Growing a garden takes a lot of effort. Only after a lot of work do you see the fruits of your labor. A database is much the same, requiring constant upkeep and maintenance to ensure you have useful data to “harvest.” Presented at TSAE Tech Talk 2016.

1. © COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2016 ABILA
How Database Management
is like Gardening
JUSTIN BURNISKE - FUSIONSPAN
MARCH 31ST, 2016

2. Introduction
! Growing a garden takes a lot of effort.
Only after a lot of work do you see the
fruits of your labor. A database is much
the same, requiring constant upkeep
and maintenance to ensure you have
useful data to “harvest.”

3. Learning Objectives
! After participating in this session, you
will be able to:
! Understand the importance of planning
around your data
! Take steps to improve the quality
of your data
! Better manage your own data

4. The Data Garden Cycle
Plan
Plant
Maintain
Harvest

5. Planning your Data
Garden

6. What will you do with
the Data harvest?
! Always start a garden by deciding what you
want to do with the harvest at the end.
≠

7. What will you do with
the Data harvest?
! Always start a garden by deciding what you
want to do with the harvest at the end.
• Present to Board
• Drive more sales
• Increase engagement
• Curiosity

8. What is feasible?
! Is what you want to accomplish with your
harvest feasible given your resources?
≠

9. What is feasible?
! Is what you want to accomplish with your harvest
feasible given your resources?
• How much of the data entry is automated?
• How much staff is dedicated to data maintenance?
• Is data collection centralized or dispersed?
• Are there other challenges/limitations?

10. Know your tools
! Know what your
system can do
! Automation
! Imports
! Integrations
Vs.

11. Planting your
Data Garden

12. Prep the soil and plant
! Get your database ready:
• Educate staff
• Configure data fields
• Remove bad data
• Start collecting!

13. But who will be planting?
! Will you limit data
entry to staff, or open
it up to members?

14. Nurturing your Data
Garden

15. Watering your Data
! Want to help your data
grow?
! Don’t hesitate to reach
out and remind members
about options for
contributing – event
registration, membership
renewal, etc.

16. And weeding!
! A good data garden needs regular
weeding:
• Schedule aside time – have a plan
• Use the system duplicate reports
• AND pull into Excel
• Use Export-Import to conduct bulk
clean-up

17. A few Key Excel Tips
! A few clean-up tips in Excel:
• Conditional Formatting – Highlight Duplicates
• PROPER Function
o this is a TITLE = This Is A Title
• VLOOKUP – Help match two data sources

18. Harvesting your Data
Garden

19. Picking your Data
! Pull your data using query:
• Look at all options
• Building a query?
Start with baseline
• Harvesting TAKES TIME!
• Exclude “rotten” fruit
(Cancel is NULL)

20. Enjoying your Harvest
! Tools to consider:
• AMS reporting
• Pivot Tables
• Free online tools

21. Summary
! Having good data takes planning, just like
having a good garden. Take the time to
prepare, and you’ll be much happier with the
outcome.

22. Additional Learning Opportunities
! For information about additional learning opportunities visit
google.com – No, seriously. Type anything and you’ll get an
answer. Something like, “How do I clean data in Excel?”
! Other resources:
! Microstaff.org
! Non-profit Tech Podcast

23. Contact Us
! Presenter Contact Information:
! Justin Burniske
! jburniske@fusionspan.com
! 202-330-0648
! Twitter - @jburniske
! Thank you for your participation!