not always the case.

There are tools like SAP BusinessObjects Data Services that have been developed to assist people in cleaning up their data. These tools have standard functions to help in cleaning and standardizing data.

ngeably as first names – and normally for females (all though there might be a few exceptions – remember that famous song – by Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue). These tools can use reference databases like the US Postal Services address data to check and verify addresses etc. No longer does it have to be a big XLS spreadsheet that someone has to go through line by line.

It has been found over many projects that if the issues that are identified during profiling are discussed with the business it is often possible to deal with up to 85% of the issues programmatically (sometimes it can even be higher – like in the high 90s). The remaining ones then require that human touch to decide the best way to deal with them. In anybody’s language, 15% is a lot less than 100% :0)

So when you are faced with the situation of having to clean or transform a lot of data – there are alternatives to just throwing a lot of people at it – consider the use of tools like SAP BusinessObjects to make your life a bit easier.