Building a successful and functional data catalog is a time-consuming and tedious task to the uninitiated. While it seems tiresome, you need to understand the benefits of having a centralized data catalog that all of your staff members can access and utilize. It doesn’t only lower or eliminate downtime, but keeps everyone up-to-date and informed of any changes and additions in your work status. Here are some of the guidelines you can follow in order to build a data catalog that gives you a business advantage.
Create a timeline
While gathering data and organizing it into a sensible catalog will be difficult in itself, creating a plan on how to do it is just as important. The data catalog you will create is meant for everyone and it’s important that the catalog is easy to manage, update and search. Don’t give the entire task to one person. Not only will they get lost in all the data, but the responsibility is simply too big for one person to manage.
Create a task force of a few trusted employers that will answer directly to management. Gather everyone you appointed and create a general timeline with milestones and work division. You will be handling huge amounts of data and getting lost is a matter of time, not if . Create contingencies in case anything gets lost or deleted during the process. Everyone on the team should have a clear assignment and a part to play “ make sure this is absolutely clear to everyone in order to avoid confusion.
Gather the company data
Being that the catalog will encompass everything from staff management files to retail store inventory information (depending on your business); you need to start gathering some files. It’s a good idea to start indexing them into groups and subgroups as soon as you start, because pilling them up into one batch will just slow you down later.
Contact all of your employees via a general announcement that data cataloging will be conducted so that you have their full support when the time comes. In the meantime, ask them to open up their terminals and give you access to the data you need. There will be a huge amount of files and data to go through but you won’t actually go through every line of information, just the general files they are kept in. Once the gathering of files is done, it’s time to organize them into coherent wholes.
Index the data you collected
Indexing your companies data will depend on the complexity and services that your business offers. The way you index the data will depend on what the management is looking for the most. Are you trying to create a global inventory hub for every employee to see and use daily? Are you looking for calculations on ROI, investments, expenses and data analysis?
Your cataloging team should have a clear goal so they can aim to deliver the best possible data catalog solution. It will take some time to reach your goals but the time you invest into the project will be well worth it. Giving them free reign on the company data might seem like a good idea if the team is experienced, but the best solution is to easily guide them towards the right answer. You are conducting data cataloging so that your business operates faster and more efficiently, not just for the sake of it. Stopping your operations for a day or two, at least partially, might also be a good idea if your business is cloud-based or requires constant data access to function.
Once the actual cataloging starts, make sure that you get rid of old versions of files that are not in the data catalog. This will avoid any future confusion where people access wrong files and update them or use them for business. All of the company data will become centralized and everyone will have to find ways to change their habits of keeping important files on their local stations, meaning it’s going to take some time for everyone to get used to it.
Keep building after finishing
Once the data catalog is completed and in place, your work is not really done “ you’re only halfway there. The catalog itself is your company’s lifeline, and believe it or not, you will learn to rely on it more than you care to admit. This means that proper management is required and it will need constant care and protection. Hiring or putting and IT technician in charge of the server where the data catalog is being kept is a good idea that will prevent and loss of data or corruption.
Make sure that you have at least one backup at hand and refresh it constantly in case of power failure, virus attacks or any number of environmental hazards. Your data catalog will never really be finished, and it will become your company’s constant project. In time, everyone on the job will get used to it and the catalog will start boosting your performance and efficiency because of how simple accessing the data has become.
In conclusion
Building a data catalog that works is certainly possible, but you will always have to think about how to adapt it to your specific business. There is no one universal way of collecting and indexing data that works for everyone, but some general guidelines do apply. If you tend to your data catalog and make sure it stays updated, protected and used properly, it will return the time and money investment in ways you can’t even imagine, growing and expanding your business in the process.
