I don't mean something as structured as XML. I mean something as simple as keeping notes/numbers/links in a spreadsheet, which enforces at least some degree of information integrity (why are there a bunch of missing/ambiguous dates for these incidents?). And if it's done well, then all it takes is a simple script to parse that data into something usable, either a webpage or an interactive report.
Theoretically, it seems like you could learn to do that without learning to code. But maybe once you've learned for loops and if statements, it's much easier to understand the value of parseable documents.