What is data preparation?

Data preparation is the process of getting data ready for analytics and/or consumption. This includes collecting data from various locations and systems (CRM, Financial, Inventory, Local files, etc.), extracting data from non-analytical sources, like PDFs and text, correcting errors, reconciling nulls or blank cells and cleanly merging data from several different sources and formats. Data prep is also referred to as data cleansing, manipulation, blending, munging or wrangling.