Working from Home

For the time being this is the new normal - working from home. We are setting up our new work areas, figuring out our internet access, balancing time on our home computers with our kids’ homeschooling and Minecraft, and trying to convince our pets that no, we are not home just for them. Now what? How do we determine what work we can do at home when we museum people are used to sitting with our collections all day?  This is the perfect time for that database housekeeping you have been putting off, or entering that backlog of items objects that have piled up.

How do you start? Your database has been in existence for so many years through so many staff changes and countless interns and volunteers. Your data is inconsistent due to changes in procedures and training. Why not start with cleaning up your Person Profiles? You know that someone entered “Jill K. Washington,” another added  “Jillian Katherine Washington” and yet another “Jill Washington”. And don’t forget the misspelled entries and typos like “Jll Washingtn”. By going through and cleaning up these profiles, you can ensure your data is consistent, connected, and searchable.

Here are some quick steps to clean up your profiles.  If you’re more inclined to watch a video visit the CatalogIt Wiki page here

1. Go to the main menu in the upper left corner of your screen (device or computer). Scroll down the menu, past all of your folders, and click on “Profiles.”
2. Click on the icon for “Person” - this will take you to the alphabetical listing of your existing “Person Profiles.”
3. Scroll through your Profiles and look for duplicates - the same person spelled differently two or three times. Review each version - check the referenced records, look at the data and images - determine which version is the correct version.
4. Once you decide which Profile is the best and should become the master, clean up the data in that record to ensure it is as complete as possible. Research birth and death dates if you don’t have them. Add a link to a website with more information. There’s likely information in the duplicate Profiles that you need to copy and paste into the master. Once you are happy with that master record, you are ready to delete the others.
5. Open the Profile you would like to remove. You cannot delete a record that has other records referencing it-- referenced records appear in the right pane. If the Profile is referenced by other records, you can easily replace them with the correct new master.  
6. Click on the “actions menu” - the three vertical dots at the upper right corner of your screen. Select “Replace.” In the dialog that appears, search for the name of the new master  Profile in the search bar and select it in the list.  Click on “Replace.” This will move all the references from this record to the correct one. (Please note, if there are a lot of records of different types attached to this Profile record, you may have to do this process a couple of times to clean up all the data in one record.)  Go to the new master Profile and make sure all of the references have moved.
7. If everything looks correct delete all this now unreferenced duplicate Profile.  Edit the Profile and then click the Trash icon in the lower left corner.  Now when you go to the Person Profile you will only see the correct instance of this record.

Clean up is Complete!  One thing to keep in mind - you cannot delete a Person Profile if that person is or was a user of your account (i.e. logs into CatalogIt with an email & password). In that case, you would want to move the records to that version of the person and delete the others. You can fix any misspellings and edit the “full name” to whatever you want the displayed name to be.

This works with all Profile types - places, businesses, etc. Systematically cleaning up one Profile at a time is a great start to organizing your database, and with CatalogIt you can do it from virtually anywhere!  For more information and a video on how to clean up Profiles visit our CatalogIt Quick Tips here.

The CatalogIt Help Wiki is a great resource for tips like this and all kinds of other information including videos, guides, templates, and more.

Please stay safe and healthy out there. We know this is a trying and uncertain time. We hope you can make the most of your time at home by enjoying your family and having a good list of projects to do at home. Who knows, your new normal may include more working from home and having a good handle of projects you can do from anywhere is a great way to increase your productivity.