Every ERP system contains a large amount of data. Think of your contacts, customers, suppliers, objects, items, orders, invoices and financial information. How do you keep the data in your system clean and why is that so important?
Clean data; good for now and for the future
- Works more pleasantly: Working with clean data is pleasant. How annoying is it to look up a customer and find them in the system three times under slightly different names? A clean database saves a lot of time and frustration.
- Better performance: The amount of data can affect system speed and performance. With a cleaned database, the system is less likely to crash and menus and tables load faster.
- Easier to find information: More and more decisions are data-driven. So making choices based on complete and accurate information. In a clean database this is many times easier than in a database with duplicate, incomplete, contaminated data.
- Sneler and easier upgrading: Data conversion is one of the biggest challenges when moving to a new system or upgrading to a new version. With clean data, that part of the project becomes a lot easier.
"Are you working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? This system offers the ability to automatically delete old records after a certain period of time. "
How do you keep the data clean?
- Strict policies and clear rules: Establish clear policies for data entry and management. Where in the process does this happen? How does this happen? And who is responsible? Because often contaminated data results from a lack of clarity and structure in data entry and data management.
- Make use of authorizations: Many ERP systems, such as Business Central, have extensive capabilities for setting authorizations. By user type and by individual user, it is often possible to set up to the field level who is allowed to see and/or modify information.
- Use quiet periods to clean up: Data cleaning is definitely not a fun job. Monks' work you might say. But because clean data has so many advantages, it is wise to periodically clean up your database. Often you don't get around to this due to the hectic pace of the day, but try to use a quiet period to do this.
- Analyze where things go wrong: Periodic data cleansing is useful, but even better tackle the cause. Analyze who, where and when data goes wrong. And help employees prevent or mitigate contaminated data.
Tip for Business Central users: automatic data cleansing
Are you working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central? This system offers the ability to automatically delete old records after a certain period of time. For example, consider deleting change log records older than 6 months. But Business Central also precisely protects accidental deletion of records that should actually be retained.
To make use of this functionality, you need to set up the so-called 'Retention Policy'. Dysel's specialists can help you with this. Want to know more? Please contact us!
