I've written a bunch on data integrity reports. (Click here for some examples.) The purpose of a data integrity report is to find potentially erroneous data in your system, so you can clean it up.

I've also written a lot about dashboards. (Click here for some examples.) Dashboards are simply reports that are more or less ever-present in your system. Most AMSes now offer some form of dashboard functionality that allows you to put your most important data front and center (e.g., event registrations, membership counts, etc.).

Will Slade from Protech Associates pointed out to me that dashboards are a really good tool for data integrity reports. As he put it, "When clients are able to visualize their data, it is often much easier to spot check and see data errors. When dashboards are deployed, I hear things like 'Wow, I didn’t realize that 40% of our contacts are non-members. That doesn’t seem right.'"

So if one of your dashboards is actually a data integrity report, as you open your system each day, you'll see that report and be more inclined to clean up that data.

Dashboards as data integrity reports. What a concept!