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Thursday
02Jul

Free Data Quality Pattern Analyser Now Available for SQL Server

DateThursday, July 2, 2009 at 5:22AM in , , , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image Regular readers of Data Quality Pro will know that we have created a free pattern analyser that currently works with Excel, Microsoft Access and Oracle formats.

Thanks to one of our members this has been extended to included SQL Server, the code is now available in T-SQL format.

Steven Peirsman, a BI consultant from ICT specialists RealDolmen has kindly converted the script into the new format and we have now loaded this into the free software folder in the download centre

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
01Jul

Data Profiling: Myth and Reality

DateWednesday, July 1, 2009 at 6:10AM in tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In this guest post, expert panelist Arkady Maydanchik (co-founder of eLearning Curve, a provider of on-demand technical training via the Internet) discusses how the utilisation of data profiling tools is often misunderstood.

Instead of giving us all the answers about our data, Arkady argues that they should be used as an opportunity to find the right questions to ask.

Click to read more ...

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Monday
29Jun

Necessity of Conceptual Data Modeling for Information Quality

DateMonday, June 29, 2009 at 4:57AM in , tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image The ability to correctly identify the business entities and the way we want to model those relationships is pivotal to good information quality. Most organisations opt for physical modeling and create application specific schemas that often lack the high-level vision for how the business really needs to utilise its data.

In this post, senior consultant at EWSolutions, Pete Stiglich, presents an excellent account of the importance of Conceptual Data Modeling on ensuring information quality.

Why not use his advice to benchmark your current modeling approach and identify areas for future improvement?

Click to read more ...

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Thursday
25Jun

Rethinking Data Quality: The Need for a Data Quality Profession

DateThursday, June 25, 2009 at 6:02AM in , tagged , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In this guest post Arkady Maydanchik and David Wells, founders of the eLearning Curve, discuss the strong need for a data quality profession to create a sustainable improvement in the quality of data in modern organisations.

 

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
24Jun

Introduction to Guerilla Data Governance: An interview with Mike Meier

DateWednesday, June 24, 2009 at 5:00AM in , , , , tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In our continuing series of posts relating to data governance, we speak with data governance and data quality expert Mike Meier.

Mike has formulated an approach he terms "Guerilla Data Governance" and regularly presents at his blog and industry events his experiences of improving data governance without executive backing, budget and dedicated resources.

We caught up with Mike to find out more about his approach and some of the techniques he adopts.

Click to read more ...

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Friday
19Jun

Identifying Duplicate Customer Records: An MDM Case Study With Dalton Cervo of Sun Microsystems

DateFriday, June 19, 2009 at 3:32AM in , , , , , , , tagged , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image

In any MDM initiative duplicate records will present a major challenge but when an organisation attempts to consolidate 800+ systems into a single customer hub the challenge is made all the greater.

We recently caught up with Dalton Cervo, Customer Data Quality Lead at Sun, to learn how his organisation is tackling an MDM initiative of this scale.

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
17Jun

Data Quality Technology Interview: Clavis Technology

DateWednesday, June 17, 2009 at 10:52AM in tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In our last member survey, many people requested that we undertake more interviews with data quality technology providers in order to understand the latest innovations in the marketplace.

We are therefore launching a series of data quality technology interviews with vendors across the full spectrum of the data quality technology industry.

A young company that has created something of a stir of late with their data quality governance message and SaaS delivery model is Clavis Technology, who have their headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.

To find out more we recently spoke with their CEO Garry Moroney, someone who is no stranger to the data quality technology sector.

Click to read more ...

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Tuesday
16Jun

Data Quality Rules: General Attribute Dependencies by Arkady Maydanchik

DateTuesday, June 16, 2009 at 4:13PM in , , , tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

imageIn this guest post, regular expert panelist and featured contributor Arkady Maydanchik provides yet another detailed extract from his excellent book "Data Quality Assessment".

The 6th in a series, this post defines the various attribute dependency data quality rules and provides a strategy for discovering them.

Arkady is also the co-founder and Managing Director at eLearningCurve LLC, a provider of on-demand technical training via the Internet. Various curricula, including data quality, are available, see here for more details.

Read the previous extracts here:

Rules for Attribute Domain Constraints : Rules for Relational Integrity Constraints : Rules for Historical Data : Rules for Event Histories : Rules for State-Dependent Objects

Click to read more ...

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Friday
12Jun

"The Data Governance Imperative": Steve Sarsfield interview and prize book draw

DateFriday, June 12, 2009 at 4:43AM in , , tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image If you are active within the data quality and data governance community then chances are you will have come across Steve Sarsfield and his Data Governance and Data Quality Insider blog.

Steve has also recently published an excellent book, aptly titled "The Data Governance Imperative" so we recently caught up with him to find out more about some of the topics in the book and to pose some of the many questions organisations face when launching data governance initiatives.

Plus, at the end of the interview we provide details of how to win a copy of  "The Data Governance Imperative".

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
03Jun

Business Systems Modelling: Function Modelling (Tutorial 1)

DateWednesday, June 3, 2009 at 11:33AM in by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

It may come as no surprise to many that when we find defective data we often find poorly designed business functions.

To create long-term data quality health it is imperative that every business understands the functions it should be performing as opposed to the functions and processes it is currently delivering.

Our aim with this tutorial series is to help our readers learn some of the key modelling skills that are typically required for data quality improvement.

