Automation

There’s nothing we find more frustrating than seeing people wasting their time (and losing their sanity) doing repetitive, boring and time-intensive tasks moving data across systems or checking that data has been entered correctly. That’s why we will automate these tasks wherever possible, replacing high-frequency standalone exercises with tools that can be reused again and again. This allows data to flow seamlessly, freeing up resource so that people can focus on work that is meaningful and impactful, and significantly reducing incidences of error.

Cross-system Validation

Make sure important information is not missed.

Coordinating data across multiple systems is a little like spinning plates; if the plates aren’t all spinning in sync, they start to fall. Trying to do this manually is incredibly challenging, and invariably means that important information slips through the cracks unnoticed, leading to missed opportunities and unfortunate errors. One way that we address this problem is by writing automated scripts that extract data from key systems on a scheduled basis, then cross-reference and validate that data against other data sources, with alerts raised automatically in the event of discrepancies.

Pre-population

Make sure it’s easy to get it right first time, every time.

Manual data entry may be incredibly tedious, but it’s also necessary in some form in almost every organisation. We therefore seek to make it as straightforward as possible. We build tools that utilise pre-population and data validation to minimise the amount of manual input required, meaning that the exercise switches from being primarily one of data entry to data review, saving vast amounts of time and drastically reducing the scope for human error.

Gamification

Make sure people are incentivised to enter data correctly.

In our experience, most people view data entry as a thankless administrative task, and often don’t appreciate how important it is that an organisation has access to accurate high quality data. We therefore seek to make data entry into a game, giving people scorecards that reflect their compliance with data accuracy targets, and making these scorecards available for everyone to see. This changes how people view data entry; it becomes a part of their job that they are explicitly and publicly recognised for.

Hygiene Reports

Make sure you know when it goes wrong, so you can fix it when it does.

Manually reviewing datasets to identify errors is a laborious task, and one that it’s virtually impossible to do with a high degree of consistency and accuracy. We build automated hygiene reports that identify errors (such as missing fields, invalid entries, data mismatches, logical impossibilities), classify those errors by type, and flag the errors to the users. This means that errors can be swiftly fixed when they occur, and mechanisms can be proactively introduced to reduce error types that are occurring at a higher frequency.