What Is Data Collection: Methods, Types,

Tools, and Techniques

Table of Contents
What is Data Collection: A Definition
Why Do We Need Data Collection?
What Are the Different Methods of Data Collection?
Specific Data Collection Techniques
Data Collection Tools
What is Data Collection: A Definition

Before we define what is data collection, it’s essential to ask the question, “What is
data?” The abridged answer is, data is various kinds of information formatted in a
particular way. Therefore, data collection is the process of gathering, measuring, and
analyzing accurate data from a variety of relevant sources to find answers to research
problems, answer questions, evaluate outcomes, and forecast trends and probabilities.

Our society is highly dependent on data, which underscores the importance of collecting
it. Accurate data collection is necessary to make informed business decisions, ensure
quality assurance, and keep research integrity.

During data collection, the researchers must identify the data types, the sources of data,
and what methods are being used. We will soon see that there are many different data
collection methods. There is heavy reliance on data collection in research, commercial,
and government fields.

Before an analyst begins collecting data, they must answer three questions first:

 What’s the goal or purpose of this research?

 What kinds of data are they planning on gathering?

 What methods and procedures will be used to collect, store, and

process the information?

Additionally, we can break up data into qualitative and quantitative types. Qualitative
data covers descriptions such as color, size, quality, and appearance. Quantitative data,
unsurprisingly, deals with numbers, such as statistics, poll numbers, percentages, etc.
Why Do We Need Data Collection?

Before a judge makes a ruling in a court case or a general creates a plan of attack, they
must have as many relevant facts as possible. The best courses of action come from
informed decisions, and information and data are synonymous.

The concept of data collection isn’t a new one, as we’ll see later, but the world has
changed. There is far more data available today, and it exists in forms that were
unheard of a century ago. The data collection process has had to change and grow with
the times, keeping pace with technology.

Whether you’re in the world of academia, trying to conduct research, or part of the
commercial sector, thinking of how to promote a new product, you need data collection
to help you make better choices.

Now that you know what is data collection and why we need it, let's take a look at the
different methods of data collection. While the phrase “data collection” may sound all
high-tech and digital, it doesn’t necessarily entail things like computers, big data, and
the internet. Data collection could mean a telephone survey, a mail-in comment card, or
even some guy with a clipboard asking passersby some questions. But let’s see if we
can sort the different data collection methods into a semblance of organized categories.

What Are the Different Methods of Data Collection?

The following are seven primary methods of collecting data in business analytics.

 Surveys

 Transactional Tracking

 Interviews and Focus Groups

 Observation

 Online Tracking

 Forms
  Social Media Monitoring

Data collection breaks down into two methods. As a side note, many terms, such as
techniques, methods, and types, are interchangeable and depending on who uses
them. One source may call data collection techniques “methods,” for instance. But
whatever labels we use, the general concepts and breakdowns apply across the board
whether we’re talking about marketing analysis or a scientific research project.

The two methods are:

 Primary

As the name implies, this is original, first-hand data collected by the data researchers.
This process is the initial information gathering step, performed before anyone carries
out any further or related research. Primary data results are highly accurate provided
the researcher collects the information. However, there’s a downside, as first-hand
research is potentially time-consuming and expensive.

 Secondary

Secondary data is second-hand data collected by other parties and already having
undergone statistical analysis. This data is either information that the researcher has
tasked other people to collect or information the researcher has looked up. Simply put,
it’s second-hand information. Although it’s easier and cheaper to obtain than primary
information, secondary information raises concerns regarding accuracy and authenticity.
Quantitative data makes up a majority of secondary data.

Specific Data Collection Techniques

Let’s get into specifics. Using the primary/secondary methods mentioned above, here is
a breakdown of specific techniques.

Primary Data Collection

 Interviews

The researcher asks questions of a large sampling of people, either by direct interviews

or means of mass communication such as by phone or mail. This method is by far the
most common means of data gathering.
  Projective Data Gathering

Projective data gathering is an indirect interview, used when potential respondents

know why they're being asked questions and hesitate to answer. For instance, someone
may be reluctant to answer questions about their phone service if a cell phone carrier
representative poses the questions. With projective data gathering, the interviewees get
an incomplete question, and they must fill in the rest, using their opinions, feelings, and
attitudes.

 Delphi Technique

The Oracle at Delphi, according to Greek mythology, was the high priestess of Apollo’s
temple, who gave advice, prophecies, and counsel. In the realm of data collection,
researchers use the Delphi technique by gathering information from a panel of experts.
Each expert answers questions in their field of specialty, and the replies are
consolidated into a single opinion.

 Focus Groups

Focus groups, like interviews, are a commonly used technique. The group consists of
anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen people, led by a moderator, brought together to
discuss the issue.

 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are a simple, straightforward data collection method. Respondents get a

series of questions, either open or close-ended, related to the matter at hand.

Secondary Data Collection

Unlike primary data collection, there are no specific collection methods. Instead, since
the information has already been collected, the researcher consults various data
sources, such as:

 Financial Statements

 Sales Reports

 Retailer/Distributor/Deal Feedback

 Customer Personal Information (e.g., name, address, age, contact info)

 Business Journals
  Government Records (e.g., census, tax records, Social Security info)

 Trade/Business Magazines

 The internet

Data Collection Tools

Now that we’ve explained the various techniques, let’s narrow our focus even further by
looking at some specific tools. For example, we mentioned interviews as a technique,
but we can further break that down into different interview types (or “tools”).

 Word Association

The researcher gives the respondent a set of words and asks them what comes to mind
when they hear each word.

 Sentence Completion

Researchers use sentence completion to understand what kind of ideas the respondent
has. This tool involves giving an incomplete sentence and seeing how the interviewee
finishes it.

 Role-Playing

Respondents are presented with an imaginary situation and asked how they would act
or react if it was real.

 In-Person Surveys

The researcher asks questions in person.

 Online/Web Surveys

These surveys are easy to accomplish, but some users may be unwilling to answer
truthfully, if at all.
  Mobile Surveys

These surveys take advantage of the increasing proliferation of mobile technology.

Mobile collection surveys rely on mobile devices like tablets or smartphones to conduct
surveys via SMS or mobile apps.

 Phone Surveys

No researcher can call thousands of people at once, so they need a third party to
handle the chore. However, many people have call screening and won’t answer.

 Observation

Sometimes, the simplest method is the best. Researchers who make direct
observations collect data quickly and easily, with little intrusion or third-party bias.
Naturally, it’s only effective in small-scale situations.

The Importance of Ensuring Accurate and Appropriate

Data Collection

Accurate data collecting is crucial to preserving the integrity of research, regardless of

the subject of study or preferred method for defining data (quantitative, qualitative).
Errors are less likely to occur when the right data gathering tools are used (whether they
are brand-new ones, updated versions of them, or already available).

Among the effects of data collection done incorrectly, include the following -

 Erroneous conclusions that squander resources

 Decisions that compromise public policy

 Incapacity to correctly respond to research inquiries

 Bringing harm to participants who are humans or animals

 Deceiving other researchers into pursuing futile research avenues

 The study's inability to be replicated and validated

When these study findings are used to support recommendations for public policy, there
is the potential to result in disproportionate harm, even if the degree of influence from
flawed data collecting may vary by discipline and the type of investigation.
Let us now look at the various issues that we might face while maintaining the integrity
of data collection.

Issues Related to Maintaining the Integrity of Data

Collection

In order to assist the errors detection process in the data gathering process, whether
they were done purposefully (deliberate falsifications) or not, maintaining data integrity
is the main justification (systematic or random errors).

