Prepare Data for Matching and Cleaning in Google Sheets
Preparing data before matching or deduplication improves accuracy and makes results easier to review. Common steps include trimming whitespace, standardising formats, splitting or combining fields, validating required values and keeping originals alongside cleaned output.
Preparation checklist
- Inspect: identify missing values, mixed formats, duplicates and inconsistent naming.
- Standardise: normalise case, spacing, punctuation and common representations.
- Structure: put values in consistent columns and use stable identifiers where available.
- Review: test changes on a sample and keep a copy of the original data.
Automate preparation with Apps Script
Apps Script can apply repeatable preparation rules across ranges, generate helper columns and log issues for review. For example workflows, see Standardise data in Google Sheets with Apps Script and Automate recurring cleaning workflows with Apps Script.
Preparing data with Flookup
Flookup custom functions can support preparation and downstream matching in the same sheet. NORMALIZE helps clean text, FUZZYSIM compares similarity, FLOOKUP and SHEETMERGE support matching/merging and DEDUPE or ULIST help with duplicate and unique-value workflows. See custom functions. For scheduled batch jobs, see Data Cleaning Automation.