Data Steward Responsibilities

A data steward has the responsibility of monitoring the quality of contacts within InterAction. This is initially a full time task during the data conversion phase of the InterAction project and may include supervising a data cleanup team. Once all of the organization's contacts have been migrated to InterAction, duplicates merged, and key data fields populated, the data steward role may be less than full time, depending on the number of contacts in the database and the number of new contacts routinely added. The following is a list of key areas of responsibility.

IMPORTANT Remember that all of the responsibilities of being a data steward do not have to fall on one person. Your organization can have a team of people who assume a data steward role.

  • Creating and Maintaining Data Standards - Data stewards and administrators need to work with others at the firm (Human Resources, IT, etc.) to establish data formats for the firm.
  • Validating Data Sources - Data stewards should be included in discussions regarding initial data conversion as well as future data conversions. This includes assisting in identifying what sources of data exist and the appropriate method for migrating the data into InterAction. The data steward should be familiar with the options for converting data and is responsible for validating the conversion process, whether by importing, data entry, Application Collaboration, or a combination of these.
  • Reviewing New Contacts to Which a Contact Type Is Applied - Data stewards are responsible for reviewing any new contacts to which a contact type has been applied and ensuring that they belong in the collection of contacts that have this type. In addition, the data steward may be responsible for ensuring that new contacts have the correct information recorded.
  • Reviewing New Contacts with Data Change Management Applied - Depending on how the New Contact Rule Sets are defined, data stewards may be responsible for reviewing new contacts created through User to Firm Contact Sync or the Web Client.
  • Managing User Changes - Depending on how highly managed a contact is, when a user makes a change to a contact, the data steward may need to approve or review the change before it is applied. These changes may include applying or removing a contact type for a contact, changing the name, address, or phone for a contact, or entering duplicate contacts. Data stewards complete contact data and ensure it is up to date. This improves the quality of the 360-degree view of the contact by keeping the facts and historical record complete.
  • Managing Other User Requests - When users are unsure of how to make a change, they can submit a change request in the Web Client. This change request is handled by a data steward who can make a change for the user. User requests can vary widely from requests for merging duplicate contacts to providing additional profile information for a contact.
  • Maintaining Data Quality - This is the initial and ongoing data management that is key to a successful InterAction implementation. Data cleanup tasks include monitoring the system for duplicate contacts, merging duplicate contacts, ensuring that people are associated to companies, verifying and eliminating bad data, and performing other miscellaneous tasks, such as standardizing company names, standardizing address data, and ensuring that necessary data fields are populated and done so correctly.
  • Making Changes to Contact Information in Other Systems - If your organization uses Application Collaboration to bring data into InterAction from other systems in your environment, you do not want users making changes to the information in InterAction because it will not correct the source of the information.

For example, if you use data from your Human Resources System in InterAction, the data steward should make any changes to contact information in the HR system, not in InterAction.

In these situations, the data steward can be notified that the user has attempted to change contact information in InterAction and can then update the information in the other system.

If you have scheduled to periodically receive updates from the external system, the data will then be automatically updated in InterAction.

How Many Data Stewards Do I Need in my Environment?

The number of users who are responsible for the role of a data steward varies depending on all the following:

  • How you have configured your environment to manage changes to contact information - You need more data stewards if changes are required to be submitted for approval through Data Change Management.
  • The quality of your data - When you are first implementing InterAction, more time is spent cleaning contact data, profiling contacts, and working to improve the quality of the data than what is typically necessary on an ongoing basis.
  • The number of contacts in InterAction - A database containing 200,000 contacts has more data quality issues to maintain than a database with only 20,000 contacts.
  • The number of users managing contact information through the Web Client or their PIMs - Having 500 users actively managing contacts produces more Data Change Management tickets than having 50 users managing contacts.

Number of Data Stewards Needed for Initial Data Load

During the initial data load process, data stewards play a key role in getting the contact information ready for the initial deployment. In most organizations, the process usually requires one or two people managing the data cleansing efforts over three to six months or longer.

Note that larger organizations typically require more data stewards. For example, if you have more than 1,000 users, you may choose to leverage 10-12 temps to assist with the initial data cleansing. After the initial data cleansing has completed, you can reduce the number of data stewards to two-three people.

Typically, data stewards spend the first several months preparing contact information for bringing users onto the system. This includes merging duplicate contacts and preforming data cleansing tasks for all contacts. The next several months are typically spent managing Data Change Management tickets created as InterAction is rolled out to users as well as continuing to reviewing contact information for your organization’s most valuable contacts to ensure accuracy.

For more information, see the Loading Data Into InterAction guide.

Number of Data Stewards Needed for Ongoing Maintenance

On an ongoing basis, data stewards handle Data Change Management tickets and periodic ongoing maintenance to the quality of the InterAction data. In a typical environment, the following can be expected:

  • Per 100 users, approximately five hours a week are spent resolving Data Change Management tickets.
  • For databases containing 50-70,000 contacts, approximately 25-30 hours are spent per week fulfilling the data steward role. For databases with 100,000 or more contacts, this number approaches 40 hours per week.