Quality assurance and quality control are two strategies that help protect data integrity
and guarantee the scientific validity of study results.

Each strategy is used at various stages of the research timeline:

 Quality control - tasks that are performed both after and during data collecting

 Quality assurance - events that happen before data gathering starts

Let us explore each of them in more detail now.

Quality Assurance

As data collecting comes before quality assurance, its primary goal is "prevention" (i.e.,
forestalling problems with data collection). The best way to protect the accuracy of data
collection is through prevention. The uniformity of protocol created in the thorough and
exhaustive procedures manual for data collecting serves as the best example of this
proactive step. 

The likelihood of failing to spot issues and mistakes early in the research attempt
increases when guides are written poorly. There are several ways to show these
shortcomings:

 Failure to determine the precise subjects and methods for retraining or

training staff employees in data collecting

 List of goods to be collected, in part

 There isn't a system in place to track modifications to processes that may

occur as the investigation continues.
  Instead of detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to deliver tests, there is a
vague description of the data gathering tools that will be employed.

 Uncertainty regarding the date, procedure, and identity of the person or

people in charge of examining the data

 Incomprehensible guidelines for using, adjusting, and calibrating the data

collection equipment.

Now, let us look at how to ensure Quality Control.

Quality Control

Despite the fact that quality control actions (detection/monitoring and intervention) take
place both after and during data collection, the specifics should be meticulously detailed
in the procedures manual. Establishing monitoring systems requires a specific
communication structure, which is a prerequisite. Following the discovery of data
collection problems, there should be no ambiguity regarding the information flow
between the primary investigators and staff personnel. A poorly designed
communication system promotes slack oversight and reduces opportunities for error
detection.

Direct staff observation conference calls, during site visits, or frequent or routine
assessments of data reports to spot discrepancies, excessive numbers, or invalid codes
can all be used as forms of detection or monitoring. Site visits might not be appropriate
for all disciplines. Still, without routine auditing of records, whether qualitative or
quantitative, it will be challenging for investigators to confirm that data gathering is
taking place in accordance with the manual's defined methods.

Additionally, quality control determines the appropriate solutions, or "actions," to fix

flawed data gathering procedures and reduce recurrences.

Problems with data collection, for instance, that call for immediate action include:

 Fraud or misbehavior

 Systematic mistakes, procedure violations 

 Individual data items with errors

 Issues with certain staff members or a site's performance 

Researchers are trained to include one or more secondary measures that can be used
to verify the quality of information being obtained from the human subject in the social
and behavioral sciences where primary data collection entails using human subjects. 
For instance, a researcher conducting a survey would be interested in learning more
about the prevalence of risky behaviors among young adults as well as the social
factors that influence these risky behaviors' propensity for and frequency.

Let us now explore the common challenges with regard to data collection.

What are Common Challenges in Data Collection?

There are some prevalent challenges faced while collecting data, let us explore a few of
them to understand them better and avoid them.

Data Quality Issues

The main threat to the broad and successful application of machine learning is poor
data quality. Data quality must be your top priority if you want to make technologies like
machine learning work for you. Let's talk about some of the most prevalent data quality
problems in this blog article and how to fix them.

Inconsistent Data

When working with various data sources, it's conceivable that the same information will
have discrepancies between sources. The differences could be in formats, units, or
occasionally spellings. The introduction of inconsistent data might also occur during firm
mergers or relocations. Inconsistencies in data have a tendency to accumulate and
reduce the value of data if they are not continually resolved. Organizations that have
heavily focused on data consistency do so because they only want reliable data to
support their analytics.

Data Downtime

Data is the driving force behind the decisions and operations of data-driven businesses.
However, there may be brief periods when their data is unreliable or not prepared.
Customer complaints and subpar analytical outcomes are only two ways that this data
unavailability can have a significant impact on businesses. A data engineer spends
about 80% of their time updating, maintaining, and guaranteeing the integrity of the data
pipeline. In order to ask the next business question, there is a high marginal cost due to
the lengthy operational lead time from data capture to insight.
Schema modifications and migration problems are just two examples of the causes of
data downtime. Data pipelines can be difficult due to their size and complexity. Data
downtime must be continuously monitored, and it must be reduced through automation.

Ambiguous Data

Even with thorough oversight, some errors can still occur in massive databases or data
lakes. For data streaming at a fast speed, the issue becomes more overwhelming.
Spelling mistakes can go unnoticed, formatting difficulties can occur, and column heads
might be deceptive. This unclear data might cause a number of problems for reporting
and analytics.

Duplicate Data

Streaming data, local databases, and cloud data lakes are just a few of the sources of
data that modern enterprises must contend with. They might also have application and
system silos. These sources are likely to duplicate and overlap each other quite a bit.
For instance, duplicate contact information has a substantial impact on customer
experience. If certain prospects are ignored while others are engaged repeatedly,
marketing campaigns suffer. The likelihood of biased analytical outcomes increases
when duplicate data are present. It can also result in ML models with biased training
data.

Too Much Data

While we emphasize data-driven analytics and its advantages, a data quality problem
with excessive data exists. There is a risk of getting lost in an abundance of data when
searching for information pertinent to your analytical efforts. Data scientists, data
analysts, and business users devote 80% of their work to finding and organizing the
appropriate data. With an increase in data volume, other problems with data quality
become more serious, particularly when dealing with streaming data and big files or
databases.

Inaccurate Data

For highly regulated businesses like healthcare, data accuracy is crucial. Given the
current experience, it is more important than ever to increase the data quality for
COVID-19 and later pandemics. Inaccurate information does not provide you with a true
picture of the situation and cannot be used to plan the best course of action.
Personalized customer experiences and marketing strategies underperform if your
customer data is inaccurate.
Data inaccuracies can be attributed to a number of things, including data degradation,
human mistake, and data drift. Worldwide data decay occurs at a rate of about 3% per
month, which is quite concerning. Data integrity can be compromised while being
transferred between different systems, and data quality might deteriorate with time.

Hidden Data

The majority of businesses only utilize a portion of their data, with the remainder
sometimes being lost in data silos or discarded in data graveyards. For instance, the
customer service team might not receive client data from sales, missing an opportunity
to build more precise and comprehensive customer profiles. Missing out on possibilities
to develop novel products, enhance services, and streamline procedures is caused by
hidden data.

Finding Relevant Data

Finding relevant data is not so easy. There are several factors that we need to consider
while trying to find relevant data, which include -

 Relevant Domain

 Relevant demographics

 Relevant Time period and so many more factors that we need to consider
while trying to find relevant data.

Data that is not relevant to our study in any of the factors render it obsolete and we
cannot effectively proceed with its analysis. This could lead to incomplete research or
analysis, re-collecting data again and again, or shutting down the study.

Deciding the Data to Collect

Determining what data to collect is one of the most important factors while collecting
data and should be one of the first factors while collecting data. We must choose the
subjects the data will cover, the sources we will be used to gather it, and the quantity of
information we will require. Our responses to these queries will depend on our aims, or
what we expect to achieve utilizing your data. As an illustration, we may choose to
gather information on the categories of articles that website visitors between the ages of
20 and 50 most frequently access. We can also decide to compile data on the typical
age of all the clients who made a purchase from your business over the previous month.

Not addressing this could lead to double work and collection of irrelevant data or ruining
your study as a whole.
Dealing With Big Data

Big data refers to exceedingly massive data sets with more intricate and diversified
structures. These traits typically result in increased challenges while storing, analyzing,
and using additional methods of extracting results. Big data refers especially to data
sets that are quite enormous or intricate that conventional data processing tools are
insufficient. The overwhelming amount of data, both unstructured and structured, that a
business faces on a daily basis. 

