Duplicate data is a problem that plagues many businesses, but it’s relatively easy to spot and prevent ”once you understand its nature, and what to do about it. You also have many potential options to explore when identifying and eliminating duplicate data, so you can find the best methodology for your business and needs.
But how do you get started if this is a new problem for you to resolve?
Why Duplicate Data Is an Issue
First, it pays to understand why duplicate data is a problem.
These are some of the biggest issues to note:
- Recordkeeping issues. The first and possibly most obvious problem is with the accuracy and reliability of your recordkeeping. For example, let’s say you accidentally list the same business twice in your sales records; the sales figures for that company will double and, therefore, cause your revenue projections to spike unjustifiably. With a nagging dupe data issue, you’ll be far more prone to overestimations when looking at groups of data, and you may have greater difficulty tracking down the exact data you need when looking up specific instances.
- System storage and bulk. Duplicate data also puts an increased burden on your tables, clogging up your system with unnecessary information. On a small scale, this isn’t a major source of data, but if duplicate data exists throughout your system, it could create slowdowns.
- General annoyance. Anyone who has ever found duplicate data sets when looking up important information knows how annoying it can be to track down the correct entry. For example, if you’re looking for ABC Communications, but there are entries for ABC Corp., ABC, and ABC Communications, it will take you three times as long ”or longer ”to get to the right record. This is a problem for both productivity and morale.
- Other problems. Duplicate data can be an issue for other reasons as well, specific to the application of your tables. For example, if you have too many duplicated pages of content to be indexed on your website, it may jeopardize your search rankings in Google and other search engines, or increase the likelihood of the wrong page being indexed.
What to Do About It
So what can you do to proactively identify and get rid of duplicate data?
These are some strategies to get you started:
- Better data entry standards. Every organization needs to have some data entry standards for all their staff members to follow. No matter how good your system is, there will likely be some duplicate data points unless all of your people are following these standards all of the time. Creating stricter, clearer rules for entry is a good first step; beyond that, you’ll want to go out of your way to educate your staff and make sure they understand those rules, and enforce them so they’re followed consistently.
- A better algorithm to match non-identical names. You can automate the process better by creating algorithms that can automatically match non-identical names. From the example in the preceding section, we mentioned entries for ABC Corp., ABC, and ABC Communications. An algorithm built around recognizing and automatically consolidating fuzzy matches like these can prevent them from getting stored as different records. Fortunately, in SQL, installing Master Data Services makes it pretty easy to create clean, more consolidated lists.
- Automated database cleanup. If your database is already suffering from duplicate data in many sections, or if you’re overdue for a check, you can also run an automated checkup. You’ll need to create an algorithm that scans your records for signs of duplicate entries, then consolidates the data into one record. The possibility for error here is high, so be careful using it on sensitive tables.
- Manual database cleanup. As a backup, you may also want to perform a manual database cleanup ”especially for smaller tables.
These strategies won’t be able to strictly guarantee that you’ll never experience a duplicate data problem in the future, but they will eliminate most of your current issues. With higher data standards and a cleaner database, your entire team will be able to work more efficiently.