Data Mapping
An oldie but goodie…
How great is excel? You can add comments below this article to express your love for it! I am a fan too but what often happens is that Excel gets abused; used way beyond its limitations, way beyond it was designed to handle; think VBA + Excel + 2m+ records! and Excel starts getting used as a database! I do like Excel and I use it for data mapping because chances are that the business understands Excel and we can easily talk about the elements in excel without getting lost in translation.
The intention of this article is to set a few guidelines and principles around data mapping as it pertains to the use of Excel. Data Analysts can assist rapid development by providing data mapping in a form that is easily digestible by a coder and readable by the business.
Without further delay let’s get into the ten standards (I can think of) for data mapping.
1) Build a mapping sheet that covers only 1 subject area
This accomplishes a few things:
- You can have multiple subjects being worked on at the same time by different people.
- Isolating mapping to functional areas — — therefore allowing for teams/departments having their own “copy” of the data structure their responsible for.
- Easily add references in products like Conference, JIRA etc so if the area that talks about credit cards then the link would only pull credit card mapping.