The process of data importing and migrating data can often be quite messy. Between spreadsheet templates, writing custom scripts and implementation services, getting data from one application to another is fraught with problems. Companies and their customers often undergo major frustration due to inefficient, time-consuming, and overcomplicated processes.
Looking into our two ways of importing data, Data Onboarding is the process of transporting data into a software product. The data is collected from other software vendors or simply created during a company’s daily operations and stored in formats such as .xlsx, .csv, etc.
Usually, software requires a specific format to work with that data leaving either the end customer or the business itself with the arduous task of manual reformatting work.
One way to tackle this challenge is by using ETL tools. ETL Tools source data from one or multiple sources that were already structured by a piece of software. Within data warehousing terms, ETL stands for:
– Extracting data from one or multiple sources
– Transforming data into a new system’s required structure
– Loading data into a target database
ETL tools make it astonishingly easy to gather and combine data from multiple sources into a centralized location. So why would we depend on additional ways of structuring data as data onboarding?
Simply because a data onboarding solution only relates to the target structure needed. The transformation process of extracting, mapping, validating and cleaning data makes importing data independently from Point A possible, making the combination of ETL and data onboarding solutions a powerful weapon for any business.
Having a more detailed look at this, when moving customer data into a software product, millions of businesses rely on ETL to migrate data from an existing system, update spreadsheet data, or push new (offline) data into a product. However, once we try to move high variance data into that system, ETL tools do not have the capability to automate that job and need human expertise spending weeks or months on migration projects. This is where data onboarding comes into play. It combines basic ETL principles with a process in which humans can transform complex structures into needed formats without being experts at that task. Data experts use data onboarding to automate and foremost accelerate the arduous task of turning high variance data into valuable data, as needed in the target set.
In conclusion, ETL tools and Data Onboarding tools essentially focus on the same goal: a unified target structure as an outcome. However, the difference in acceptance of data input streams is what makes them complementary and both must-have tools for all data experts.
nuvo enables software companies and end-users a seamless self-serve data import, validation, and cleaning experience. The nuvo software library can be embedded in minutes to scale your customer onboarding and make onboarding a breeze.
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