Data profiling

Data profiling is a way to look more closely at data, like in a spreadsheet or a database, to learn more about it. It helps you understand if your data is accurate and how it's structured. To do data profiling you look at each of the different columns (also called fields) in your data, and you check to see which types of data are in each field and if there are any patterns or unusual values. For example, you might check to see if all the entries in a field are formatted the same way, like in the same date format, or if any of the entries have incorrect data, like a date before the current year. Data profiling can also help you look for duplicate data or blank entries, or if some fields contain more characters than you need, like a name field that should only have people's initials but has their full name. Data profiling is a way to clean up your data and make it easier to work with.