Data visualization

Springboard Data Analytics for Business Office Hours

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I was invited to lead the office hours for the Springboard’s Data Analytics for Business course and I wanted to share the recording with you all:

CLICK HERE

I answer following questions during the office hours:

  • What tools have I used in my career for Data Analytics & Data Science?
  • What are the different analysis/modeling that you do?
  • What are the biggest challenges that I found when I got in this Industry?
  • Being data-driven is not binary but it’s a scale — how do you do analyze what is their current level and how do you make a company more data-driven?
  • What is the challenge for newcomers in this industry? And what are the changes coming in next few years?
  • Which tools are widely used today? Which industry uses which tools heavily?
  • How do you verify “what’s next”? How do you verify that your forecast is good enough?

Related Post: $100 Discount Code For Springboard

What is the difference between courses offered by Springboard vs datacamp vs dataquest? Which is better?

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I am a data-camp subscriber + mentor w/ springboard + completed free-content on data-quest so familiar w/ all three products in some way.

You need two things to have a successful career:

  1. Strong Foundation
  2. Continuous learning

Let’s talk about Continuous Learning first:

In a field that’s as dynamic as data science, you should always be learning! It could be through your projects at your work, side-projects or online resources.

I would categorize both data-camp and data-quest under this and are great platforms for continuous learning. I am a subscriber on DataCamp and it’s a great platform to just dive in, do some hands-on exercises and learn something new. I love it! I have heard equally positive things about DataQuest so if you are already working in the Industry as a Data Scientist and just want to get deeper technically, then go for these platforms!

Now Let’s talk about Strong Foundation:

You need a strong foundation to get hired as Data Scientist. You would do that by typically having a relevant college degree. But:

  1. A lot of people don’t have relevant college degrees OR
  2. They graduated a few years back and are looking to do a career transition now OR
  3. They are not willing to go back to do multi-year college programs focused on data science

If that’s the case then there’s a new approach in the market where you attend these “boot camps” — you still need some foundation skills like for example: math/programming/statistics to be eligible for Data science boot camps and if you have those basic skills then you can go through these boot camps. There’s a bunch of them out there. Just search for “data science boot camps”. Springboard is one of them and I have heard nothing but positive things about them — just like I have about DataCamp & DataQuest. I have personally mentored 6 students so far and all them were looking for a career transition and had nothing but positive things to say! That’s just my empirical data though, you should do a trial w/ them and/or check out their job guarantee through their career track if that is important to you. But either ways, it’s a “Bootcamp” offering so it has regular mentor calls/check-in’s, projects, career-coaches, non-technical material like resume tips to give you a structured approach to everything that you might need to get hired as a data scientist — You can expect intense guided learning over a short period of time. The Bootcamp approach is different than self-learning and self-paced approach by DataCamp & DataQuest.

PS: I mentor for Springboard and I have a $750 OFF discount code to share if you decide to enroll. Please contact me through to get the code: Let’s Connect! – Insight Extractor – Blog (If you prefer to not use the referral link, just search for “springboard” and sign up there)

The World is not binary!

I am not saying that you can’t break into Data Science with just DataCamp and DataQuest — you would need to complement it w/ other resources and put more effort to cover everything that you may need. With enough motivation, it could be done for sure! Depending on how fast you want to break into data science + how much time you can invest in figuring out the right resources are two of the biggest factor to determine if you need to go through a Bootcamp.

Conclusion:

If you are already working as a data scientist, DataCamp and DataQuest are great for continuous learning! If you are new to this and don’t have a relevant education background then boot camps like Springboard are a great choice.

Hope that helps!

VIEW QUESTION ON QUORA

Rumsfeld on Analytics:

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I loved the “Donald Rumsfeld on Analytics” framework shared by Avinash Kaushik in his strata talk. Even though the talk was from 5 years back, this is still relevant today! As a data analyst/data science professional, we should strive to automate the fact-checking and reporting as much as we can, so that we can focus on the good stuff: validating (or invalidating) intuition and exploring unknowns!

Rumsfeld on Analytics

And if you like frameworks to structure your thoughts, you might also like the What-why-What’s-Next (4W) framework to test your analytics maturity here — this is important because if your organization is not mature, you might get stuck in data puking (reporting/fact-checking) and never get to the good stuff that Avinash talks about in the framework above. So figure out the analytics maturity of your organization and then take steps to help your organization improve.

-Paras

Qlik sense: How to see Data Load Editor scripts for apps developed by your Team members?

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(This post first appeared on the Qlik Community. here)

Problem:

So you just joined a Business Intelligence Team and one of the responsibilities include building apps for your business users. Eventually, you would have a need to see Data Load editor scripts for apps developed by other members in the team. So what permission do you need to be able to do that?

Credits: darkhorse

Qliksense Version: Enterprise Server 2.0

Source: can’t see a peer’s data load editor scripts

Solution:

This a two-step process.

