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Turning Spreadsheets into Corporate Data

Turning Spreadsheets into Corporate Data

By : Bill Inmon
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Turning Spreadsheets into Corporate Data

Turning Spreadsheets into Corporate Data

By: Bill Inmon
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Overview of this book

Spreadsheets are a popular way to store and communicate business data, but, although they are easy to create and update, they are not reliable enough to be used for making important corporate decisions. With this book, you can gain insight into how to maintain spreadsheets, how to format them, and then convert them into a database of reliable and useful information. Turning Spreadsheets into Corporate Data starts with a quick history of spreadsheet usage. You’ll learn the basics of formatting spreadsheets, including how to handle special characters and column headings, and how to convert the spreadsheet first into an intermediate database and then into corporate data. You will also learn how to utilize the mnemonic dictionary that is created along with the intermediate database. The later chapters discuss the immutability of data and the importance of organizational and political considerations during the data transformation. By the end of this book, you’ll have the skills and knowledge needed to convert your spreadsheets into reliable corporate data.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
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1
Introduction
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Introduction
2
1: Brief History of Spreadsheets
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1: Brief History of Spreadsheets
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The IT Labyrinth
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End User Acceptance of the Spreadsheet
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Spreadsheet Hell
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A Tradeoff
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Responsibility—The Flip Side of Control
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Management’s Problem
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Differences Between Two Types of Data
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In Summary
3
2: Spreadsheet Paradox
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2: Spreadsheet Paradox
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Public Data
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The Spreadsheet as a Medium of Exchange
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Recurring/Non-Recurring Spreadsheets
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The Spectrum of Spreadsheets
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The Cost of Transforming a Spreadsheet
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Factors Other than Cost
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Transcription of Data
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Cell Formula
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Spreadsheet Descriptors
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Artificially Supplying Descriptors
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In Summary
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3: Spreadsheet Varieties
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3: Spreadsheet Varieties
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Simple Demarcation—xlstab
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Other Special Characters—eold and Linefeed
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The Internal View of a Spreadsheet
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A Missing Column Heading
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A Missing Value
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A Multiline Row
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The “Standard” Spreadsheet Format
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Managing the User of the Spreadsheet
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The ssdef Table
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The Spreadsheet Processing Log
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The Lineage of Spreadsheet Data
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The Cell Formula
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Relating to the Real World
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Identifying the Header Line
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In Summary
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4: The PDF Spreadsheet
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4: The PDF Spreadsheet
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The Importance of Special Characters
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PDF and OCR
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A Final Option
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In Summary
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5: The Basics of Spreadsheet Formatting
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5: The Basics of Spreadsheet Formatting
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The System Name
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Unreliability of Report Name
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Multiple Sheets in a Spreadsheet
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Other Special Characters
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Identifying Column Headings
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Similar Column Headings
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Blocking Off Sections of a Spreadsheet
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Non-Standard Spreadsheet Structures
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A Spreadsheet that Cannot be Mapped
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A Spreadsheet in a TXT Format
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In Summary
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6: Spreadsheet Disambiguation
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6: Spreadsheet Disambiguation
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Selecting Spreadsheets for Inclusion into Corporate Data
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Recasting the Spreadsheet
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Logging the Spreadsheet for Transformation
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Entry into the Path Queue
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Defining the Spreadsheet Headings
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Pairing the ssdef Specification to the Spreadsheet
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Finding and Creating Database Definitions and Values
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The Intermediate Database
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Some Anomalies
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What if an Error is Discovered?
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Manual Effort Required
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Spreadsheet Width
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Subdividing a Spreadsheet
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No Value for a Column Name
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No Column Headings
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Creating the ssdef Specification Once
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In Summary
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7: The Intermediate Database
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7: The Intermediate Database
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Finding Errors
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The Contents of the Intermediate Database
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Functions Served by the Data Elements
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Alternate Name
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Adding Context to Data Values
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Editing Data in the Intermediate Database
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In Summary
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8: The ssdef Database
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8: The ssdef Database
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Organizing Data Inside the ssdef Table
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Processing Using ssdef Records
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Searching the Full Path Queue
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In Summary
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9: The Corporate Database
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9: The Corporate Database
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From Intermediate Data to Corporate Data
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Grouped Corporate Data
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Tracing the Lineage
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In Summary
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10: The Mnemonic Dictionary
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10: The Mnemonic Dictionary
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The Contents of the Mnemonic Dictionary
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Grouping Like Data Elements
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Applying Naming Conventions
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Value of the Mnemonic Dictionary
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In Summary
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11: Political Considerations Within the Organization
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11: Political Considerations Within the Organization
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Shifting Control
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Immutability of Data
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The Importance of Alternate Names
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Limited Editing
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Super Classifications of Data
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The Lineage of Corporate Data
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Relative Volumes of Data
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In Summary
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12: Data Modeling and the Spreadsheet Environment
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12: Data Modeling and the Spreadsheet Environment
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The Entity Relationship Diagram
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The Data Item Set
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The Physical Model
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The Data Model
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The Data Model and Spreadsheet Data
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“Correctness” of Data
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Aligning Data from Different Spreadsheets
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An Algorithmic Resolution
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An Indexed Resolution
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Resolution and the Data Model
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Spreadsheet Data in the Data Warehouse
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Changing Spreadsheet Data
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In Summary
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13: Case Study
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13: Case Study
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Glossary
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Glossary
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Index
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Index

Spreadsheet Descriptors

A much better way to understand the meaning of a cell is to look and see what descriptors are to be found on the spreadsheet itself. As a rule, a cell often has a column heading and a row identifier associated with the cell, as shown in Figure 2.7.

There are, however, some basic problems with identifying a cell by its column name and its row identifier. The first problem is that column name and row identification are optional descriptors. The analyst creating the spreadsheet may not have created one or the other (or both!) of these forms of metadata.

Figure007.jpg

But even if the analyst has created both the column name and the row identifier, aligning the two can be a challenge. In a spreadsheet it is easy to access an entire column, thus making the association between the column name and the values in the column obvious. Or it is easy to simply access row of data, thereby making the association between the row identifier and the value of data in the cell obvious...

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