In many companies, the journey of data governance often begins with a focus on roles and responsibilities. Critical data assets, like the Business Glossary, are often captured using the most readily available tool, such as Excel. However, as your data governance efforts evolve, you will eventually encounter the limitations of these “repositories,” indicating that it’s time to explore better options.

Here are five signs that suggest you may have outgrown Excel for managing your Business Glossary:

Lack of Visibility and Accountability

In a collaborative process like data governance, it’s crucial that all stakeholders have the ability to contribute to building a best-practise business glossary. With Excel, it becomes challenging to track who is adding, updating, or commenting on terms and definitions. You need a solution that enables you to manage user permissions, track changes, and ensure final approval while preventing unauthorized modifications.

Loss of Changes and Comments

When multiple stakeholders are simultaneously updating the same Excel document, there’s a risk of overwriting changes made by others. This can result in the loss or disregard of critical commentary. To maintain data integrity, it’s essential to preserve all versions of changes and comments, ensuring accurate definitions for your business.

Limited Integration with Other Data Assets

To unlock the full value of your Business Data Glossary, it’s important to establish connections with other data assets, such as logical data models. By linking glossaries with relevant database fields and identifying key business stakeholders, you can provide contextual information and enable informed decision-making. Achieving this 360-degree view of your data requires a more advanced and semantic model than what Excel can offer.

Inefficient Approval Processes and Email Overload

Managing approvals and inputs within Excel can quickly become chaotic. When multiple stakeholders update separate versions of the spreadsheet and send them via email for consolidation, it becomes challenging to identify the most current version, track approvals, and prevent communication gaps. Simplifying workflows through dedicated tools allows for streamlined addition, consolidation, and approval of new terms, engaging the right stakeholders at the right time.

Limited Searchability and Usability

A Business Glossary is meant to be a living document, seamlessly integrated into organizational processes. However, Excel’s lack of search functionality inhibits users from easily finding and embedding terms in their documents, leading to inconsistencies and confusion. Transitioning to a searchable knowledge base allows business analysts and other users to access and utilize the correct terms and definitions, promoting clarity and effective communication.

Conclusion

If you’re ready to transform your business glossary into a valuable asset that supports your organization’s growth, it’s time to move beyond Excel. Explore alternative solutions, like Data360, that offer enhanced collaboration, data integrity, integration capabilities, streamlined workflows, and improved searchability.