The amount of data produced by healthcare applications, the internet, social networking
sites social, sensor networks, and many other businesses are rapidly growing as a
result of recent technological advancements. Big data refers to the vast volume of data
created from numerous sources in a variety of formats at extremely fast rates. Dealing
with this kind of data is one of the many challenges of Data Collection and is a crucial
step toward collecting effective data. 

Low Response and Other Research Issues

Poor design and low response rates were shown to be two issues with data collecting,
particularly in health surveys that used questionnaires. This might lead to an insufficient
or inadequate supply of data for the study. Creating an incentivized data collection
program might be beneficial in this case to get more responses.

Now, let us look at the key steps in the data collection process.

What are the Key Steps in the Data Collection Process?

In the Data Collection Process, there are 5 key steps. They are explained briefly below -

1. Decide What Data You Want to Gather

The first thing that we need to do is decide what information we want to gather. We
must choose the subjects the data will cover, the sources we will use to gather it, and
the quantity of information that we would require. For instance, we may choose to
gather information on the categories of products that an average e-commerce website
visitor between the ages of 30 and 45 most frequently searches for. 

2. Establish a Deadline for Data Collection

The process of creating a strategy for data collection can now begin. We should set a
deadline for our data collection at the outset of our planning phase. Some forms of data
we might want to continuously collect. We might want to build up a technique for
tracking transactional data and website visitor statistics over the long term, for instance.
However, we will track the data throughout a certain time frame if we are tracking it for a
particular campaign. In these situations, we will have a schedule for when we will begin
and finish gathering data. 

3. Select a Data Collection Approach

We will select the data collection technique that will serve as the foundation of our data
gathering plan at this stage. We must take into account the type of information that we
wish to gather, the time period during which we will receive it, and the other factors we
decide on to choose the best gathering strategy.

4. Gather Information

Once our plan is complete, we can put our data collection plan into action and begin
gathering data. In our DMP, we can store and arrange our data. We need to be careful
to follow our plan and keep an eye on how it's doing. Especially if we are collecting data
regularly, setting up a timetable for when we will be checking in on how our data
gathering is going may be helpful. As circumstances alter and we learn new details, we
might need to amend our plan.

5. Examine the Information and Apply Your Findings

It's time to examine our data and arrange our findings after we have gathered all of our
information. The analysis stage is essential because it transforms unprocessed data
into insightful knowledge that can be applied to better our marketing plans, goods, and
business judgments. The analytics tools included in our DMP can be used to assist with
this phase. We can put the discoveries to use to enhance our business once we have
discovered the patterns and insights in our data.

Let us now look at some data collection considerations and best practices that one
might follow.

Data Collection Considerations and Best Practices

We must carefully plan before spending time and money traveling to the field to gather
data. While saving time and resources, effective data collection strategies can help us
collect richer, more accurate, and richer data.

Below, we will be discussing some of the best practices that we can follow for the best
results -

1. Take Into Account the Price of Each Extra Data Point

Once we have decided on the data we want to gather, we need to make sure to take the
expense of doing so into account. Our surveyors and respondents will incur additional
costs for each additional data point or survey question.

2. Plan How to Gather Each Data Piece

There is a dearth of freely accessible data. Sometimes the data is there, but we may not
have access to it. For instance, unless we have a compelling cause, we cannot openly
view another person's medical information. It could be challenging to measure several
types of information.

Consider how time-consuming and difficult it will be to gather each piece of information
while deciding what data to acquire.

3. Think About Your Choices for Data Collecting Using Mobile Devices

Mobile-based data collecting can be divided into three categories -

 IVRS (interactive voice response technology) -  Will call the respondents and
ask them questions that have already been recorded. 

 SMS data collection - Will send a text message to the respondent, who can
then respond to questions by text on their phone. 

 Field surveyors - Can directly enter data into an interactive questionnaire

while speaking to each respondent, thanks to smartphone apps.

We need to make sure to select the appropriate tool for our survey and responders
because each one has its own disadvantages and advantages.

4. Carefully Consider the Data You Need to Gather

It's all too easy to get information about anything and everything, but it's crucial to only
gather the information that we require. 

It is helpful to consider these 3 questions:

 What details will be helpful?

 What details are available?

 What specific details do you require?

5. Remember to Consider Identifiers

Identifiers, or details describing the context and source of a survey response, are just as
crucial as the information about the subject or program that we are actually researching.

In general, adding more identifiers will enable us to pinpoint our program's successes
and failures with greater accuracy, but moderation is the key.

6. Data Collecting Through Mobile Devices is the Way to Go

Although collecting data on paper is still common, modern technology relies heavily on
mobile devices. They enable us to gather many various types of data at relatively lower
prices and are accurate as well as quick. There aren't many reasons not to pick mobile-
based data collecting with the boom of low-cost Android devices that are available
nowadays.
Data Cleaning: Definition,
Benefits, Components,
And How To Clean Your
Data
In this article we'll cover:

1. What is data cleaning?

2. Data cleaning vs. data transformation
3. How to clean data
4. Components of quality data
5. Advantages and benefits of data cleaning
6. Data cleaning tools and software

What is data cleaning?

Data cleaning is the process of fixing or removing incorrect, corrupted, incorrectly formatted,
duplicate, or incomplete data within a dataset. When combining multiple data sources, there are
many opportunities for data to be duplicated or mislabeled. If data is incorrect, outcomes and
algorithms are unreliable, even though they may look correct. There is no one absolute way to
prescribe the exact steps in the data cleaning process because the processes will vary from
dataset to dataset. But it is crucial to establish a template for your data cleaning process so you
know you are doing it the right way every time.

What is the difference between data

cleaning and data transformation?
Data cleaning is the process that removes data that does not belong in your dataset. Data
transformation is the process of converting data from one format or structure into another.
Transformation processes can also be referred to as data wrangling, or data munging,
transforming and mapping data from one "raw" data form into another format for warehousing
and analyzing. This article focuses on the processes of cleaning that data.

How to clean data

While the techniques used for data cleaning may vary according to the types of data your
company stores, you can follow these basic steps to map out a framework for your organization.

Step 1: Remove duplicate or irrelevant observations

Remove unwanted observations from your dataset, including duplicate observations or irrelevant
observations. Duplicate observations will happen most often during data collection. When you
combine data sets from multiple places, scrape data, or receive data from clients or multiple
departments, there are opportunities to create duplicate data. De-duplication is one of the largest
areas to be considered in this process. Irrelevant observations are when you notice observations
that do not fit into the specific problem you are trying to analyze. For example, if you want to
analyze data regarding millennial customers, but your dataset includes older generations, you
might remove those irrelevant observations. This can make analysis more efficient and minimize
distraction from your primary target—as well as creating a more manageable and more
performant dataset.

Step 2: Fix structural errors

Structural errors are when you measure or transfer data and notice strange naming conventions,
typos, or incorrect capitalization. These inconsistencies can cause mislabeled categories or
classes. For example, you may find “N/A” and “Not Applicable” both appear, but they should be
analyzed as the same category.

Step 3: Filter unwanted outliers

Often, there will be one-off observations where, at a glance, they do not appear to fit within the
data you are analyzing. If you have a legitimate reason to remove an outlier, like improper data-
entry, doing so will help the performance of the data you are working with. However, sometimes
it is the appearance of an outlier that will prove a theory you are working on. Remember: just
because an outlier exists, doesn’t mean it is incorrect. This step is needed to determine the
validity of that number. If an outlier proves to be irrelevant for analysis or is a mistake, consider
removing it.

