We all get tired of labels and categorie

We all get tired of labels and categories. After all, life is complicated and human activity is messy.

However, when it comes to tracking your business information information, labels and categories are your best pals.

If your staff members were working in an Excel spreadsheet, they had some flexibility. Maybe you had a column for phone types, but sometimes they entered “cell”, sometimes “mobile. Sometimes “home” and sometimes “landline.” Maybe in the category for certifications, they sometimes wrote the credential out: “Hog Calling Regional Certification” but sometimes used the “HCRC” abbreviation.

But now you’re ready to step up your business information processes. You want your data captured quickly and accurately, and you want to be able to retrieve it instantly. When you’re deciding whether to apply for Elevated Hog Calling Status for your company, you need to be able to push a single button and generate a report of how many employees have their HCRC certification and when those certifications expire.

Here’s where “Normalization” kicks in. To get your report to run properly, your staff members need to enter the consistently. And here’s the challenge. You probably hire the best, but they are busy. Their days consist of a million small tasks besides entering data in that one field. Their days may consist of entering data into many fields, all with their own specific limitations.

Free them up to focus on their jobs by ensuring that your database does its job. Instead of allowing (requiring) users to enter the type of phone, let them click the appropriate radio button: “mobile” or “home.” Give them a dropdown list to select the appropriate credential. Now your reports will run properly because you’ve eliminated the variations and potential for typos.

Filemaker Pro has a variety of built-in ways to ensure the normalization of your data, from dropdown menus to check boxes to validation for character limitations and numbers instead of letters.

Make sure your developer takes full advantage of these. If errors occur repeatedly, don’t blame your staff members. Blame your database, and see that it gets fixed.