Data Entry Effectiveness

Amber Mercado

Are there any benchmarks to measure how effective employees are at constituent and gift entry?  Ex. an average expected per week or per month?

Nicole S

I have to say that this can depend on so many things.  If you are using optional modules and depending on your P&P the number of steps can vary wildly from org to org. If you enter gifts one by one it will take longer than batching.  If you are using the event module and need to link all gifts to registrations it will take longer than if you aren't.



I will suggest that you literally time yourself to get an idea. 



I had a staff person who insisted that a particular project was going to take hours and hours and even days to complete and that she needed everyone to help her (mostly I think she didn't want to do it).  As this was an ongoing and therefore never ending task for her we wanted to make sure that we knew that she should be able to complete at least 100 per hour with ease because I had worked on this project myself before she was hired.  The backlog was about 600 and more would be added each week.  So I said that I would sit with her for "training" to work through any issues she was having.  I then procedded to time her for 5 minutes.  Very boring.  She was annoyed before we reached 3 minutes and I stopped.  I then explained that in the 3 minutes she had completed more than 10 of the items at a leisurely pace AND had had 2 brief interruptions (I didn't stop the timer).  Basic math then says that she can then easily complete 200+ an hour.

JoAnn Strommen

Amber, I concur that there are so many factors.  How much data are you entering?  Minimal or thorough?



I just entered a batch of pledge payments.  Time was minimal as just had to enter name and click through to apply payment to pledge and look at constituent window to verify address current with that on payment.

While  the other day, I had to enter a batch of pledges.  # was fewer but several had to have records created and then there were payment schedules and solicitor assignments to enter/check. 

Templates and defaults can be great at saving time, but that's only when one is familiar with how RE is used to begin with. 



Suggestion to time yourself at same specific task for comparison is a good one.

Nicole S

Out of curiosity, do you mind if I ask why you're asking? Are you trying to evaluate current staff or trying to determine how many people and how much time it might take to complete a project -- for instance hiring a temp?



also, a few other things that can contribute... 

• Training/experience - competent staff are faster and more accurate, they also know more tricks and shortcuts
• data format - it's faster to enter neatly compiled data than loose papers and notes
• distractions - having to complete data entry and serving as receptionist can be difficult
• personal distractions - I can enter data and listen to the radio or an audiobook, but someone who is chatting on the phone while entering info may not be ideal
• hardware - a good workspace and equipment is key, having a double monitor and an good PC versus a tiny monitor and a slow machine that freezes all the time and a tabletop that won't fit all your papers

I say all this because these are things to consider when timing yourself versus another person. I definitely recommend observing the person at work. I talked about this once when addressing data entry errors, but you can really discover a lot by observing a person at work. 

 

Christine Robertson

I think it might be better to base effectiveness off of a percentage of errors rather than quantity.  You can catch most errors by doing a regular Account Quality Control - creating queries and scrolling through the recently entered accounts and gifts to look for things that are missing, mis-spelled, incorrect (wrong appeal/fund combination, etc.).  As others have mentioned, you can't always judge time for these tasks because of the many variables involved, but you can track who is doing the entry and how many corrections have to be made after it is done.  I personally would prefer a data entry person who is on the slower side whose data is consistent and clean than someone who is quick, but inattentive to detail.