What is Zoho DataPrep? | Self Service Data Preparation

What is Zoho DataPrep? | Self Service Data Preparation

The productivity provider SaaS provided Zoho entered the business intelligence platform field in July 2021. Zoho announced an AI-powered data preparation, business intelligence, and self-service platform application that combined the new Zoho DataPrep application with an enhanced version of Zoho Analytics.

This was to win over business users with a combination of features that focused on ease of use, supporting the data preparation, and the ability to blend internal data with the outside data sources. Zoho DataPrep application is self-service data preparation and management tool that uses machine learning to help business users integrate, transform, enrich, transform, and catalog data for creating and managing data pipelines.

Zoho has also added an integrated enterprise portal builder called Zoho Sites and presentation software called Zoho Show to the platform. This is for helping business users put their ideas into context. Basically, Zoho aspires to reduce any friction by empowering business users to drive decisions with data and without learning any new tools.

In this blog, we will learn about Zoho DataPrep in complete detail. So let’s begin.

What is Zoho DataPrep?
 
Zoho DataPrep is data cleaning software that enables organizations to prepare high-quality data by automatically looking for errors, discovering data patterns, cleaning, transforming, and enriching data. This is without any need for coding. It also helps in setting up data pipelines for syncing prepared data to Zoho Analytics or to any data warehouses.

Using Zoho DataPrep you can connect, cleanse, transform, enrich, schedule, and export data with ease. In addition, you can also catalog and manage how the prepared data is consumed with fine-grained controls. It is also possible to import data into Zoho DataPrep from over 50+ data sources such as files, FTP, feeds, cloud storage, databases, and data warehouses while making it simple to bring the data together.

The functions of Zoho DataPrep are:

1. Cleansing and Improving Data Quality
Zoho DataPrep helps in automatically profiling data for viewing distribution, outliers, statistics, and data quality. You can clean and improve data quality by removing duplicates, fixing invalid data, and missing values.

2. Transforming Data
Using the AI-powered data preparations and intelligent suggestions, one can apply over 250 transforms and prepare the data. You can learn to take advantage of machine learning to enrich data with sentiment analysis, keyword extraction, language detection, and much more.

3. Data Lineage
You can track every change applied to the data using ruleset. It is also possible to modify, disable, and remove any changes at any point in time. You can reuse rulesets for applying the same set of changes in other datasets while removing automated data preparation.

4. Data Catalog
The Zoho DataPrep can be used to catalog and manage datasets by categories, data quality, custom tags, data readiness, and much more. You can perform a system-wide metadata search powered by Zia for improving discoverability.

5. End to end data Pipelines
The organizations continue to gather data each day and cleaning it is never a one-time task. It includes setting up pipelines by automating imports, preparing data using rule sets, and exporting to destinations. This status can be monitored and one can also get notified in case there are any changes to improve the data quality.

Basically, you should use Zoho DataPrep because it helps in doing the below-mentioned things.
  1. Empowers business users with a self-service data preparation
  2. Offers high-quality data for any business need
  3. Helps in identifying the next step with augmented data preparation
  4. Brings unstructured data into the fold
  5. Helps in being expansive scale with the cloud
  6. It is an extensible data preparation platform with powerful APIs.
Zoho DataPrep is multipurpose software by design. It can fit in wherever it is needed. It helps in:

1. Advanced Analytics
The high data quality helps the data analyst to get deeper insights from business intelligence and analytics tools. The use of Zoho DataPrep reduces the time and effort needed to prepare the data.

Basically, data analytics enables organizations to interpret and analyze the data and make data-driven decisions. The data analysts can clean and prepare inconsistent and invalid data before coming on to analysis and insights.

The data analysts and scientists spend around 80% time preparing data and the use of Zoho DataPrep helps in speeding up the process and improving the data preparation experience.

2. Data Warehousing
You can run automated data pipelines from various sources to Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Azure SQL, and other popular cloud data warehouses.

It is also possible to build resilient and end-to-end data pipelines while connecting multiple siloed data sources to the data warehouse of an organization. This can be done with easy to maintain and low-code platform.                      

3. Machine Learning
The overall efficiency of the machine learning model is dependent on the quality of the data used for training it. The use of Zoho DataPrep helps the data scientists with data cleaning at a full scale without any need for coding.

Zoho DataPrep can be used to perform data collection, cleaning and pre-processing, feature engineering, and data labeling with the Zoho DataPrep.

