THE 10 WAYS DATA PREPARATION

CAN ENHANCE EXCEL

Dan Potter, CMO

Phil Lafond, NA Solutions Engineer

What Users Really like about Excel

Easy to Learn

Readily Available

Advanced Analytic Functions

Application Integration

No IT Involvement

Excel Limitations

Version Control Issues

Originally designed for personal use and single-user access, Excel collaboration, most often, is via Email or file sharing

Lack of Data Integrity

Excel never provides a “single version of the truth”

for the organization since it can be altered easily.

Maintenance Issues

Spreadsheets can be difficult to maintain if the

data is gathered from multiple sources

Lack of Data Security

As locally stored files, spreadsheets are

prone to theft and data loss.

Reduced Querying Capability

Analyzing data spanning multiple sources is

complex and very difficult to maintain.

Less Scalability

Enterprise analytics often requires queries run over data

sets exceeding maximum spreadsheet file size limits.

Extract Data in Reports and PDFs

Monarch enables you to access and prepare data

trapped within any report, text file or PDF

The manual process of copying charts and data

from within PDFs into Excel can take hours

Data brought over into one cell has to be

manually parsed into different Columns

Each table in the PDF needs to be manually

copied and Reformatted

with EXCEL

In one click, you can automatically parse the

document into rows and Columns

All of your tables are brought into a standard

table format for further data preparation.

Even multi-line reports are intelligently

captured into neat rows and columns.

with MONARCH

Understand Your Data

Monarch helps you understand your data and

determine what data needs attention

Previewing a data table is a very

manual process

You must have multiple spreadsheets open to

see which table has the right data.

You also need to create complex macros to

hide multiple datasheets.

with EXCEL

You quickly understand your data and see

data tables before loading.

You can determine the quality of your data and

what needs to be cleaned.

with MONARCH

Fix Missing Data

Monarch helps you identify missing data and then fill in that missing

data with the correct information.

You search for nulls and then

replace the with one value.

You have to manually change values

of each row and column in the

entire data set.

with EXCEL

You can simply select the ditto

function to fill down the blanks

in the entire data set.

You can replace or remove data or

nulls with the click of a button.

with MONARCH

Use Data from Websites

Monarch helps you bring in data from websites and

automatically remove the “noise”

When trying to copy data from a website,

the layout of the data does not transfer

cleanly resulting in messy hyperlinks and

missing information.

Hours of formatting is needed to fix the

charts in order to merge them with other

data sets.

with EXCEL

You can parse the website data, stripping

out all the “noise”- like ads and graphics -

and simply bring the selected data into

rows and columns..

with MONARCH

Combine Data Sets

Monarch helps you combine multiple data sets into one with ease

VLOOKUPs and manual copy/pasting is

required to join multiple spreadsheets.

You need to select entire columns and

rows in multiple data sets.

with EXCEL

You can easily join entire data sets or

certain columns with the click of a button.

You can choose from a wide variety of

different joins.

Monarch’s intelligent design explains the 4

different types of joins you can select from.

with MONARCH

Consolidating Data Tables

Monarch can bring together multiple data sets with

similar row structure with ease

When you have multiple data sets with

similar data and need to combine the

rows together there is a lot of manual

copy and pasting

with EXCEL

You simply combine the similar data

sets by selecting the two tables and

hitting append.

Similar data sets will be recognized

and automatically combined when new

data is present.

with MONARCH

Mask Sensitive Data

Monarch has the ability to mask data so you make sure

you comply with corporate or regulatory standards

You have to create complex

macros in order to hide

sensitive data.

The data is never actually

removed from the spreadsheet,

it’s just hidden which is an IT

security issue.

with EXCEL

You can securely mask sensitive data like social security

numbers or account IDs.

The data can be fully redacted or you can create consistent

aliases so you can still aggregate information like customer

transactions or patient information.

Different roles can see only the data they are authorized to see.

with MONARCH

Reconciliation of Reports and Data

Monarch can assist you with reconciling reports and

seeing a summary of changes

Significant changes are difficult to see

in large data filled reports.

You have to set up rules to color

thresholds and keep updating these

rule as the data changes

with EXCEL

You will have a full summary of the

reports that shows what has changed

in the data

Reports are automatically updated as

new data is added

with MONARCH

History of Your Work

Monarch allows you to see who made specific changes to reports

When sharing files, you can’t see

the steps taken to clean the data.

To make any changes, you must

change or update all prior work.

with EXCEL

You can go back and make edits without

redoing the entire process.

Users can collaborate within the file by

seeing each other’s work.

with MONARCH

Automate Your Data Prep

Monarch automates data preparation so that as the data

updates so will the new prepared data set or report

Every step of the data preparation

process is automatically captured so it

can be reused and automated

You can run this on a predetermined

schedule or you can have it

automatically run when new data

becomes available

with MONARCH

When the data is new, you have to

manually redo all of the data

preparation steps

You have to create complex macros in

order for reports to change on the fly

with EXCEL

Question and Answer

Free Monarch Personal Edition

available for immediate download

at www.datawatch.com

THE 10 WAYS DATA PREPARATION

CAN ENHANCE EXCEL

Dan Potter, CMO

Phil Lafond, NA Solutions Engineer