7 Tips to Help You Evaluate Data Quality Tools

Due to the sheer volume of indefinite data organizations produce on a consistent basis, having data quality tools is integral for companies. Evaluating a data quality solution that fits your organization’s business requirements is not an easy task. However, before you evaluate solutions, it is important that you have a data governance strategy and team in place to understand and streamline data processes before implementing a data quality software.

At STAEDEAN, since we build solutions for Microsoft ERPs such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management, we talk to customers about their expectations and challenges when they are evaluating solutions. We have built Data Management Solutions that can help organizations manage data processes from governance to analytics. Using our Data Analytics Solution for D365 F&SCM, you considerably improve the quality of your data, integrate your application landscape, design workflows to manage data entry, ease distribution and control of master data, improve data security, and derive meaningful insights.

For businesses that want to move to a more data-driven approach, evaluating a data quality solution that can help them improve the accuracy, validity, and consistency of their data is the next step to take. To help you make these choices, we share some tips that will help you rank data quality tools and select one that fits your organization’s requirements.    

Tips to evaluate data quality solutions

Implementing a data governance strategy and tools that complement your vision takes time. It requires organizational change and constant communication. While there are a lot of data quality solutions out there, finding a solution that fits your data quality strategy and that can easily fit into your current data fabric is important.

Here are 7 tips to keep in mind while evaluating data quality tools.

Review the flexibility of the tool

Some solutions are very stringent and do not allow employees to save data fields unless all mandatory fields are filled in. Any tool that implements data quality rules in a stringent way can hinder business-as-usual tasks. That should not be the case. You need to identify tools that are flexible and allow you to make changes without blocking tasks or access.

At STAEDEAN, we understand the need for flexibility and using our data quality tools our users can add a warning while still allowing their team members to save the form. Or they can make it more stringent based on the field and configure it as an error so that the user cannot proceed unless the error has been fixed.

Evaluate the product roadmap

Data is growing at an alarming rate. Statista reports that, by 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes from 97 zettabytes in 2022. The rate at which data is growing every day, improving and monitoring data quality, in the long run, is going to become more challenging for organizations.

At STAEDEAN, we are constantly working to improve our products. We consider data trends and customer feedback while strategizing for our solution’s roadmap.

Look at all data governance tools offered by the same provider

Besides data quality, there are several other tools one needs to evaluate while implementing a data governance strategy. Some of these tools might be needed to help you improve information security, integrate your application landscape, control master data management, and streamline data entry, for example. Consider partnering with an organization that can be a one-stop-shop for all your data governance needs rather than partnering with multiple companies for different solutions. This will save your employees both time and effort as they would otherwise be spending too much time coordinating and managing solutions with multiple vendors.

Check on references for support and implementation of complex projects

Some organizations might have enough internal bandwidth to get data quality projects off the ground after the initial training from the data quality solution provider. However, not all organizations have technical experts on their teams managing data quality. A great solution is no good if you do not have the right team supporting you when there are issues.

Whether you are skeptical about support or would like to know about the experience of people currently using the solution, it is always best to ask for references.

Review scalability of the solution

You might need to scale up based on your organization’s growth. Therefore, it makes sense to invest in a solution that can grow with you and can be implemented for multiple companies or can handle information for multiple product lines and departments. Additionally, if you are on-premise and decide to move to the cloud, you should consider a solution provider that can offer both services.

Test scenarios wherein the tool manages data from multiple sources

You might have data from multiple sources that you need to manage and improve. A solution that can help you manage all your data from several systems in one place will be more convenient to use and manage.

Our Data Governance Solution can help you import data into the Microsoft D365 F&SCM ERP system and integrate all your systems, ERP, and business applications. After integrating your applications, you can use our master data management solution to enrich and complete data in D365 F&SCM.

Get business users to evaluate the ease of use

Solutions that are built for business users with little to no code are better to opt for compared to complicated solutions that need technical expertise. If you opt for a solution that requires that your IT team operates it and they implement all the data rules without involving the other departments, your data quality project will not be successful. Any data governance project including data quality management needs to be operated by cross-functional teams across business units to ensure better chances of success.

At STAEDEAN, all our solutions are configuration-based and use the same business logic as D365 F&SCM. This means our customers have a quicker learning curve and a user experience that they are already familiar with, which makes using our solutions a breeze.

Are you evaluating data quality software for Microsoft D365 F&SCM?

If you are evaluating data governance solutions for D365 F&SCM, we recommend considering our Data Governance Solution built within the ERP.  Our master data management solution can help you with data entry management, master data management, and data quality management. But if you are looking at a solution that can help you improve data at every stage in the data lifecycle our Data Analytics Solution for D365 F&SCM would be a better fit.

To learn more about the features of our Data Governance Solution, download the factsheet from the link below.