4. Business Processes/Migration
You can migrate data between business apps using the DataPrep. It can be used for cleaning and enriching the data in business applications such as CRM, help desk, and survey tools for weeding out any duplicates and validating records.

Hence, the Zoho DataPrep can be used for enhancing the data quality, improving data flows, inefficiencies, and removing any redundancies across an organization.

Now that we have had a look at Zoho DataPrep in complete detail, let us now have a look at the features of Zoho DataPrep in complete detail. This will help in understanding what Zoho DataPrep can do for us.

1. Connecting to Multiple Sources
You can eliminate data silos in an organization, connect to it and a variety of other sources including feeds, files, cloud storage, warehouses, databases, and business applications.
  1. Import Files: It is possible to import files from anywhere in a wide range of formats including CSV, XLS, TSV, TXT, XML, XLSX, HTML, JSON from local storage, URLs, FTP servers, or from cloud drives such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box
  2. Warehouses and Databases: It is also possible to import data from a wide range of warehouses and databases.
  3. Tight Integration: Zoho DataPrep allows in connecting and cleansing data directly from Zoho Analytics using the built-in connectors.
2. Improving Data Quality
With Zoho DataPrep, you don’t ever have to miss out on important data with an intelligent solution.
  1. Data Quality: Zoho DataPrep helps in viewing valid, invalid, and missing data from each column using the data quality bar. You can filter and cleanse data using intelligent suggestions while improving the data quality and removing duplicate and invalid data.
  2. Smart Modelling: You can automatically find data types, create custom data types to find and fix invalid data, and get suggestions for joining the datasets.
  3. Data Distribution: Zoho DataPrep helps in understanding your data better with the help of multiple widgets like value distribution histogram, outliers, text patterns, value statistics, and more.
3. Transform and Enrich Data
Using the interactive data preparation studio, the data can be transformed without any code.
  1. Smart Selection: You can highlight the required part from the data and DataPrep helps in looking for selection patterns to offer accurate suggestions for extracting, counting, replacing, and splitting data.
  2. Transforming: It is possible to format and change the data using more than 250 transformations without the need for any coding. The data can be reshaped using pivot, unpivot, and summary transforms.
  3. Blend Data: The data can be blended from a wide range of sources using the join and append transforms.
  4. AI-Powered Enrichment: The data can be enriched with AI-powered transforms such as keyword extraction, language detection, sentiment analysis, and much more.
4. Automating Workflows
The automation of mundane tasks is one of the quickest ways to reduce time in preparing data. With the use of Zoho DataPrep, it is possible to schedule the data preparation workflows and receive alerts as well.
  1. End-to-end Data Pipelines: You can set up end-to-end data pipelines by connecting data from multiple sources, blending and cleaning data, and syncing to various destinations.
  2. Monitoring Data Quality: The use of Zoho DataPrep helps in continuous monitoring of data quality while sending alerts anytime the quality drops.
  3. Tracking and Reusing: The rulesets can be used to track any changes made to the data and reusing them across datasets.
5. Catalog Data
The built-in management capabilities help in classifying, cataloging, and governing data using the Zoho DataPrep.
  1. Discover Data Easily: The data can be discovered easily using a system-wide search capability powered by Zia.
  2. Mark as Ready: When the data is all prepared and set, it can be marked as ready for letting your team know that the data is available for sharing and exporting.
  3. Data About Data: More metadata can be added to the datasets and workspaces using the tags and improving searchability and filtering. All the important details about the datasets and workspaces can be found in a single overview pane.
6. Safe Data Sharing
You can collaborate seamlessly with the teams and offer fine-grained permissions for ensuring that the users access the data intended for them.
  1. Setting Access Permissions: You can set access permissions for sharing data, share workspaces with users and groups in an organization, and set role-based access controls to share data securely.
  2. Data Audit: You can get a detailed report of changes made to your data. The datasets when shared and exported can be tracked and exported. In addition, you can also verify if the security measures are applied to protect personal data before sharing or exporting the datasets.
7. Security and Compliance
The Zoho DataPrep enables you to find personal data in your dataset, ensure privacy by masking or tokenizing sensitive data, and also enables to adhere to privacy policy and data protection regulations such as GDPR.

All the data associated with the Zoho DataPrep is encrypted in transit and at rest.

