How to Clean Up Your Property
Data: From Plan to Execution
Judy Windle
Sunflower Systems
j w i n d l e @ s u n f lo w e r s y s t e m s . c o m
Purpose
 To describe how to address data cleanup
challenges
 To present steps required to effectively plan and
clean up property data
 To review an Asset Catalog example
 To describe how to maintain clean, consistent data
Overview
 Understand how to achieve the following cleanup
steps:
 Address
the challenge
 Create a plan
 Execute and Manage
 Maintain policies and procedures
Keeping data accurate, consistent and reportable is the
key to success!!
Address the Challenge
 Begin with the following suggested questions:

Is there one, centralized office driving polices, procedures and
guidance on how to manage and track property?

Do the property managers and custodians understand the
importance of entering clean, precise data into a property
management system? Are they motivated?

What are the weaknesses of your property
management system?
Address the Challenge
“If you take care of the small things, the big things will
take care of themselves.”
Lets focus on the weaknesses…
 Step 1: Recognize the need for data cleanup
 Step 2: Understand the importance of a cleanup
effort
 Step 3: Identify the cause behind the inconsistencies
Create a Plan
 Step 1: Assign one, centralized office or person to lead
the cleanup effort
 Step 2: Establish uniform naming conventions

This will drive consistency and accuracy
 Step 3: Develop training and education processes



Train and re-train users on how to use the system properly
Educate users on the new or updated naming conventions
Plan weekly, for example, meetings with system users to
discuss concerns, questions, ideas, etc.
Create a Plan cont.
 Step 4: Prepare to analyze the data
 Assign resources
 Understand the amount of data you may have to clean up
 Plan how to organize the data
 Step 5: Define the scope



Determine the number of users that need to be trained on
the system and educated on the new naming conventions
Decide what problem area (s) you want to focus on (if not
all)
Define a timeframe
Create a Plan cont.
 Step 6: Document…Document…Document

Document the following:
 The centralized office or person leading the effort
 Naming
convention (s) or guidance (e.g. ASTM standards)
 Training
and education processes and manuals
 Determine where the manuals can be found
 Determine who will train and what users (in general)
 Training schedules
 Weekly meeting platform
Create a Plan cont.

Document cont.
 Scope involved to implement the cleanup
 Why conduct a cleanup effort
 What problem areas and how much [data]
 The amount of time expected
 Anticipated risks and assumptions
 Approach
 Who is carrying out the effort
 How to analyze the data
 How to execute the cleanup process
 Maintenance Strategy
 How to keep data intact
 Who will update all of the above
Execute: The Cleanup
 Step 1: Complete all steps in the “Create a Plan” phase
 Step 2: Once the plan is documented, start to train and
educate users as the cleanup effort begins
 Step 3: Analyze the data
 If limited resources are available, focus on one problem area at a
time
 Assuming a technical resource is available, multiple queries
should be run organizing data into categories (e.g. asset catalog,
accountability, locations, etc.)
Execute: The Cleanup cont.
 Step 4: Execute the cleanup
 Once all categories are organized and broken down into
elements or levels, it is time to clean up

Key steps to follow:
 Eliminate duplicate entries
 Correct misspellings
 Adjust entries to reflect new naming convention
 Map asset records to correct entries
Execute: The Cleanup cont.
 Step 5: Wrap up!
Re-run
all queries
Review categories along with each level
Make adjustments and correct discrepancies
Repeat until desired outcome is achieved
Asset Catalog

Cleanup category example: Asset Catalog

What is an asset catalog?
The metadata below are suggestions and are not limited to the
following:
 Core
data elements:
 Manufacturer
 Model Number
 Model Name
 Description
Asset Catalog
Additional
 Federal
 Part
Supply Classification (FSC)
number
 Stock
 Unit
data elements to consider:
Number
of measure
Asset Catalog
Asset Catalog Cleanup

Manufacturer :
 Eliminate all duplicates and correct misspelled
manufacturers
 Map all assets to the correct manufacturer
HEWLETT PACKARD
HP
HEWLET PAC
HPACKARD
HEWLETT-PACKARD
HEWLETT PACKERD
HPC
HEWLETT PACKHARD
Asset Catalog
Asset Catalog Cleanup

Model Number/Name:
 Eliminate all duplicate entries specific to each
manufacturer
 Correct inaccurate entries to follow the naming
convention
Asset Catalog
Asset Catalog Cleanup

Model Number/Name cont.:
 Decide if the model number column or field should
include the model name (e.g. Latitude E4310 or
E4310)
 Model name can be included in a additional field or
column
 Map all assets reflecting eliminated models to the
correct models
Asset Catalog
Asset Catalog Cleanup

Description:
 Eliminate all duplicates, misspellings and “like” entries
 Decide if the common denominator should be labeled
first
 Map assets to the correct description

Federal Supply Classification (FSC)
 Correct all FSC discrepancies
 In general, the same descriptions should have the same
FSCs
Maintain
 Lessons
learned
 Knowledge
transfer
 Continue
to train system users
 Continue
to educate and enforce naming conventions
 Consider
list of value data fields
 Continue
to host weekly meetings
 Run
queries on an annual basis (for example)
Summary
Understand the BIG picture
 Balance structure, flexibility and usability of the system
 Property data should be…
 Descriptive
 Standard
 Reportable
 Review
 Address
the Challenge
 Create a Plan
 Execute and Manage
 Maintain
Questions/Comments
???