Data onboarding is an essential process of importing customer data into a software product. This process is difficult to automate as customers provide files with various and unique formatting errors. Developers waste a lot of their time in manual data onboarding, as a result.
Problems During Data Onboarding
Developers standardize templates for customers to follow. If done accurately this makes onboarding of data easy with standardized file formats. But customers lack the technical know-how to follow the instructions given. As a result the format of the incoming data is a mess. Developers clean files lacking organization and labeling. After this tedious process they can import the data. Developers have to manually correct errors in formatting when they are inconsistent within a file. Customers send files with misspellings and missing rows or columns. These files also include faulty formatting of phone numbers, dates and currencies.
The only way to save the time taken by correcting every file is automating the process. So custom programs have to be written to copy parts of the file and submit SQL queries. This means using proper parsers for each file type. Time is wasted in requesting a feature for every new file format import. The whole process is the same as developing a custom solution for every new import. Such a massive waste of time and resources devalues the service provided by the developers who provided the original solution. Importing data from different sources presents fresh challenges for developers who must maintain data consistency. They have to ensure all imported data format matches the present data format in the database.
The process of data onboarding is usually very rushed and done on priority basis. When the sales team finalizes a sale of a product, the client wants to see it work using their data. This means all developers have to drop their active projects to run through files sent by the clients so that they can be onboarded for a speedy demonstration of the product. The process of data onboarded is highly technical and developers devote a large amount of their time to carry it out smoothly. Developers are the valuable resources of tech companies and data onboarding strains this resource.
Solution To Data Onboarding
Developers need a comprehensive platform that cars to all their data onboarding needs. Such software products come with a web application where developers can directly import the data. The data onboarding software automatically matches the data column and normalizes imported data to configurations set by the developer. These software products can accept multiple data formats and work across various frameworks.
The article was authored by Bahaa Al Zubaidi and has been published by the editorial board of the Identity Herald. For more information please visit www.techdomainnews.com.