Step 4: Handle missing data

You can’t ignore missing data because many algorithms will not accept missing values. There
are a couple of ways to deal with missing data. Neither is optimal, but both can be considered.
 1. As a first option, you can drop observations that have missing values, but doing this will drop or
lose information, so be mindful of this before you remove it.
2. As a second option, you can input missing values based on other observations; again, there is an
opportunity to lose integrity of the data because you may be operating from assumptions and
not actual observations.
3. As a third option, you might alter the way the data is used to effectively navigate null values.

Step 5: Validate and QA

At the end of the data cleaning process, you should be able to answer these questions as a part of
basic validation:

 Does the data make sense?

 Does the data follow the appropriate rules for its field?
 Does it prove or disprove your working theory, or bring any insight to light?
 Can you find trends in the data to help you form your next theory?
 If not, is that because of a data quality issue?

False conclusions because of incorrect or “dirty” data can inform poor business strategy and
decision-making. False conclusions can lead to an embarrassing moment in a reporting meeting
when you realize your data doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Before you get there, it is important to
create a culture of quality data in your organization. To do this, you should document the tools
you might use to create this culture and what data quality means to you.

Components of quality data

Determining the quality of data requires an examination of its characteristics, then weighing
those characteristics according to what is most important to your organization and the
application(s) for which they will be used.

5 characteristics of quality data

1. Validity. The degree to which your data conforms to defined business rules or constraints.
2. Accuracy. Ensure your data is close to the true values.
3. Completeness. The degree to which all required data is known.
4. Consistency. Ensure your data is consistent within the same dataset and/or across multiple data
sets.
5. Uniformity. The degree to which the data is specified using the same unit of measure.
Advantages and benefits of data
cleaning
Having clean data will ultimately increase overall productivity and allow for the highest quality
information in your decision-making. Benefits include:

 Removal of errors when multiple sources of data are at play.

 Fewer errors make for happier clients and less-frustrated employees.
 Ability to map the different functions and what your data is intended to do.
 Monitoring errors and better reporting to see where errors are coming from, making it easier to
fix incorrect or corrupt data for future applications.
 Using tools for data cleaning will make for more efficient business practices and quicker
decision-making.

Data cleaning tools and software for

efficiency

Software like Tableau Prep can help you drive a quality data culture by providing visual and
direct ways to combine and clean your data. Tableau Prep has two products: Tableau Prep
Builder for building your data flows and Tableau Prep Conductor for scheduling, monitoring,
and managing flows across your organization. Using a data scrubbing tool can save a database
administrator a significant amount of time by helping analysts or administrators start their
analyses faster and have more confidence in the data. Understanding data quality and the tools
you need to create, manage, and transform data is an important step toward making efficient and
effective business decisions. This crucial process will further develop a data culture in your
organization. To see how Tableau Prep can impact your organization, read about how marketing
agency Tinuiti centralized 100-plus data sources in Tableau Prep and scaled their marketing
analytics for 500 clients.

What is the difference between data

cleansing and data cleaning?
Data cleansing and data cleaning are often used interchangeably. However,
international data management standards - such as DAMA BMBoK and
CMMI's DMM - refer to this process as data cleansing, so if you have to
choose between one of the two, choose for data cleansing.

When data is collected, the system or person collecting it often doesn't know
that later on it will be used for analysis. Let alone, the requirements that the
data scientist carrying out that analysis has for the data. A data scientist's goal
is to leverage the data to create insights. They apply their data science magic
to make this happen. A prerequisite for that magic - is that the data is good. If
the data isn't good, the insights won't be good either. You're expecting it, so
here it is: garbage in = garbage out.

That is why data cleansing has become an increasingly important topic.

Unfortunately - data quality is often not considered at the source. Often
because the data scientist's requirements simply aren't known yet when the
data is collected. In turn, that the collected data often doesn't reflect reality,
contains typos, or is stored in the wrong format.

Data cleansing refers to the processes employed to validate and correct data.
To make sure the data reflects reality by removing duplicates and missing
values, correcting typos and transforming it into the right format.

Data cleansing looks at datasets and data tables: it defines business rules per
column and then goes on to assess what values within a column meet those
requirements. Where the data doesn't meet business requirements, the data is
'cleansed'.

So how come at INDICA, we keep talking about data cleaning?

Well, that is a very conscious choice. What we do at INDICA is not data
cleansing. We don't ask you to send us your data tables to cleanse. We clean
enterprise data.

Data cleaning refers to the process of identifying and deleting redundant,

obsolete and trivial data objects within an enterprise data landscape.
This process is carried out at a much wider scale, on a data object level. Instead
of looking within a data table, we compare all existing data tables - and more -
with one another. Our INDICA platform indexes all data objects available on
your different storage locations - may that be databases, fileshares,
SharePoints, CRM systems, etc. We identify redundant, obsolete and trivial
data objects. Some of the aspects we look at are the following:

 Duplicates: data objects that exist more than once within your data
landscape
 Redundant media types: data objects with media types that are no
longer supported by the (IT) organisation
 Passed retention period: data objects with information for which the set
retention period has passed
 Large size: extremely large data objects that take up a lot of space that
are no longer being used by the business
 Former customers: data objects with information about customers that
the organisation no longer serves and are not required for any legal
purposes
  Former employees: data objects with information about employees who
no longer work for the organisation and are not required for any legal
purposes
 Phased out products: data objects with information about products that
the company no longer sells and are not required for any legal purposes

By identifying and cleaning these data objects, organisations can save vast
amounts of money in terms of data storage, maintenance and backup costs. On
average, we clean more than 60% of the initial data volume. Wondering how
what data cleaning can do for your organisation? Take a look at our ROI
calculator or read our whitepaper on how INDICA is leveraged for data
cleaning!
What is data cleansing?
Data cleansing is the process of identifying and resolving corrupt, inaccurate, or irrelevant data.
This critical stage of data processing — also referred to as data scrubbing or data cleaning —
boosts the consistency, reliability, and value of your company’s data.

Common inaccuracies in data include missing values, misplaced entries, and typographical
errors. In some cases, data cleansing requires certain values to be filled in or corrected, while in
other instances, the values will need to be removed altogether.

Data that contains these kinds of errors and inconsistencies is called “dirty data,” and its
consequences are real. It’s estimated that only 3% of data meets basic quality standards and
that dirty data costs companies in the U.S. over $3 trillion each year.

The power of clean data

A decision is only as good as the data that informs it. And with massive amounts of data
streaming in from multiple sources, a data cleansing tool is more important than ever for
ensuring accuracy of information, process efficiency, and driving your company’s competitive
edge. Some of the primary benefits of data scrubbing include:

Improved Decision Making — Data quality is critical because it directly affects your company’s
ability to make sound decisions and calculate effective strategies. No company can afford
wasting time and energy correcting errors brought about by dirty data.

Consider a business that relies on customer-generated data to develop each new generation of
its online and mobile ordering systems, such as AnyWare from Domino’s Pizza. Without a data
cleansing program, changes and revisions to the app may not be based on precise or accurate
information. As a result, the new version of the app may miss its target and fail to meet
customer needs or expectations.