Zoho DataPrep In Sum

An important part of any business analytics tool starts with preparing the data for insights. Zoho’s DataPrep is an AI powered data preparation platform that takes out a lot of manual work for correcting formatting, updating fields, and determining missing values. This enables the clients to set up once and save time without being dependent on difficult processes and inaccurate spreadsheets.

The Zoho DataPrep platform is on its way to becoming AI-driven data analytics and self-service tool through data preparation and augmented analytics. It is a BI platform that will allow its customers to clean, unify, and analyze cross-departmental data and obtain an encyclopedic view of the company.

This is a solution that combines Zoho DataPrep which automates and simplifies challenges of importing data sources along with an enhanced version of Zoho Analytics 5.0. The users launch queries for a deeper understanding of data by using the graphical tools or using Ask Zia which is Zoho’s conversational AI platform. The end goal is to make things simple for end-users so that they can construct and share analytics featuring pre-built visual dashboards for data integration and flexible deployment.

Conclusion
Zoho DataPrep is advanced self-service data preparation and pipeline service that helps organizations prepare and manage huge volumes of data. In case you wish to implement Zoho DataPrep then get in touch with a qualified and certified Zoho partner who can guide you at each step.

I hope that you learned something new 
Cheers!
Abhi
(Seasoned Zoho Authorized and Certified Partner)

Feel free to contact me if you have any queries
Email: abhishek(@)encaptechno(dot)com
Call: +1-416-405-8185

    Access your files securely from anywhere

        All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.







                              Zoho Developer Community




                                                    • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                    • Digest


                                                    • Functions


                                                    • Meetups


                                                    • Kbase


                                                    • Resources


                                                    • Glossary


                                                    • Desk Marketplace


                                                    • MVP Corner


                                                    • Word of the Day


                                                    • Ask the Experts





                                                              Manage your brands on social media



                                                                    Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                        Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                          Zoho Books Resources


                                                                            Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                              Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                                Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                  Qntrl Resources


                                                                                    Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                        Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                        • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                          CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                        • Kaizen

                                                                                          Kaizen

                                                                                        • Functions

                                                                                          Functions

                                                                                        • Meetups

                                                                                          Meetups

                                                                                        • Kbase

                                                                                          Kbase

                                                                                        • Resources

                                                                                          Resources

                                                                                        • Digest

                                                                                          Digest

                                                                                        • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                          CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        • MVP Corner

                                                                                          MVP Corner









                                                                                            Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                            Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                            Get Started Now


                                                                                              Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                                Zoho Writer

                                                                                                Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                                Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                  Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                                                                                    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                        ご検討中の方




                                                                                                                • Recent Topics

                                                                                                                • Deleting a memorized email address

                                                                                                                  How can I delete a memorized email address? Even though the address has been deleted from Contacts, Zoho mail still auto suggests the address when typing it into the TO field. Thanks!
                                                                                                                • ZeptoMail API

                                                                                                                  Hello Since today, we experience issues with the ZeptoMail API. When trying to send e-mails using: https://api.zeptomail.eu/v1.1/email we receive the error: (503) Site unavailable due to a traffic surge. Please try again shortly. I kindly ask you to identify
                                                                                                                • 553 Relaying disallowed. Invalid Domain - gzkcompany.ro

                                                                                                                  Hi there, Can you please assist me in getting the right domain settings? I just renewed my domain subscription, after expired and i got error: 553 Relaying disallowed. Invalid Domain - gzkcompany.ro Zoho mail can receive emails, but its impossible to
                                                                                                                • Not able to receive emails for a while

                                                                                                                  I am not able to receive emails for a while now.
                                                                                                                • Confirmation requested: eligibility and process to downgrade to Forever Free — tenant bigbanghawking.com

                                                                                                                  Thank you for your reply. I am testing Zoho Mail from Brazil with the tenant bigbanghawking.com (endpoint: mail.zoho.com) and we are currently on the Premium trial that expires 21/01/2026. Before deciding whether to pay or cancel, I need written confirmation
                                                                                                                • Zoho API v2.0 - get ALL users from ALL projects

                                                                                                                  Hello,        I've been trying to work on an automatization project lately and I find it difficult to work with this strict structure. To be more explicit, if i would like to get all users participating in a project i would need to get all projects first.       Same thing with projects. If i want to get all projects, I would need to get all portals first.        The problem with this aproach is that it consumes a lot of time and resources.             I want to ask if there is another way of getting
                                                                                                                • الموقع لا يقوم بالسداد