1) Get “content admin” access (or “higher” level access)

2) Double check if you have access to see data load scripts for ALL apps

Step 1:

The short answer is that you need “Content Admin” permission from your Qlik sense admin…But with this access level, you will have access to other developer’s app via QMC. If you need to do this via HUB as well then you will have to change the content admin role.

Here’s how Serhan ( darkhorse ) explained how to get this done:

QMC–> Security Rules–>Content Admin–> Edit–> Context–> Both in Hub and QMC

Qlik sense management console

Step 2:

Now, once you get the “content” admin access, you might want to double two things:

1) You can get access to data load scripts on published apps — (I was able to do this but there still seems to some open questions around some folks not being able to see the data load scripts for published apps. If this is the case for you, you need to duplicate the app on your “my work” area and see the scripts)

2) You can duplicate apps on your “my Work” area and see scripts — this is also useful if you want to make changes to published apps that are out there.

Conclusion:

I hope this helps you resolve the permission issues and help you collaborate with your team members!

How to add Sparkline data visualization to Google spread sheets?

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I like using spark lines data viz when it makes sense! It’s a great way to visualize trends in the data without taking too much space. Now, I knew how to add sparklines in Excel but recently, I wanted to use that on Google sheet and I had to figure it out so here are my notes:

1. Google has an inbuilt function called “SPARKLINE” to do this.

2. Sample usage: =SPARKLINE(B2:G2) — by default you can put line chart in your cells.

3. Then there are other options including changing the chart type. You can find them documented here:  https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093289

4. One of the best practices that I advocate when you spark-line to “compare” trends is to make sure that you have the consistent axis definition. So the sample usage for that could like this:

=SPARKLINE(B2:G2,{“ymin”,0;“ymax”,110})

(if you want to do this for excel then here’s the post: http://parasdoshi.com/2015/03/10/how-to-assign-same-axis-values-to-a-group-of-spark-lines-in-excel/ )

After you’re done, here’s what a finished version could like on Google sheet:

Google Sheet Data visualization spark line

Here’s the working google sheet: https://docs.google.com/a/parasdoshi.com/spreadsheets/d/1EJYDTxOifeEL-YwW1a0oxXw7tFG1iAVQlwjo4EU8R-s/edit?usp=sharing

Dashboard – Asset management & planning for a global crisis response team:

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Problem:

Asset (Volunteers, Field offices & Equipments) management & planning for a global crisis response team.

Solution:

Working in a team, we created statistical surveys for field works to collect data about current state & estimated future needs. We also helped them with data gathering & cleaning tasks. After that, we helped them analyze & visualize the data to find actions for executives leading the global crisis response team.

Here’s a mockup of one of the ten data visualization created for them:

Asset Management Global crisis response

Business Intelligence system – Customer Complaints – B2B company:

Customer complaint dashboard quality feedback
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Analyzing customer complaints in crucial for customer service & sales teams. It helps them increase customer loyalty and fix quality issues. To that end, here’s a mockup:

Note: Drill down reports are not shown, details are hidden to maintain confidentiality and numbers are made up.

Customer complaint dashboard quality feedback

SQL Server Reporting Services Tip: How to capitalize just the first letter of text?

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Attention to detail is a key in creating SSRS reports/dashboards that look like a work of a professional; To that end, here’s a tip: How to capitalize the first letter in your string? In other words, how to Camel Case the Text?

Here’s the function that you can use in your SSRS Expressions:

[code language=”SQL”]

StrConv("hello world",3)

[/code]

OR

[code language=”SQL”]
StrConv("hello world",vbProperCase)
[/code]

InputFunctionOutput
hello worldStrConv(“hello world”,3)Hello World

I hope that helps!

Business Intelligene Dashboard for Quality Managers

Quality Test Results Dashboard
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Business Goal:

Need to understand the patterns in Quality test results data across all plants.

Summary:

– The solution involved creating a Business Intelligence system that gathered data from multiple plants. I was involved in mentoring IT team, development and end-user training of a Business Intelligence Dashboard that used SQL server analysis services as it’s data source.

– Dashboard development involved multiple checkpoint meetings with business leaders since this was the first time they had a chance to visualize quality test results data consolidated from multiple plants. Since they were new to data visualization, I used to prepare in advance and create 3-4 relevant visualization templates to kick off meetings.

Mockup:

(it is intended to look generic since I can’t discuss details. Also, drill down capabilities had been added to the dashboard to go down to the lowest granularity if needed)

Quality Test Results Dashboard

Business Intelligence Dashboard for Plant Managers (operations focused):

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Business goal:

Plant managers needed a centralized automated solution that helped them monitor key metrics (operations focused) to help them better manage manufacturing plants.

Technical Summary:

– Work with the plant managers to identify key metrics & calculations to be displayed on dashboard

– Work with the IT managers to identify data source systems.

– Develop the Dashboard using SQL Server Reporting Services. (Built iteratively by making sure to have three checkpoint meetings with plant managers while working with IT/Business-Analysts to ensure data integrity)

– Developed drill down reports see detailed data at plant and machine level.

Mockup:

Plant Managers dashboard operations manufacturing