Boosted Efficiency — Utilizing clean data isn’t just beneficial for your company’s external
needs — it can also improve in-house efficiency and productivity. When information is cleaned
properly, it reveals valuable insights into internal needs and processes. For example, a
company may use data to track employee productivity or job satisfaction in an effort to predict
and reduce turnover. Cleansing data from performance reviews, employee feedback, and other
related HR documents may help quickly identify employees who are at a higher risk of attrition.

Competitive Edge — The better a company meets its customers needs, the faster it will rise
above its competitors. A data cleansing tool helps provide reliable, complete insights so that you
can identify evolving customer needs and stay on top of emerging trends. Data cleansing can
produce faster response rates, generate quality leads, and improve the customer experience.

Data cleansing: step-by-step

A data cleansing tool can automate most aspects of a company’s overall data cleansing
program, but a tool is only one part of an ongoing, long-term solution to data cleaning. Here’s an
overview of the steps you’ll need to take to make sure your data is clean and usable:

Step 1 — Identify the Critical Data Fields

Companies have access to more data now than ever before, but not all of it is equally useful.
The first step in data cleansing is to determine which types of data or data fields are critical for a
given project or process.

Step 2 — Collect the Data

After the relevant data fields are identified, the data they contain is collected, sorted, and
organized.

Step 3 — Discard Duplicate Values

After the data has been collected, the process of resolving inaccuracies begins. Duplicate
values are identified and removed.

Step 4 — Resolve Empty Values

Data cleansing tools search each field for missing values, and can then fill in those values to
create a complete data set and avoid gaps in information.

Step 5 — Standardize the Cleansing Process

For a data cleansing process to be effective, it should be standardized so that it can be easily
replicated for consistency. In order to do so, it’s important to determine which data is used most
often, when it will be needed, and who will be responsible for maintaining the process. Finally,
you’ll need to determine how often you’ll need to scrub your data. Daily? Weekly? Monthly?

Step 6 — Review, Adapt, Repeat

Set time aside each week or month to review the data cleansing process. What has been
working well? Where is there room for improvement? Are there any obvious glitches or bugs
that seem to be occurring? Include members of different teams who are affected by data
cleansing in the conversation for a well-rounded account of your company’s process.

Data quality is now increasingly becoming a company-wide strategic priority involving

professionals from every corner of the business, and a robust data cleansing program is one
part of that larger effort. To succeed, working like a sports team is a way to illustrate the key
ingredients needed to overcome any data quality challenge. As in team sports, you will hardly
succeed if you just train and practice alone. You have to practice together to make the team
successful.

Clean data means clear direction

Good decisions, bad decisions: they all hinge upon the quality of the data that informs them.
Errors cost money, take time to correct, and can damage your brand. Data cleansing is one way
to make sure that you can trust the data that your business relies on. And when you trust your
data, you can make decisions with accuracy, precision, and confidence.

Get started with clean data

Manual data cleansing is both time-intensive and prone to errors, so many companies have
made the move to automate and standardize their process. Using a data cleaning tool is a
simple way to improve the efficiency and consistency of your company’s data cleansing strategy
and boost your ability to make informed decisions.

Data Quality from Talend helps assess and improve the quality of your data. It alerts users to to
errors and inconsistencies while streamlining all stages of the process into a single, easy-to-
manage platform. Data Quality connects to hundreds of different data sources, so you can be
sure that all of your data is clean, no matter where it comes from. Get started today with a free
trial of Talend Data Quality, or by downloading Talend’s open source solution, Open Studio for
Data Quality.
Table of Contents
How to Clean Data in Excel?

Conclusion

Excel Data Cleaning is a significant skill that all Business and Data Analysts must
possess. In the current era of data analytics, everyone expects the accuracy and quality
of data to be of the highest standards. A major part of Excel Data Cleaning involves the
elimination of blank spaces, incorrect, and outdated information. 

Some simple steps can easily do the procedure of Data Cleaning in Excel by
using Excel Power Query. This tutorial will help you learn about some of the
fundamental and straightforward practices for cleaning data in excel.

How to Clean Data in Excel?

Remove Duplicates

One of the easiest ways of cleaning data in Excel is to remove duplicates. There is a
considerable probability that it might unintentionally duplicate the data without the user's
knowledge. In such scenarios, you can eliminate duplicate values.

Here, you will consider a simple student dataset that has duplicate values. You will
use Excel's built-in function to remove duplicates, as shown below.

The original dataset has two rows as duplicates. To eliminate the duplicate data, you
need to select the data option in the toolbar, and in the Data Tools ribbon, select the
"Remove Duplicates" option. This will provide you with the new dialogue box, as shown
below.
Here, you need to select the columns you want to compare for duplication. Another
critical step is to check in the headers' option as you included the column names in the
data set. Excel will automatically scan it by default.

Next, you must compare all columns, so go ahead and check all the columns as shown
below.
Select Ok, and Excel performs the operations required and provides you with the data
set after filtering out the duplicate data, as shown below.

In the next part of Excel Data Cleaning, you will understand data parsing from text to
column.

Data Parsing from Text to Column

Sometimes, there is a possibility that one cell might have multiple data elements
separated by a data delimiter like a comma. For example, consider that there is one
column that stores address information.

The address column stores the street, district, state, and nation. Commas separate all
the data elements. You must now divide the street, district, state, and nation from the
address columns into separate columns. 

Excel's inbuilt functionality called "text to column" can achieve this. Now,  try an
example for the same.

Here, you have the car manufacturer and the car model name separated by space as
the data delimiter. The tabular data is shown below.
Select the data, click on the data option in the toolbar and then select "Text to Column",
as shown below.

A new window will pop up on the screen, as shown below. Select the delimiter option
and click on "next". In the next window, you will see another dialogue box.
In the new page dialogue box, you will see an option to select the type of delimiter your
data has. In this case, you need to select the "space" as a delimiter, as shown below.
In the last dialogue box, select the column data format as "General", and the next step
should be to click on the finish, as shown in the following image.
The final resultant data will be available, as shown below.

Followed by Data parsing, in this tutorial about Excel Data Cleaning, you will learn how
to delete all formatting.
Delete All Formatting

Another good way of cleaning data in excel is to ensure even formatting or, in some
cases, even removing the formatting. The formatting can be as simple as coloring your
cells and aligning the text in the cells. It can be a logical condition applied to your cells
using Excel's conditional formatting option from the home tab. 

However, in situations where you wish to remove the formatting, you can do it in the
following ways. First, try to eliminate the regular formatting. In the previous example,
you took the case of car manufacturers and car models data tables with heading cells
colored in blue, and the text was center aligned.

Now, use the clear option to remove the formats. Select the tabular data as shown
below. Select the "home" option and go to the "editing" group in the ribbon. The "clear"
option is available in the group, as shown below.
Select the "clear" option and click on the "clear formats" option. This will clear all the
formats applied on the table. 

The final data table will appear as shown below.

Now, you must learn how to eliminate conditional formatting for cleaning data in Excel.
This time, consider a different sheet. You must use the student's details sheet, which
includes conditional formatting in Excel.

To eliminate conditional formatting in Excel, select the column or table with conditional
formatting as shown below. 
Then navigate to "Home", and select conditional formatting.

Then in the dialogue box, select the clear rules option. Here, you can either choose to
eliminate rules only in the selected cells or eliminate rules from the entire column.
After you eliminate all conditions, the resultant table would look as follows.

You can always use a shortcut method to eliminate the conditional formatting in Excel. It
is by pressing the sequential combination of the following keys as follows.
ATL + E + A + F

Next, in this Excel Data Cleaning tutorial, you will learn about Spell Check.

