Data Cleansing Guide
Introduction
Spring cleaning your Towers Watson database
Why are we asking you to spring clean your data
The Towers Watson system has been in use with ECC members for well over a decade and in that time a considerable amount of data has been added to it and many members have made changes to its set up.
We would like to take this opportunity with you to have a look at the data you have and the way that your database has been amended.
This will help us ensure that your new database is set up so that you can take advantage of its increased flexibility and usability, and that you only have data in it that you want to keep.
Introduction to the guide
This guide is designed to provide you with assistance in tidying up the information you have on your Towers Watson database so that we can migrate only the information that you want to keep into your new database.
It is broken down into sevenparts;six of which provide a logical flow to the work required to review the role records on your database, the parts do build one on another and may contain references from one to the other to avoid duplication of information. The final part deals with employee records
1Creating a role data download report
This includes information on how to create a report in Towers Watson for export into an Excel spreadsheet and can be applied to data cleansing or creating a back up copy of all the information in your database
2Tidying up your Excel spreadsheet
This section focuses on techniques for making your spreadsheet a bit more manageable given the amount of data you have exported. It uses standard Excel tools for this
3Data cleansing
This section contains tips and ideas about how you can approach data cleansing and some of the issues you need to consider before importing changes back into the Towers Watson system
4Tidying up the Towers Watson database and preparing to import changes
This section describes some of the parts of the Towers Watson system that you may need to change or update before you can import the changes you have made to your data. It also covers some general tidying up of the system that you can do to ease data migration
5Importing data
This section describes the process for importing your data back into Towers Watson, it will also help you to deal with the fiddly bits of the process and cut out errors
6Dealing with changes in Towers Watson
This section provides some tips on how to handle changes that can only be made in the Towers Watson system, like bulk deletion of old roles
7Employee Records
This section looks at employee records in a bit more detail, and discusses what will and will not be able to be migrated into the new system. It also provides tips on accessing and assessing any employee records you may have on your database.
The guide describes one way to undertake this work and gives reasons why we are suggesting this methodology; in some parts of the process there may be other routes that you can to take to achieve the same goal that you will be more familiar and confident with.
The guide can be used in conjunction with the workshops that ECC will be running to support members in undertaking a data cleansing exercise. ECC will also be offering one to one support for members either remotely or on site.
This is not a guide to using the Towers Watson system, but does provide detailed instructions on how to undertake the tasks described. If you need more information on how to use the system there is a complete guide in the Software section of the members area of the ECC website ( You will need a password to access the Member’s Area, if you are not sure what your organisation’s password is then email for help.
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