Documenting

Documenting is the process of tracking changes, additions, deletions and errors involved in your data cleaning effort.

Having a record of how a data set evolved does three very important things.

• recover data-cleaning errors

• inform other users of changes you've made

• determine the quality of the data to be used in analysis

Documenting data-cleaning makes it possible to:

• be transparent about your process

• keep team members on the same page

• demonstrate to project stakeholders that you are accountable.

A data analyst uses a changelog to access the information needed. A changelog is a file that contains a chronological list of modifications made to a project.