Spell Check

The feature of checking the spelling is available in MS Excel as well. To check the
spellings of the words used in the spreadsheet, you can use the following method.
Select the data cell, column, or sheet where you want to perform the spell check.

Now, go to the review option as shown below.

Microsoft Excel will automatically show the correct spelling in the dialogue box, as
shown below. You can replace the words as per the requirement as shown below.
The final reviewed data table will like the one below.

In the next segment of this Excel Data Cleaning tutorial, you will learn about changing
the text case.

Change Case - Lower/Upper/Proper

You can manipulate the data in the Excel worksheet in terms of character cases as per
the requirements. To apply case changes, you can follow the following steps.

Select the table or columns that need the case to be changed, as shown below.
Select the cell next to the column and apply the formula as per the requirement, as
shown below.

=UPPER(cell address) - for Upper case conversion 

=LOWER(cell address) - for Lower case conversion 

=PROPER(cell address) - for Sentence case conversion 

Now, you can drag the cell can to the last row, as shown below.
The final data table will appear as shown below.

Now that you learned spell check, in the upcoming section of Excel Data Cleaning, you
will learn how to Highlight Errors in an Excel spreadsheet.

Highlight Errors

Highlighting errors in an Excel spreadsheet is helpful to find or sort out the erroneous
data with ease. You can do error Highlighting with the help of conditional formatting in
Excel. Here, you must consider the student data set as an example.

Imagine that you are interviewing all the students. There are eligibility criteria. You can
shortlist the students if they have 60% aggregate marks. Now, apply conditional
formatting and sort out the students who are eligible and not eligible.
First, select the aggregate/percentage column as shown below.

Select "Home", and in the Styles group, select conditional formatting, as shown below.

In the conditional formatting option, select the highlight option, and in the next drop-
down, select the less than an option as shown below.
In the settings window, you will find a slot to provide the aggregate as "60" percent and
press ok.

Excel will now select and highlight cells with an aggregate of less than 60 percent. In
the next part of Excel Data Cleaning, you will understand the trim function.

TRIM Function
The TRIM function is used to eliminate excess spaces and tab spaces in the Excel
worksheet cells. The excessive blank spaces and tab spaces make the data hard to
understand. Using the "TRIM" function can eliminate these excessive blank spaces.

Select the data cells with excessive blank spaces and tab spaces. Now, select a new
cell adjacent to the first cell.

Apply the TRIM() function and drag the cell as shown below.

It shows the final data after the elimination of the excess space as follows.

Next, in the Excel Data Cleaning tutorial, you will look at the Find and Replace function.

Find and Replace

Find and Replace will help you fetch and replace data in the entire worksheet to help in
organizing and cleaning data in Excel. Consider the employee data example.

Here, try to fetch an employee with the name Joe and try to rename or replace his name
with John, after changing his first name.
The "find and replace" option is present in the home ribbon in the editing group, as
shown below.

Click on the option, and a new window will open, where you can enter the data to be
fetched and enter the text you need to replace, as shown below.
Click on "replace all", and it will replace the text. The final dataset will be as shown
below.

With that, you have come to an end of the "Excel Data Cleaning" tutorial.

Become job-ready with a globally recognized Business Analyst Certification Course. Sign-up

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Conclusion

"Userform in Excel" can be your next stop. The user form in excel is an amazing
customizable graphical user interface that you can design and develop using the Excel
VBA. The Userform in Excel can help you with data insertion, deletion, and data
manipulation with ease.
Curious to learn more about Microsoft Excel and receiving online training and
certification in Business Analytics?

Then check out the Business Analytics certification course offered by Simplilearn, which
is career-oriented training and certification. This training will guide you with the
fundamental concepts of data analytics and statistics that will enable you to devise
insights from data to present your findings using executive-level dashboards and help
you come up with data-driven decision-making.
The top 7 data cleaning tools
For anyone working with data, the right data cleaning tool is an essential part
of your toolkit. Here’s our round-up of the best data cleaning tools on the
market right now.

1. OpenRefine
Known previously as Google Refine, OpenRefine is a well-known open-source
data tool. Its main benefit over other tools on our list is that, being open
source, it is free to use and customize. OpenRefine lets you transform data
between different formats and ensure that data is cleanly structured. You can
also use it to parse data from online sources.

While it is cosmetically similar to spreadsheet software (like Excel), it acts

more like a relational database. This makes it very handy for data analysts
who need to dive a little deeper than a simple Excel file offers. Another key
benefit is that you can work with data on your machine, i.e. it is secure. Of
course, if you want to link or extend your dataset, you can do so by
connecting OpenRefine to external web services and other sources in the
cloud.

If necessary, you can also upload your data to a central database like
Wikidata. One word of caution though: while OpenRefine streamlines many
complex tasks (e.g. using clustering algorithms) it does require a little bit of
technical know-how.

2. Trifacta Wrangler
A connected desktop application, Trifacta Wrangler lets you transform data,
carry out analyses, and produce visualizations. Its standout feature is its use
of smart tech. Utilizing machine learning to spot inconsistencies and make
recommendations, the tool vastly speeds up the data cleaning process. For
instance, its artificial intelligence algorithms can easily identify and remove
outliers, as well as automating overall data quality monitoring—a helpful
feature for ongoing data housekeeping.

Furthermore, rather than having to produce data pipelines from scratch (a

potentially time-consuming task as anyone in the field will tell you), the tool’s
UI allows you to do this in a much more visual and intuitive way. One of a
suite of products, various additional features are available as you extend the
software.

For example, Wrangler Pro supports larger datasets and cloud storage, while
the enterprise version offers collaboration tools for working in teams. The
latter also has centralized security management—another important feature if
you’re working with sensitive data (and let’s face it, what data isn’t sensitive?)

3. Winpure Clean & Match

A bit like Trifacta Wrangler, the award-winning Winpure Clean & Match allows
you to clean, de-dupe, and cross-match data, all via its intuitive user interface.
Being locally installed, you don’t have to worry about data security unless
you’re uploading your dataset to the cloud.

This is an especially important feature for Winpure, which is specifically

designed for cleaning business and customer data (such as CRM data and
mailing lists). Winpure Clean & Match also interoperates with a very wide
variety of databases and spreadsheets, from CSV files to SQL Server,
Salesforce, and Oracle.

Other useful features include fuzzy matching (which involves spotting where
matches differ based on arbitrary abbreviations or typos) and rule-based
cleaning that you can program yourself. It’s available in four different
languages, too: German, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. The free version
offers a good number of features, making it an ideal option for small
businesses. Maybe one to recommend to your boss!

4. TIBCO Clarity
Cloud-based software as a service (SaaS), TIBCO Clarity, is ideal for cleaning
raw data and analyzing it all in one location. It’s a feature-rich data cleaning
tool that ingests data from dozens of different sources, including from XLS
and JSON files to compressed file formats, as well as a wide range of online
repositories and data warehouses.

Beyond this, TIBCO offers everything from data mapping functionality, to

extract, transform, load (ETL), data profiling, sampling and batch functionality,
de-duping, and much more. It also boasts some helpful nice-to-have features,
such as ‘transformation undo.’ This is not available with all tools but it’s a
great feature if you’re not happy with a change you’ve made.

The only drawback of all this functionality is that there’s no free version, but
TIBCO Clarity is still a solid piece of software, and you can trial it before
recommending it to your organization.

5. Melissa Clean Suite

Melissa Clean Suite is a highly targeted data cleaning and management tool.
It’s designed specifically to support the Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics
customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which many businesses
use. Because it’s focused on these two systems, it caters to their unique
features.