                                                                                                                  السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته وبعد من أمس وانا احاول السداد للدومين YELLOWLIGHT ولا اتمكن من السداد اقوم بتعبئة جميع البيانات ولكن دون جدوى يطلع لى حدث خطأ ما
                                                                                                                • New in Office Integrator: Enhanced document navigation with captions and cross references

                                                                                                                  Hi users, We're pleased to introduce captions, table of tables and figures, and cross-references in the document editor in Zoho Office Integrator. This allows you to structure documents efficiently and simplify document navigation for your readers from
                                                                                                                • Where Do I set 24h time format in Cliq?

                                                                                                                  Where Do I set 24h time format? Thanks
                                                                                                                • 🎉 ¡Seguimos trayendo novedades a Español Zoho Community! 🎉 Confirmada la agenda y ubicación para los Workshops Certificados

                                                                                                                  Si todavía no te has hecho con tu entrada para nuestros Workshops Certificados del próximo 26 y 27 de marzo o, por el contrario, estabas esperando que confirmáramos dónde los celebraremos, ¡este post es para ti! 📍¿Dónde nos vemos?📍 Nuestros Workshops
                                                                                                                • User is already present in another account error in assigning users to marketing automation

                                                                                                                  Hello everyone Greeting, I had a problem in assigning user in marketing automation, when I try to add it I see this error: (User is already present in another account error) what should I do?
                                                                                                                • How do I get complete email addresses to show?

                                                                                                                  I opened a free personal Zoho email account and am concerned that when I enter an email address in the "To", "CC", fields, it changes to a simple first name. This might work well for most people however I do need to see the actual email addresses showing
                                                                                                                • What's New in Zoho POS - January 2026

                                                                                                                  Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS’s monthly updates, where we share our latest feature updates, enhancements, events, and more. Let’s take a look at how January went. Sort and resolve conflicts Conflicts are issues that may arise when registers and
                                                                                                                • Outlook is blocking incoming mail

                                                                                                                  Outlook is blocking all emails sent from the Zoho server. ERROR CODE :550 - 5.7.1 Unfortunately, messages from [136.143.169.51] weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list (S3150). It looks
                                                                                                                • Not receiving email from customers and suppliers

                                                                                                                  I am getting error . most of the customers tell me not able to send me email please check i have attached screenshot
                                                                                                                • Create user

                                                                                                                  Hello I want to create user, but i get this error Unusual activity detected from this IP. Please try again after some time.
                                                                                                                • File emails in Shared email folder

                                                                                                                  Hi, I am unable to allow users to collaborate in Shared email folders: User 1 shares a folder let's say "SharedTopic" with full permissions Users 2 and 3 can see this folder but are unable to add emails to this folder or search in this folder. For example,
                                                                                                                • Consolidated report for multi-organisation

                                                                                                                  I'm hoping to see this feature to be available but couldn't locate in anywhere in the trial version. Is this supported? The main aim to go to ERP is to have visibility of the multi-organisation in once place. I'm hopeful for this.
                                                                                                                • How to Switch from Outlook for Mac to Outlook for Windows

                                                                                                                  The most often used file formats for users to manage crucial data are OLM and PST files. PST files keep a copy of data on the configured system from Outlook, while the OLM file contains the Mac Outlook data items, which are only accessible with Outlook
                                                                                                                • Name autocomplete

                                                                                                                  Hi, During searching emails the web tool does not always propose the auto-completion of the saved emails. As a result I either have to go to contacts and look up the exact email, or the exact full name including the middle name and any dots, which is
                                                                                                                • Are custom portals accessible on the Zoho learn smartphone app?

                                                                                                                  In other words, can users external to my organisation, once signed up, use the app in the same way as internal users? Thanks
                                                                                                                • How to increase my Zoho sign limit.

                                                                                                                  I cannot send a document/contract for signature. Zoho sign says I reached my monthly limit. May I know how to fix this please? Thanks! 
                                                                                                                • Can not add m365 outlook account to zohomail.

