BETTER
PRACTICES
Standardizing Data Entry in Your
Membership Database
As much as possible, you
want to goof-proof data entry. There are many ways to do
that:
1) Force fields to be
capitalized.
Examples include:
-
province abbreviations
-
postal codes
-
membership codes
-
meeting codes
2) Limit entry to standard
values that are in a lookup table.
Examples include:
-
province
abbreviations/names
-
country names/codes
-
chapters / districts /
regions
-
education programs
-
types of educational
degrees
-
business types
-
sales volumes of member
companies
3) Have a style manual on
data entry.
Agree on elements like:
-
How a member's name
will be recorded (where does the middle initial go,
use of prefix and suffix, credentials etc.)
-
Addressing standards
and abbreviations
-
Duplicate record
avoidance and what constitutes a duplicate record.
4) Even with the steps
taken above, you might still want to use outside vendors
for periodic address standardization and to review your
file for duplicates.
Adapted from a
presentation on "Getting More From Your Database
and Your Data" by John Boggess and Wes Trochlil.
http://www.effectivedatabase.com
Used with permission.
The practices described in this area
are described as Better Practices for a
very good reason. We have a great deal of difficulty
with the term best practices used in any other
context than to refer to the results of benchmarking
exercises involving real and relevant organizations with
tangible results. We offer Better Practices
related to areas where we feel that change is needed in
associations. Better Practices are
intended to provoke thought, and to encourage
organizations to think about what they are doing and how
they are doing it.
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