Before you analyze data, you must first validate it.
Otherwise, your analysis may not be accurate, and you may miss some important insights or errors.
This post is part of the Excel: Basic Data Analytic series.
Before analyzing your data, you need to check the following:
- Duplicate transactions do not exist.
- Required fields/key fields do not contain blanks, spaces, zeroes, unprintable characters, or other invalid data.
- Date fields contain real dates, and the range of dates is appropriate.
- Amount fields don’t contain inappropriate zero, positive, or negative amounts, and the range of values is appropriate.
- Each field is stored in the correct format. This prevents data from being converted on the fly into something else unexpectantly (e.g., user ID JUL15 becomes 15-Jul).
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