For instance, it supports all standard Salesforce objects and integrates with
standard forms in Dynamics. It doesn’t require any complex training, either
(which is a bonus!) and it comes with several in-built marketing features.
These include demographic creation, data targeting, and segmentation.
Melissa Clean Suite’s main benefit is that it cleans data as it is being
collected. This minimizes effort later on.

For instance, it autocompletes, corrects, and verifies contacts before entering

them into the system. Once data is in, the tool proactively maintains data
quality with real-time cleaning and batch processing. Although targeted at
marketing-related data activities, Melissa has clear time-saving benefits from
a general data management perspective, too.

6. IBM Infosphere Quality Stage

IBM Infosphere Quality Stage is one of a broader selection of data
management tools from IBM. It focuses—as the name suggests—on data
quality and governance. While it deals with the usual suspects (data matching,
de-duping, etc.) it is specifically designed to clean big data for business
intelligence purposes. For this purpose, it has about 200 in-built data quality
rules, saving analysts tonnes of time managing these tasks manually with
scripts.
What’s more, its key features all support otherwise labor-intensive tasks such
as data warehousing, master data management, and migration. Deployed
either in-house or in the cloud, the tool also offers a deep level of data
profiling. You can use it to explore the content, quality, and structure of data
from a broad database view, or drill down to granular details, analyzing
individual columns, for instance.

While it might not be the best tool for those without some technical know-how,
it does offer a useful data quality scores feature. This allows any user
(regardless of technical ability) to get a general sense of a dataset’s integrity.
This is a very useful feature for executive-level stakeholders.

7. Data Ladder Datamatch

Enterprise
Datamatch Enterprise by Data Ladder is a visually-driven data cleaning
application. Like many of the other tools on our list, it focuses on customer
data. However, unlike others, it is designed specifically to resolve data quality
issues within datasets that are already in a poor condition. Instinctive and
simple to use, it employs a walkthrough interface to support you through the
data process from start to finish.

Using a wide range of import and export functionality, you can create anything
from database tables that align with complex internal business procedures, to
Excel spreadsheets or simple reports. It is also scalable, allowing users to
deduplicate, extract, standardize and data match on datasets large and small.

Helpfully, you can manually configure match definitions to respond to various

confidence levels when it comes to accuracy, depending on what your
intended outcome is. And it has a handy scheduling function, meaning you
can pre-set data cleaning tasks well in advance. After all, data cleaning is not
just a one-off job…it’s a process!
 Data Cleansing Tools Overview
Data cleansing tools are an essential component of Data Quality Software. By eliminating
errors, reducing inconsistencies, and removing duplicate data, data cleansing tools boost the
integrity, relevance, and value of your data. This allows companies to trust their data, make
informed, sound business decisions, and build better experiences for their customers.

Also referred to as data scrubbing or data cleaning, data cleansing tools identify and
resolve corrupt, inaccurate, or irrelevant data. It cleans, corrects, standardizes, and
removes duplicate contact records from marketing and mailing lists, databases, and
spreadsheets. This type of software often includes features to clean and validate both
physical addresses and email addresses. Data cleansing is especially valuable when
applied to CRM and ERP data. Tools are available that use machine learning to spot
inconsistencies and make recommendations.

Dirty data can have costly consequences. It can contribute to lost revenue, take time
to correct, and damage your brand.

Data Cleansing Tools Features

Data cleansing tools will offer many of these features:

 Identifies ‘Dirty Data’

 Corrects or Removes corrupt, inaccurate, inconsistent, incomplete, outdated, and
duplicate data
 Preserves Data Integrity
 Supports a wide range of data formats
 Normalizes Data / Data Harmonization
 Match, Merge, and Purge of Records
 Quality Screens
o Diagnostic Filtering examines data columns, structure, and business rules
o Error Event Schema records errors identified by quality screens noting the
severity and location of the error
 Data Enrichment – supplements incomplete or missing data
 Automated Data Cleansing – implemented through data configuration settings
 Data Profiling – evaluates how clean your data is
 Cleans data as it is collected
 Automation and Scheduling of Cleansing Tasks
 Dashboard / GUI interfaces and Reporting
 CRM, ERP, and MDM integration
 Cloud-based and On-premises deployment options

Data Cleansing Tools Comparison

 When purchasing data cleansing tools consider the following key factors:

 Use Case: Some products are specifically tailored for CRM products such as Salesforce
or Microsoft Dynamics. Business Intelligence and Data Management tools often also
provide data cleansing capabilities.
 Compatibility: Your data may be housed in multiple different systems, and on
different platforms. The tools need to have access to and be compatible with your
systems and databases in order to work well.
 Security: Information sharing is necessary for cross-validation; the tools will
sometimes need to access sensitive data.
 Cloud-based vs On-premise: Cloud-based product installations are quicker, more
convenient, and less costly than on-premises installations. For these reasons, small
and mid-sized businesses often choose to go with cloud-based deployments. However,
on-premise installations are typically more secure than cloud-based ones, which may
be critical for organizations with very sensitive data.

Pricing Information

Professional versions start at around $100 a month. There can be additional setup
fees. Enterprise products start at $300 a month and often require a vendor quote for
large installations.

Pricing typically corresponds to the range of features provided, the volume of data
cleaned, and/or the number of validations performed. Most vendors provide free
trials of their platforms. Open-source and basic data cleansing products are free.
Billing models include monthly, yearly, and one-time purchase options.

What are the benefits of using Data Cleansing Tools?

Data cleansing tools help ensure that your organization has clean data. The benefits
of having clean data include:

 Improved Decision Making: Good data provides reliable insights. A decision is only as
good as the information it is based on. Garbage-in, garbage out.
 Improved Client Relations: Accurate data eliminates a potential source of friction.
Shoddy or unreliable data can lead to incorrect assumptions about an account or
contact.
 Staff Productivity: Data error reduction or removal helps employees work more
efficiently.
 Reduced Risk and Costs: Eliminating bad data helps prevent revenue loss, brand
damage, and the time and effort needed for damage control and manual data
correction.
 Boosts Revenue: Accurate customer data creates better results for marketing and
sales campaigns.
Data Cleansing Tools TrustMap
TrustMaps are two-dimensional charts that compare products based on trScore and research
frequency by prospective buyers. Products must have 10 or more ratings to appear on this
TrustMap.
View TrustMap

Data Cleansing Products

(1-8 of 8) Sorted by Most Reviews
The list of products below is based purely on reviews (sorted from most to least). There is no
paid placement and analyst opinions do not influence their rankings. Here is our Promise to
Buyers to ensure information on our site is reliable, useful, and worthy of your trust.

Dataloader.io
Starting Price $99

Dataloader.io delivers a cloud based solution to import and export information

from Salesforce.

