There are a couple of things you need to do before you're ready to start moving your existing data into Beacon's standard templates. But don't worry, it shouldn't take too long.
You might also be wondering why it's necessary to move your data in the first place. Let's briefly address that first of all.
Why do I need to move my data?
Beacon's standard templates provide you with all the column headings needed to transfer your data from existing spreadsheets to those that match Beacon's core fields. Ultimately, we want to have all of our 'People' - whether they're beneficiaries, donors or fundraisers - in a single 'People' spreadsheet ready for import. Then the same for all of our 'Organisations', 'Payments' and so on.
But why is this so important?
Consistency and standardisation
Consistency and standardisation
People of all types - no matter their relationship to your organisation - will be stored in the same place in Beacon (the People record type). It's important to start thinking in these terms when handling your data.
When thinking about migrating your data, categories (like "status" or "type") should be consistent across datasets. Different spreadsheets might use various terms for the same category (e.g. one spreadsheet might use "Donor” while another uses “D”). Standardising these categorisations simplifies the mapping process, and encourages you to start simplifying your data as a whole.
Enhancing your data quality
Enhancing your data quality
Cleaning your data is much easier when it's in a standardised format.
It becomes much easier to see where you have incomplete records, missing values, or inconsistencies, which can then be resolved more efficiently.
Time and resources
Time and resources
By preparing and standardising the data in advance, the time and effort required to create import templates and map your data into Beacon are significantly reduced.
Example: If one spreadsheet calls a column “Date of Birth” and another uses “DOB,” time will need to be spent mapping these separate columns in the two spreadsheets to the same field in Beacon.
Whilst this example provides a common abbreviation of a term we all know, not every example will be this easy. Multiple sheets of data, being imported to the same record type in Beacon will require repetitive and time consuming mapping in import templates.
Most importantly, Beacon's import templates won't let you map multiple columns to the same field in Beacon!
Mitigate risk of duplication
Mitigate risk of duplication
When data is gathered from multiple sources or managed by different people or departments, each using their own conventions for labelling and categorising data, it's not uncommon for duplicated data to go unnoticed.
Different spreadsheets may use varied column headings to represent the same type of information. For example, one spreadsheet might use "Type," another might use "Category". Although they represent the same data, they appear different when compared and not carefully considered. These variations can lead to the same data being treated as distinct when it’s actually the same.
By moving your data into these templates, you ensure that your information is correctly formatted for import. This not only streamlines the migration process, but also offers a valuable opportunity to clean and audit your data, ensuring the records you start your Beacon journey with are accurate, consistent and current.
Additionally, these templates are designed specifically to work seamlessly with Beacon's pre-configured, pre-mapped import templates. This means that much of the data mapping is done for you! By using these templates, you can save time and effort during the import stage, as you won’t need to manually map your data to fields in Beacon.
➕ ACTION: Now,
Open the templates here
Make a copy of the file
Note: you will need to open these in google sheets. You may find that it will not open in Excel
I'm moving from a previous database and my data is already formatted, do I still need to move my data into Beacon's standard import templates?
You don't have to - but we strongly advise it! Let's briefly cover why
Your data might still be messy
Just because you're moving from a previous database, doesn't mean your data is clean or formatted in a way that's going to make it easy to import. Moving your data into Beacon's standard templates gives you the opportunity to clean as you go.
You don't need to map full data sets in an import template
Soon, we're going to be looking at importing our data. With Beacon's standard import templates, much of the data mapping (telling Beacon where I want my data to live in Beacon) will be done for you!
💡 Pro tip: If you feel confident mapping your data in it's existing format using Beacon import templates, that's completely fine! You may still find the tips in these steps on cleaning your data useful.
Let's now take a look at some things you can do to ensure that the data you're about to put into these templates is accurate, consistent and current.
As you're working on your data remember:
Each Sheet in your spreadsheet = a record type in Beacon (e.g the People record type)
Each Row in your spreadsheet = a record in Beacon (like a Person or a Payment)
Each Column in your spreadsheet = a field on that record in Beacon
Make decisions about data sets
Once you have gathered a complete set of data from all your sources, you can now determine which of that data you want to migrate to Beacon.
This is a good point to see if there are any really obvious places you can eliminate data. Consider:
GDPR Compliance:
How old is your data? Ensure you’re complying with GDPR guidelines by not keeping outdated or irrelevant information. For example, data older than a certain period (e.g. several years) might not need to be migrated.
Value Assessment:
Evaluate the value of the data. If a supporter hasn’t interacted with your charity for several years, consider whether their data needs to be included in Beacon.
When choosing not to migrate entire data sets you likely want to make a single rule that will enable you to eliminate entire 'records'. Here you exclude information at the row level.
e.g not importing any information for memberships that have expired.
OR
E.g not importing any information for people that haven't made a donation to you for over 7 years.
➕ ACTION: decide if there are any sets of data that you won't be migrating and either:
Make a clear note somewhere in your spreadsheet to not move that data into your Beacon standard templates, OR
Make sure whoever is responsible for moving the data understands which data not to move over to Beacon standard templates
☝️ Tip: to make this process faster, try adding notes to your data with formulas e.g
This can be a really quick way to identify which records should not be migrated once you've decided your rules for eliminating data sets.
Here I've written a formula to work out which records are over 7 years old, and attributed the value 'no' so we know not to migrate those ones.
Remember, at this point, we're looking at eliminating entire rows of data. If there's anything in that row that you think might still be useful, add the whole row and we'll come back to it later.
By now you should:
✅ Understand why we're migrating our data to Beacon standard templates
✅ Have a copy of your Beacon standard templates and feel confident you know what the column headers mean
✅ Have decided on any data sets that shouldn't be migrated to your Beacon standard templates
Now we're ready to start moving our data!
Click to continue your journey
Jump to another section
Migration: Before you put data into the standard templates (You are here!)