We have therefore enlisted John Owens to coach our readers on the finer art of business and data modelling. John is the creator of the Integrated Modelling Method (IMM), a complete modelling framework that integrates the various elements of Business Systems Analysis, Business Process Modelling, BPM, BPR and Data Modelling into a single methodology.

This series starts by focusing on function modelling. Probably the most critical of all the modelling activities as it forms the bedrock for which the other modelling processes are dependent upon.

Click to read more ...

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Tuesday
02Jun

Data Quality Blog Roundup - May 2009 Edition

DateTuesday, June 2, 2009 at 10:59AM in by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image May was another exceptional month for data quality blogging. What's even more encouraging is that we're witnessing new bloggers taking the plunge by kicking off their own blogs with 3 new data quality related blogs being launched this month alone.

NOTE: To help any of our readers or members who are interested in launching their own blog but need help with the technicalities and planning we will be launching a new Support Hub that caters for this topic.

This will provide a wealth of practical tips and resources to help you get your blog launched, generating traffic and becoming a part of the wider data quality community. More on that later in the week.

Here are some of the standout blog posts of the month. If we missed you, drop us a line and we'll try and sneak you into this edition or slot you in next month:

Click to read more ...

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Monday
01Jun

NHS unique ID failure leads to duplicate newborn patient records

DateMonday, June 1, 2009 at 7:40AM in tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In this post we look at a data quality failure that comes very close to home as my newborn son falls foul of a faulty NHS patient ID allocation process.

We look at how easy it was for the situation to arise and the potentially serious issues that this kind of data quality failure raises for the quality of patient care.

Click to read more ...

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Friday
29May

How to transform your ETL tool into a data quality toolkit

DateFriday, May 29, 2009 at 9:43AM in , , , tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image Many organisations have some form of ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tool in their business.

These products have been around for many years and have more than proven their worth for shunting data around the enterprise but it is surprising how many organisations have failed to recognise their potential as a data quality tool.

In this post we will present the case for using ETL tools to help get your data quality initiative off the ground.

We're not claiming they will be a direct replacement for the high-end data quality platforms but they might just give you an interim solution that will help you identify some quick wins that could pay for that more expensive data quality suite you've been struggling to get budget for.

Click to read more ...

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Thursday
28May

DEBATE: How should data governance and data quality work together?

DateThursday, May 28, 2009 at 7:28AM in , , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image Many organisations have started to recognise the need for corporate data governance. However, there are still a number of grey areas that surround the interconnect between data quality management and data governance initiatives.

In this post we want to open a debate on the relationship between these two disciplines.

Information quality expert C.Lwanga Yonke has responded to a similar debate started on the IAIDQ member forum, providing a detailed account of how he sees the relationship playing out.

We welcome further debate as this is clearly an issue that many organisations are going to face as they increase in information management maturity.

Click to read more ...

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Friday
22May

Using Pattern Analysis to Detect and Prevent Defective Product Codes

DateFriday, May 22, 2009 at 9:08AM in , , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In this video post we show you how to use the recently updated (free) Data Quality Pattern Analyser for Oracle tool to find some defective patterns in a simulated electrical products retailer.

The video shows you in detail how to:

  1. Discover the correct data format rule
  2. Uncover defective or suspect formats
  3. Use simple SQL and basic analysis techniques to report on defects found and ongoing data quality health

Click to read more ...

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Friday
22May

Free Data Quality Pattern Analyser for Oracle: Update Available

DateFriday, May 22, 2009 at 6:23AM in , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image Regular visitors will be aware that Data Quality Pro regularly releases free software to help members measure, improve and control data quality.

One of our most popular tools, a pattern analyser for Oracle, has had a minor upgrade.

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
20May

Bloor Research Complete Market Update With Reports on Data Cleansing/Matching Solutions and Data Quality Platforms

DateWednesday, May 20, 2009 at 8:09AM in tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image Regular visitors will have seen the earlier Bloor Research market updates that we highlighted here:

Data Profiling Market Update
Data Discovery Market Update

Philip Howard has now finished off his data quality research series with a look at the data cleansing/matching sector and the data quality platform market.

You can access these reports at the following links:

Do you agree with the market updates? Are there vendors you would have liked to have seen in these reports? Why not add your feedback in the comments section below...

 

Useful Resources

See all posts in: Industry Viewpoint

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Tuesday
19May

Free Name and Address De-Duplication Software for Non-Profits and Charity Organisations

DateTuesday, May 19, 2009 at 6:12AM in tagged , , by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

Data quality technology provider DQ Global, have recently announced that one of their products, Dedupe4Excel, a name and address de-duplication solution for Excel, will be available free of charge to charity or non-profit organisations.

To help our members (many of whom fall into this category) we created a short video tutorial that explains how to request the software and also how to use it when installed.

Click to read more ...

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Monday
18May

Business application vendors must do more to support data quality

DateMonday, May 18, 2009 at 11:12AM in by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

image In this post we discuss some of the future directions we believe business application vendors must take in order to improve the quality of data.

For too long software vendors have left the issue of data quality to organisations and 3rd party cleansing and transformation solutions.

Click to read more ...

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Monday
11May

Trends in Master Data Management and Data Quality Technology

DateMonday, May 11, 2009 at 9:25AM in tagged by AuthorDylan Jones (Founder)

In this guest post by Philip Howard of independent research body, Bloor Research, he discusses the impact of the major announcements from Oracle, Silver Creek, Kalido, Netrics, Exeros and IBM.

He also gives his personal insight on what this means to the wider MDM and data quality technology industry.

Click to read more ...

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