Top Pros and Cons

Easy to useEase of useBulk dataFree versionBells and whistlesError messages

Compare

Datameer
11 reviews

Analytics that make it easy for businesses to aggregate big data, leveraging the
power and scale of Hadoop.
Compare
 Clear Analytics
Starting Price $29

Clear Analytics is a business intelligence solution that enables non technical

end users to perform analytics by leveraging existing knowledge of Excel
coupled with a built in query builder. Some key features include: Dynamic Data
Refresh, Data Share and In-Excel Collaboration.
Hide Details

Key Features
 Customizable dashboards (8)
 Pixel Perfect reports (8)
 Report Formatting Templates (8)

Top Pros and Cons

Custom dashboardsEasy to useCustomer supportMobile accessThird partySchedule reports

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Cloudingo
7 reviews

Starting Price $83

Cloudingo - a cloud-based SaaS, connects to salesforce.com and allows system
administrators to scan their entire database for similar or duplicate records.
Cloudingo was launched in late 2011. It is well known for its ease-of-use and
rich user experience.
Compare

Tableau Prep
6 reviews

Starting Price $15

Tableau Prep enables users to get to the analysis phase faster by helping them
quickly combine, shape, and clean their data. According to the vendor, a direct
and visual experience helps provide users with a deeper understanding of their
data, smart features make data preparation…
Hide Details

Reviewer Insights
100%

“Would buy again“

+ 5 more

80%

“Delivers good value for price“

+ 4 more

100%

“Happy with the feature set“

+ 5 more

Top Pros and Cons

Raw dataIntegrates perfectlySync dataNot as robustOutput optionsSql code
Alteryx Designer Cloud
2 reviews

Starting Price $100

Trifacta is a "data wrangling" (or data preparation) platform particularly of use

with Hadoop, developed by the company Trifacta headquartered in San
Francisco, California. Alteryx announced their acquisition of Trifacta in January
of 2022.
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VeriAS
Write a Review

Starting Price $0

VeriAS is a secure enterprise level platform that is designed to analyze, verify

and score email lists in order to flag hard bouncing as well as malicious email
addresses. The vendor’s value proposition is that their solution safeguards an
organization’s email resources and improves…
Marcom Robot Data Enrichment Engine
Starting Price $79

Marcom Robot Data Enrichment Engine helps marketing, sales and operations
teams collect more intelligence about prospects and customers. Data
Enrichment Engine provides company-level information such as industry,
number of employees, annual revenue, HQ location, corporate social
Data cleansing is a vital step in the data analysis process. It involves identifying
and correcting errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in data to improve its
quality and usefulness for analysis. In this article, we'll explore the differences
between data cleansing and data cleaning, provide examples of data cleansing,
and discuss best practices for data cleansing using tools such as Excel and
Python. We'll also highlight the importance of data cleansing for data
visualization and introduce ChatGPT, an AI-powered tool that can streamline the
data cleansing process.

Importance of Data Cleansing

Data cleansing is an essential process that plays a crucial role in ensuring the
accuracy, consistency, and reliability of your data. Without proper data cleansing,
your data may contain errors, duplicates, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies that
could compromise the quality of your analysis and decision-making. Other
benefits include:

 Improved Accuracy and Reliability

 Cost Savings
 Improved Data Visualization

Data Cleansing vs. Data Cleaning

Before we dive into the specifics of data cleansing, let's clarify the difference
between data cleansing and data cleaning. While these terms are often used
interchangeably, there is a subtle distinction between the two:

 Data cleaning refers to the process of identifying and correcting errors

in data, such as misspellings or formatting inconsistencies.
 Data cleansing, on the other hand, encompasses a broader range of
activities, including data cleaning as well as the identification and removal
of duplicates, incomplete records, and irrelevant data.

Data Cleansing Examples

To better understand data cleansing, let's look at some examples. Suppose you
have a dataset containing information about customers, including their names,
address, and purchase history. Here are some examples of data-cleansing tasks
you might perform:

 Filling in missing values: If some records are missing a customer's

address, you could use external data sources or interpolation methods to
fill in the missing values.
 Identifying duplicates: If there are multiple records with the same name
and address, you could use algorithms to identify and remove duplicates.
 Correcting inconsistent data: If some records have misspelled names or
inconsistent formatting (e.g., using both "St." and "Street" for the same
address), you could use data cleaning techniques to correct the errors.

RATH as an Alternative to Data Cleansing and

Visualization Tools
RATH(opens in a new tab)  is an open-source alternative to traditional data
analysis and visualization tools such as Tableau. However, RATH goes beyond
traditional tools by automating the exploratory data analysis workflow with an
augmented analytic engine.
(opens in a new tab)

RATH's augmented analytic engine uses AI to enhance data wrangling, and

make data cleaning, data transformation, and data sampling much easier with
automation. RATH reduces the process for data cleansing to merely one click
away:

You can also easily transform data by automatically detected categories. For
example Group by Date Time 

For categorical variables, RATH will suggest using the One-hot Encoding
algorithm. 

If RATH detects potential anomalies in a certain field, RATH will suggest using the
Isolation Forest algorithm. (opens in a new tab)
RATH also has a powerful data visualization tool that has a Tableau-like interface
that supports drag-and-drop operations called: Graphic Walker. This can be
especially useful for teams or organizations that need to analyze large amounts
of data quickly and efficiently.

RATH(opens in a new tab)  is Open Source. Feel free to check out RATH
GitHub(opens in a new tab)  for its source code. Or run RATH Online Demo in a
browser.

Data Cleaning in Excel

Excel is a popular tool for data analysis, and it includes several features that can
help with data cleaning. Here are the basic steps for cleaning data in Excel:

 Identify the data to clean: This might involve sorting the data by a
particular column or using filters to view specific records.
 Identify errors: Use Excel's built-in tools, such as the "Conditional
Formatting" feature, to highlight errors in the data.
 Correct errors: Manually correct errors or use Excel's built-in functions,
such as "Find and Replace," to make corrections.
 Validate results: Verify that the corrections were successful and that the
data is now clean.

Data Cleaning in Python

Python is a powerful programming language with a rich set of libraries for data
analysis and manipulation. Here are the basic steps for cleaning data in Python
using the pandas library:

1. Load the data: Use the pandas library to load the data into a pandas
dataframe.
2. Identify errors: Use pandas functions, such as isnull() or "duplicated()",
to identify missing or duplicate data.
3. Correct errors: Use pandas functions, such as fillna() or
"drop_duplicates()", to correct missing or duplicate data.
4. Validate results: Verify that the corrections were successful and that the
data is now clean.
Data Cleansing in ETL
ETL, or extract, transform, load, is a process for integrating data from multiple
sources into a single, usable format. Data cleansing is a critical step in the ETL
process, as it ensures that the data is accurate and consistent across all sources.
During the "transform" phase of ETL, data cleansing is performed to ensure that
the data is in the correct format and that any errors or inconsistencies are
corrected.

Data Cleansing Best Practices

Now that we understand the importance of data cleansing, let's take a look at
some best practices for data cleansing.

Start with a Data Quality Assessment

Before you begin cleansing your data, it's essential to understand the quality of
your data. A data quality assessment helps to identify errors, inconsistencies, and
inaccuracies in your data, allowing you to prioritize your cleansing efforts.

Use the Right Tools

There are several tools available for data cleansing, including Excel, Python, and
Salesforce. These tools can help you to identify duplicates, inconsistencies, and
inaccuracies in your data, making it easier to clean and improve the quality of
your data.

Define Data Cleansing Rules

Defining data cleansing rules is essential for ensuring consistency and accuracy in
your cleansing efforts. Data cleansing rules outline the specific criteria that must
be met for data to be considered clean and accurate.

Regularly Monitor and Update Your Data

Data cleansing is not a one-time process. To ensure the ongoing accuracy and
reliability of your data, it's essential to regularly monitor and update your data.
This helps to identify and correct errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies as they
arise, ensuring that your data remains clean and accurate.
Conclusion
Data cleansing is an essential process that helps to improve the accuracy,
consistency, and reliability of your data. By identifying and correcting errors,
inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in your data, you can make more informed
decisions and achieve better business outcomes. By following best practices for
data cleansing, you can ensure that your data remains clean and accurate,
providing you with a reliable foundation for your analysis and decision-making.