From our experience and track record in data migration ATD is well placed to
contribute effectively to other projects that require the analysis and transformation
of data. Activities such as data cleansing and data profiling are often carried out as part of a migration, but they may also be initiated as separate projects within an overall programme of systems maintenance and improvement.

“Data cleansing” is a much abused and ill-defined term, often used as a catch-all for any data change that falls outside the main data migration process. Data cleansing may mean the correction of data errors in the source system prior to migration; or during the migration process itself; or in the target system at some stage after the migration. The term data cleansing may even be used to describe the exclusion of certain data items from the migration (when it is sometimes known as “data weeding”). As a standalone activity, independent of any migration, data cleansing is typically necessitated by system enhancements that make use of previously dormant data, or as the outcome of
a systems review.

Ironically, the need for data cleansing all too often arises from a previously unsuccessful or incomplete data migration, and may only be discovered many
months afterwards. In recognition of this risk, an integral part of our data migration service is a data “health check”, to be carried out a set period, typically 3 months,
after the migration event.

ATD has experience of data cleansing both within and outside migration projects.
Our consultants have also led financial data integrity reviews, in which serious data problems revealed by a systems audit have been analysed and corrected.
“Data profiling” is another generic term, for an activity that may be part of a data migration or may be part of the ongoing maintenance of a system. To us, data
profiling means the characterisation of data items in order to establish their meaning
in business terms and their value to the organisation that owns them. Irrespective of the needs of any data migration, data profiling should be considered by every organisation that stores significant amounts of data electronically. It represents an opportunity to optimise the usefulness of data that already exists, without having to make costly enhancements to the associated systems: potentially a “quick win”.

Both data cleansing and data profiling are facilitated by our migration toolkit, NOMAD.