When pulling in data from other systems, provides an internmediate layer where data can be inspected and modified before committing

Description

A staging layer in Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software is an integration feature that allows users to pull data from various systems into an intermediate layer. This layer provides an opportunity to inspect and modify the data before it's committed to the application.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A mid-market company uses various systems to manage operations, including inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), and sales. This source data is often modified by finance before committing it to the CPM tool.

Solution: The company adopts CPM software with staging capabilities. When pulling data from different systems, the CPM software directs the data to a staging area first. Here, the data is reviewed, inconsistencies and anomalies are detected, corrections are made if necessary, and then the clean, reliable data is committed to the CPM system. This ensures that all analyses and reports generated by the CPM software are based on accurate and consistent data.

Considerations

For smaller businesses, this is common with CRM data. Finance often does not believe the sales pipeline data that is being used for the forecast to be accurate. They modify dollar amounts, unit counts, probabilities, close dates and so on before committing to the system. This intermediate level of data inspection allows this. Without it, the finance team would have to manually edit CSV files before uploading, which introduces risk for error.

It is important to keep in mind that the staging capability is as good as the process and rules defined for data inspection and correction. Have clear, well-defined rules and checks to ensure the quality of data.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Data Quality: What kind of rules or filters can be set up at this stage?
• Support for Multiple Systems: Does your system support staging from multiple systems simultaneously? Can we pull data from all our existing systems?
• Editing the Data: What does the interface that data is edited look like? Is it just a spreadsheet?