                                                                                                                  I am attempting to use zoho mail as an imap client to add my outlook.com m365 account. In the m365 exchange admin center i have made sure the imap is enabled. In zoho mail i go to settings, mail accounts, add account, add imap account, i select "outlook",
                                                                                                                • Unable to attach Work Order / Service Appointment PDF to Email Notifications (Zoho FSM)

                                                                                                                  I’m trying to include the Work Order PDF or Service Appointment PDF as an attachment in Email Notifications (automation/notification templates), but I don’t see any option to attach these generated PDFs. Is this currently supported in Zoho FSM? If not,
                                                                                                                • local file csv import problem

                                                                                                                  The issue occurs when I upload a CSV file via Databridge. In the preview, everything looks correct — the values are in the proper columns. However, after clicking Import, the first column becomes empty, and the values from that column appear in a new
                                                                                                                • Función Deshacer y Rehacer

                                                                                                                  Hola. Soy un reciente usuario de Zoho Notebook que he migrado desde Evernote. He encontrado en falta una función que considero muy importante: un botón para "deshacer". Es frustrante cuando se borra un parte del texto o un archivo de una nota, generalmente
                                                                                                                • Tip #59- Technician Console: Exploring View option- 'Insider Insights'

                                                                                                                  Hello Zoho Assist Community! Ever wondered how technicians adapt quickly during a live support session? Imagine a customer reaching out with an issue that’s disrupting their work. The technician starts a remote session and begins troubleshooting right
                                                                                                                • MRP or Manufacturing Module for Zoho

                                                                                                                  We have been searching for options for a production planning or MRP that will integrate with Zoho.   Zoho Creator is pushed as a platform that can have an MRP built from scratch but we would like to find more of an out of the box solution and modify it to fit our needs.  Are there any recommendations? Would Zoho consider creating a custom solution in Creator to support this need?
                                                                                                                • encountering an error when attempting to associate an email with a Deal using the Zoho CRM extension in Zoho Mail.

                                                                                                                  When I click "Yes, associate," the system displays an "Oops!! Something went wrong" error message. I have attached a screenshot of the issue for reference.
                                                                                                                • Can 1 Zoho CRM instance sync with 2 Zoho Marketing Automation instances?

                                                                                                                  Can 1 Zoho CRM instance sync with 2 Zoho Marketing Automation instances?
                                                                                                                • Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

                                                                                                                  Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter
                                                                                                                • Zoho mail account ownership transfer

                                                                                                                  We recently took over another company and have assumed responsibility for its Zoho account, including Zoho Mail and all related services. We would like to formally transfer ownership of this account to our organization. Could you please outline the complete
                                                                                                                • Email Authentication is Failing

                                                                                                                  I'm trying to setup gitlab with email authentication. I used the following configs picked up from: https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/smtp/ gitlab_rails['smtp_enable'] = true gitlab_rails['smtp_address'] = "smtp.zoho.com" gitlab_rails['smtp_port']
                                                                                                                • DMARC reports for mail I didn't send: how to deal with?

                                                                                                                  I know the enthusiastic amateur's bare minimum about e-mail; am able to set up a Thunderbird account and know the basic acronyms. I have a Zoho Mail account connected to my domain, and have set up SPF, DMARC and DKIM successfully according to Zoho's instruction
                                                                                                                • ms

                                                                                                                  Email set up for communication
                                                                                                                • Fix the speed

                                                                                                                  It takes ages to load on every step even though my dataset is quite small.
                                                                                                                • Capture Bank Charges for Invoice Payments

                                                                                                                  We've added the Bank Charges field in the "Add Payments" page both in Zoho Invoice & Zoho Books. So all you need to do is to enter the bank charges when you record a payment for the invoices. This bank charge will be included to the amount paid for that invoice. Steps to add the bank charges while you record the payment:       1. Click the "Invoices" sub-tab under the "Money-In" tab.       2. Click the 'add payment' link for the invoice that you wish to record the payment for.       3. On the add
                                                                                                                • Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field

                                                                                                                  How we can use Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field field? Please help.
                                                                                                                • Image field in custom module

                                                                                                                  Hi guy, Is there any hope of adding a custom image field in the custom module? We created a custom module to keep track of assets, and it would be helpful if we could attach an image to the record. Thanks Rudy
                                                                                                                • Deluge Function to Update Custom Field

                                                                                                                  I'm trying to get a Deluge function (which will run as part of a Schedule in Desk) that retrieves all tickets with the status "Recurring" and updates the custom field checkbox "cf_recurring" to "true". Here's what I have, which doesn't work: searchValue
                                                                                                                • Next Page