The 10 Ways Data Preparation Can Enhance Excel

THE 10 WAYS DATA PREPARATION
CAN ENHANCE EXCEL
Dan Potter, CMO
Phil Lafond, NA Solutions Engineer

What Users Really like about Excel
Easy to Learn
Readily Available
Advanced Analytic Functions
Application Integration
No IT Involvement

Excel Limitations
Version Control
Issues
Originally designed for personal use and single-user
access, Excel collaboration, most often, is via Email or file
sharing
Lack of Data
Integrity
Excel never provides a “single version of the truth”
for the organization since it can be altered easily.
Maintenance
Issues
Spreadsheets can be difficult to maintain if the
data is gathered from multiple sources
Lack of Data
Security
As locally stored files, spreadsheets are
prone to theft and data loss.
Reduced Querying
Capability
Analyzing data spanning multiple sources is
complex and very difficult to maintain.
Less
Scalability
Enterprise analytics often requires queries run over data
sets exceeding maximum spreadsheet file size limits.

Extract Data in Reports and PDFs
Monarch enables you to access and prepare data
trapped within any report, text file or PDF
The manual process of copying charts and data
from within PDFs into Excel can take hours
Data brought over into one cell has to be
manually parsed into different Columns
Each table in the PDF needs to be manually
copied and Reformatted
with EXCEL
In one click, you can automatically parse the
document into rows and Columns
All of your tables are brought into a standard
table format for further data preparation.
Even multi-line reports are intelligently
captured into neat rows and columns.
with MONARCH

Understand Your Data
Monarch helps you understand your data and
determine what data needs attention
Previewing a data table is a very
manual process
You must have multiple spreadsheets open to
see which table has the right data.
You also need to create complex macros to
hide multiple datasheets.
with EXCEL
You quickly understand your data and see
data tables before loading.
You can determine the quality of your data and
what needs to be cleaned.
with MONARCH

Fix Missing Data
Monarch helps you identify missing data and then fill in that missing
data with the correct information.
You search for nulls and then
replace the with one value.
You have to manually change values
of each row and column in the
entire data set.
with EXCEL
You can simply select the ditto
function to fill down the blanks
in the entire data set.
You can replace or remove data or
nulls with the click of a button.
with MONARCH

Use Data from Websites
Monarch helps you bring in data from websites and
automatically remove the “noise”
When trying to copy data from a website,
the layout of the data does not transfer
cleanly resulting in messy hyperlinks and
missing information.
Hours of formatting is needed to fix the
charts in order to merge them with other
data sets.
with EXCEL
You can parse the website data, stripping
out all the “noise”- like ads and graphics -
and simply bring the selected data into
rows and columns..
with MONARCH

Combine Data Sets
Monarch helps you combine multiple data sets into one with ease
VLOOKUPs and manual copy/pasting is
required to join multiple spreadsheets.
You need to select entire columns and
rows in multiple data sets.
with EXCEL
You can easily join entire data sets or
certain columns with the click of a button.
You can choose from a wide variety of
different joins.
Monarch’s intelligent design explains the 4
different types of joins you can select from.
with MONARCH

Consolidating Data Tables
Monarch can bring together multiple data sets with
similar row structure with ease
When you have multiple data sets with
similar data and need to combine the
rows together there is a lot of manual
copy and pasting
with EXCEL
You simply combine the similar data
sets by selecting the two tables and
hitting append.
Similar data sets will be recognized
and automatically combined when new
data is present.
with MONARCH

Mask Sensitive Data
Monarch has the ability to mask data so you make sure
you comply with corporate or regulatory standards
You have to create complex
macros in order to hide
sensitive data.
The data is never actually
removed from the spreadsheet,
it’s just hidden which is an IT
security issue.
with EXCEL
You can securely mask sensitive data like social security
numbers or account IDs.
The data can be fully redacted or you can create consistent
aliases so you can still aggregate information like customer
transactions or patient information.
Different roles can see only the data they are authorized to see.
with MONARCH

Reconciliation of Reports and Data
Monarch can assist you with reconciling reports and
seeing a summary of changes
Significant changes are difficult to see
in large data filled reports.
You have to set up rules to color
thresholds and keep updating these
rule as the data changes
with EXCEL
You will have a full summary of the
reports that shows what has changed
in the data
Reports are automatically updated as
new data is added
with MONARCH

History of Your Work
Monarch allows you to see who made specific changes to reports
When sharing files, you can’t see
the steps taken to clean the data.
To make any changes, you must
change or update all prior work.
with EXCEL
You can go back and make edits without
redoing the entire process.
Users can collaborate within the file by
seeing each other’s work.
with MONARCH

Automate Your Data Prep
Monarch automates data preparation so that as the data
updates so will the new prepared data set or report
Every step of the data preparation
process is automatically captured so it
can be reused and automated
You can run this on a predetermined
schedule or you can have it
automatically run when new data
becomes available
with MONARCH
When the data is new, you have to
manually redo all of the data
preparation steps
You have to create complex macros in
order for reports to change on the fly
with EXCEL

Question and Answer
Free Monarch Personal Edition
available for immediate download
at www.datawatch.com

The 10 Ways Data Preparation Can Enhance Excel

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