The Scourge Of Stale Data

By Joshua Oakes, IT Glue

Some things never get old. Data is not one of those things. When it comes to the data you rely on to run your business, the only thing worse than no data is stale-dated data. Pretty much everything you document will be fresh and relevant at the time you write it down, but nothing stays current forever. And stale data isn’t like style – it’s not going to suddenly become cool again in 20 years. No, it will still be worthless. Stale data is less like a classic sports car in need of a tune-up and more like a car propped up on blocks in the front of the yard.

Stale data is a scourge, one that must be purged.

Too much of anything is too much (if it’s inaccurate)

Documentation can be incredibly powerful, especially for your techs. The more they document, the more information they have at their fingertips to help them solve your clients’ problems. We encourage every MSP to document as much as they can about their clients’ tools and environments.

That said, documentation that is inaccurate might actually be worse than having no documentation at all. If you have zero documentation, at least you know that you need to find things out the hard way. You can build that into your processes. Those processes will be clunky, but at least you’re working within known limitations.