5 Tips to Prepare Your Data for the New Season

By Sport Horizon

As the off-season wraps up, now is the time to prepare your databases and workflows for the upcoming season. This is the season to avoid hours of manual work, mistakes in data, missing athlete ID’s and other hassles as the season progress. Here’s a guide on how to get ready from a data perspective.

Establish Athlete IDs

Creating unique identifiers for each athlete is the first step towards streamlined data tracking and analysis. These IDs help in maintaining consistent records, avoiding data duplication, and simplifying the integration of various data sources. Make sure every athlete has a unique identifier before the season starts. It could be as simple as a sheet with two columns, one with the name and one with the ID, and then add that to your data model.

Automate Workflows

Automation is key to efficiency. Utilise Microsoft solutions to build automated workflows for seamless data collection and management. Automated systems can handle repetitive tasks such as data entry, report generation, and refreshing databases, freeing up time for more important activities. This not only reduces errors but also ensures that data is updated in real-time.

Organise Data Storage

Proper data storage is essential for easy access and analysis. Create well-structured folders and databases for storing different types of data – performance metrics, health records, attendance data, body composition, etc. Use tools like Power BI or Tableau to query directly from these sources, making data retrieval efficient and effective. Structured storage ensures that data is not only accessible but also secure and manageable. A solution as simple as SharePoint can be great if well-organised.

Standardise Data Collection

Standardising data collection methods is crucial for combining data from multiple sources. Implementing consistent protocols for data entry, whether it's during training sessions, games, or health assessments, ensures uniformity. This makes it easier to analyse and compare data across different periods and datasets.

Build Data Quality Dashboards

Data quality is paramount for accurate insights. Create dashboards to monitor the quality of your data regularly. These dashboards can highlight discrepancies, missing values, or outliers By ensuring data quality, you enhance the reliability of your analysis and decision-making processes. Dashboards in Power BI or Tableau can provide real-time updates and visual representations of data quality metrics.

Are you ready?

By establishing athlete IDs, automating workflows, organising data storage, standardising data collection, and building data quality dashboards, you lay a robust foundation for a successful season. The team at Sport Horizon wish you a successful season ahead.