Well-formed Data – Part 2: Concatenation & Extraction

Continuing our series on preparing data for analysis & visualization, we’ve just released the next video on concatenation and extraction.  The ability to break data apart and put it back together in new ways is essential to preparing data.  By storing data at the lowest sensible level, it can be used separately or combined with other data for interesting analysis and visualization.  In this practical video, we discuss 6 key Excel functions for extraction including left(), mid(), right(), search(), len(), and trunc().

Check out this 9:57 video to learn how to take the next step in preparing your data for analysis and visualization:

 

In the next 2 videos, we’ll continue the discussion with Normalization (advanced ideas to support One Concept per Row), and Missing Data (how to deal with missing or implied data).

Well-formed Data - Part 1: Consistency

Data visualization and analysis are powerful tools for discovering and communicating stories held in your data.  However, before most of today’s data visualization tools can be used effectively, the data must be cleaned, organized and prepared.  Over the next 4 videos, I’ll be discussing how to prepare your data to be visualized.  The first step in the process is consistency.  Consistency is made up of 4 principles:

  • One Concept per Row
  • One Data Type per Column
  • One Format per Data Type
  • Using the Lowest Sensible Level

Check out this 9:43 video to begin the most important step in preparing your data:

In the next 3 videos, we’ll continue the discussion with Concatenation & Extraction (how to put things together and take them apart), Normalization (advanced ideas to support One Concept per Row), and Missing Data (how to deal with missing or implied data).