Improving Your Data Quality | Consistency

To begin improving your Consistency score, remember that this data quality dimension is measured using the following metric: Percent of records for “core screens” that use "Type" and "Description" fields as intended.

For this metric, we evaluated the use of two types of fields:

1. "Type" fields, which are predefined drop-down lists used for categorization
2. "Description", "Comments" and "Notes" fields, which are text area fields used to capture facts that have no other, more specific, home

You can review the attached Data Quality packet or the article, Data Quality: The Basics, for a more thorough explanation of each metric.

To start improving consistency, your Success Consultant can provide more details of how many records have a consistency problem and what type. They can also help you add a report to identify specific records that have a consistency problem.

For example, they can help you use the “Create a New Report” feature to create a report that identifies records that meet the following scenarios:

• Records where a “Type” field is missing data
• Records where a “Type” field has a value that does not equal “Other” and the “Explanation of Other” field has a value
• Records where a Core Field is blank, and there is a value in a note/comment/description field

After reviewing and analyzing the report results, your Success Consultant can help you determine the best action items to address your particular issues. A few potential outcomes may be:

1. Follow up with specific individuals asking them to correct the use of the “Type” field for the specific records that were flagged.
2. Make all “Type” fields required to ensure quality data for this metric moving forward.
3. Create new fields to capture important data that is currently residing in description fields. In general, description fields should be used sparingly. If the data is important, it should have a home on the screen.

Improving your consistency score will give you confidence that Faculty Success will produce comprehensive reports that include records correctly and in the correct format because everyone is entering their data in the same manner.