One of the first steps you will take in any data preparation, visualization, or analytics project is to input data. In this chapter, you will learn how and why you should connect data files to Prep Builder, where to find those files, and what challenges data files may pose for preparing data. Data can come in many different forms, but the most common input for Prep Builder is Excel, CSV, or plain-text files (Figure 5-1).
Figure 5-1. System files generated by software
Spreadsheets
For many of us, our first experiences of working with data involved a piece of ubiquitous software: Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet has become the jack-of-all-trades for data storage, manipulation, and basic reporting. Every organization across the world has tens, if not hundreds, of spreadsheets saved on every computer. All of them contain useful information, raw data, or reference tables that can help answer the questions organizations are posing.
However, spreadsheets raise some potential issues (some of which are not unique to spreadsheets) when it comes to data preparation and analysis:
Accuracy
The data may have changed since being added to the spreadsheet.
Timelines
The data may have become outdated since being added.
Optimization
Any manipulation or analysis is often manual and nonrepeatable.
Size
With limits on rows and columns, ...
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