Use your data and improve business efficiency!

Ever had occasion to speak with an Information Services  professional.  I have!  I worked in local government for 31 years. Many of my years were spent in awe of these individuals, who could make that plastic paperweight, which sits on your desktop actually simplify tasks and then do real work.   (many employees both public and private sector, fail to grasp the power of data and their personal computer, which they use in only the most rudimentary ways, while executing tasks in 1950’s style, while expecting premium compensation and wondering why they can’t compete with the world)

When you asked your inhouse IT Professional or software vendor, if they could assist you by automating a task or simplifying a report, did they tell you they could, but it would cost you so many hours of service  time,or require an additional and costly software module or did they just suggest you pay a vendor for an off the shelf solution, which was similar, but not what you believed your work force needed?

If they agreed, they probably never told you how they would accomplish the task and God forbid you request that their solution be user modifiable.  Any user modifiable solution was a heresy.  It meant you dared to interfere in their domain.  After years of hearing the “it’s complicated and expensive” mantra, I was sent to a Y2K  class at our local university in 1999.

My view of how a government agency or company should use the computer changed because of that short 3 day class.  I had my personal “AHHA” moment.  You see this was a class about databases and data importation and queries. (doesn’t sound interesting, but stay with me, especially anyone,who considers themselves just a just a simple worker or manager) I learned about programs such as Corel’s Paradox and Microsoft’s Access.  Now there is even an open source (free) option available. Libre Office’s Base program.

When I had my “AHHA” moment, we were in the early days of using a  statewide computer network and relied on Corel’s WordPerfect Suite as our preferred word processing and Office package.

Armed with a newfound enthusiasm and a book ,a how To book about Paradox, I embarked with the assistance of a trusted and dedicated clerical supervisor on our journey to make our section of the office more efficient.  Our first task required us to find individuals, whose situations needed additional  work from a list of over 3500 individuals provided to us from our report provider.  Each of these individuals had identifying information, which was on the master report. The report displayed significant information, some or perhaps all of these individual situations might require our section’s attention.  The report provided was intentionally over inclusive and cast a wide net and included many situations  which met at least a portion of the criteria for action, but not necessarily all. Some listed on the report may not require any action.

Past practice dictated (I shudder, when I think this is how it was done and probably is how it is still being done in many small businesses and government agencies even today) that a worker print off their all inclusive master list and then go to different information contained on various screens on the legacy computer system to determine, if an individual had all the attributes that required further action.  As the worker went down the list, he or she physically crossed off the names of individuals, whose  situations  did not meet all the criteria for further action and then the worker continued on down his or her list.  There were of course other reports from the legacy system, which if combined detailed with the master report contained all the needed attributes.   Each report individually, only captured a portion of the information we needed and they were not cross referenced or sorted in a manner that made even manual comparison an easy option.

I now recognized the problem and my three days of  training kicked in.  I knew the reports we received could be sent to us in a format that allowed them to be converted to  tables in Paradox.  This is because importation of data is possible across platforms, if a manager or worker knows what to ask for.  I knew the reports though not cross referenced and sorted as we needed contained a common identifier for each individual in the report.   Uf I could import all reports into a single database, then I could ask for only the records, which had all the attributes that I was searching for.   This would vastly cut down the worker’s effort and would eliminate the need to examine all the records and multiple reports.

My import was easy.  I found I only needed to use 3 reports.   They were in what is called a comma delimited format.  All shared a common a identifier. (It could be an identifying number, unique name or an incident identifier any unique record identifier as long as they are unique)  My nightmare now began.  I didn’t know how to exclude items easily.  I had to learn about inside and outside joins  If interested in more detail about this see explanation in remarks of this linked  article.

After learning how to create proper table joins, I was able to  eliminate those situations, that didn’t match all the attributes, which we sought.  I strolled into my Monday morning meeting with my list of less than 2000 individuals( greatly reduced from the original list of 3500), who needed further work.

Our management team beleaguered by staff cuts due to budget constraints appreciated the efficiency the new data report provided, yet they didn’t have an “AHHA” moment.  Fortunately we were using WordPerfect Suite, which allowed us to use the same list and add yet another table, an address table to notify individuals of additional action that would be taken.  (Imagine business owners: generating billing and follow up call lists by combining reports that you already receive and use.)  Even after this many members of the management group failed to grasp the enormity of process improvement harnessing data could add.

Next step was to add a method to track hose instances where individuals failed to act on our notifications.  Now we had created a subset of individuals, who had work performed and others who had work performed yet needed additional work.

This was far from the end of our journey.  We found we could use the same method to add information that we generated in our daily work to make our data even more useful.

What is my purpose in telling this story?  It is simply this.  Data use in everyday processes seems complicated, especially, when left in the province of the IT Professional.  It is not something mysterious!  If you are a small business, you can use your legacy system data by utilizing comma delimited files or fixed length data field files, then convert these files for use with your form generation or word processing software.

Perhaps you are satisfied with your current method of form generation, but would like to use the data to generate additional statistics, this is another great use.  “Work smarter not harder” should be more than just a work cliché’ that is given lip service.

Remember you only need to have a unique common identifier to link information between your tables.  You still may need some IT assistance for data security and assistance in complex database design, but don’t let the lack of an IT department stop you from using your information.

If you lack an IT security professional, you can transfer the digital files by  a non internet aided  method such as a thumb drive or data disk.  Password protect and encrypt your newly created disk or drive.  Restrict access to these files to trusted employees and monitor their use.  Transfer the  files to a secure computer without internet access then convert the data to tables using the  data conversion feature on your database programs or consult your software help to aid in the file conversion.   (In a pinch remember YouTube instructional videos and the old reliable how to books are available to help you through any rough spots.) Rememberafter buiding databases, use database passwords and restrict data access to yourself and  trusted staff.  This information use is a powerful tool and is coveted by those seeking to steal identities and property.

Feel free to experiment with your data.  Many data programs allow you to add your own mathematical calculation fields and user added fields to your tables, which can enhance data usefulness.  Remember, if you work with a suite of office applications, data can be used by spread sheets (create your own statistics and statistical models) and word processing programs to enhance work processes.  If you don’t use an office suite, consider a free open source alternative, if budget strapped, or invest in a full retail version of commercial suite software.

Salespeople should consider a customer database with selling reminders fields.  How many times have I seen recruiters contacting the same individuals time and time again, not because they want to follow up for a potential sale, but because they fail to realize they had contacted this individual previously.  If you invest time having employees getting to know your customers, why commit the discovered information only to one person’s memory.

Use data to help you know your customer’s needs or just know your customers.  Have trouble identifying faces.  What if your database had a picture of your customer contacts.  Discover your customer has special needs?  Create a field identifying the customer’s special processes and needs.  Did your customer have unusual troubleshooting problems unique to them?  Keep track of your solutions and reap the rewards of greater customer satisfaction.  (Don’t keep reinventing the wheel!)

Many businesses keep their information, but then have their employees repeat data entry tasks to generate new documents, when the information already exists in digital form in another digital file or report.  Remember employee keystrokes represent a cost to your businesses and these micro costs do add up.  While each keystroke only takes a small amount of employee time, consider the advantage of using digital information input.  This is data entry without the need for employee reentry for every new use.

I hope this blog entry has provided you with your own “AHHA” moment.  If you are not convinced consider reading a book about rational decision making.  The book is called Factfulness.  Please feel free to explore the book’s availability through the link provided to Amazon.  I found it to be fascinating in as much as it explores the role of data in the rational decision making process.  I highly encourage you to read up on data and statistics, so you too can have your “AHHA” moment.