Handling abbreviations as you migrate data

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Abbreviations can be a problem in your source data. You may want to change all the data to the full for, or perhaps to the abbreviated form. You may want both in the data so you can choose when using the data.

Examples may be the names of businesses:

• Company or Co
• Corporation or Corp
• Limited or Ltd
• Limited Liability Partnership or LLP
• Public Limited Company or PLC

There are a number of ways to handle this. You may have a file or reference table with the abbreviated and full form. You can then look up from one to the other.
DataSlave offers a special transformation functions that will abbreviate or “de-abbreviate” data. It is already set-up for a number of types of abbreviations including US Sates. Australian States, Canadian Provinces, UK Counties, ISO Country Codes, Street names, buildings and more.

Data import should not be a concern. Moving the data is made simple by first-class tools like DataSlave. These tools, often called ETL tools, are simple to use allowing the data quality to be reviewed, issues with the data resolved and then quickly move the data into your new system.

If you have a project under consideration please talk to us and we will help you plan the data migration (data import and data export). We have a depth of experience available for you to access.