A technical week and opportunity to teach - join me for my weekly reflection on life at the Data School!

Monday - Snowflake, SQL, and Project Kick-Off

The project we were set this week was our first project using Snowflake and SQL, but before we could get started with the project, we first had to learn all about Snowflake and SQL!

We spent the morning getting all clued up on Snowflake, and had a go at setting up an API, and parsing it out using SQL in snowflake to make a nice table with the data we pulled through the API. I know, this sounds like a mass of jargon!! The APIs we were using were basically a way of connecting Alteryx with an internet source, kind of like a link that Alteryx can use to pull through information from the internet. When we do this in Alteryx, all the information comes through in one cell i.e. not readable. Using snowflake (a data platform/warehouse that hosts SQL - a common programming language) we brought this cell of information into a worksheet, and then using the SQL language, parsed out this one cell of information into a readable table. This felt way more technical than other things we've done up to this point, but I've been enjoying getting to know a new coding languages, and exploring all the different ways to work with data.

After our teaching time, we moved onto our Snowflake project brief, and went through our project goals for the week. I'm not sure I've completely got my head around Snowflake/SQL, but we'll see how we go!

Tuesday - Project Time

We spent the whole day on Tuesday working on our project, getting to grips with Snowflake and SQL. We split our project into two groups - dashboarding, and data prep. I was put on the data team, pulling data through APIs and working out how to get them into tables on snowflake. We certainly faced quite a few challenges with this due to the way that the API data was structured, but managed to get there in the end.

Wednesday - LODs, Parameters and Sets

After a very technical week I was excited to get into Tableau on Wednesday, but wasn't prepared for how technical the things we'd be doing in Tableau would be! We started the day by covering LODs - something that has greatly confused my cohort so far.

An LOD is basically a way to aggregate data and then attach it to each row, so that it can be used in other calculations. LOD refers to Level of Detail, as within these calculations you are able to specify at what level of detail you want to fix your aggregation. Data with a high level of detail, has a low granularity i.e. what a row represents is more general. For me this felt a bit contradictory, so I created the following chart to help explain it better:

After LODs, we moved onto Parameter and Set Actions, which I've used a bit up until now, but really got to see their potential in this session!

Thursday - Learn What The Data School Learns

Thursday morning meant more project time, during which I managed to automate a workflow on Alteryx Server (which I'm quite excited about!). During the afternoon we had our first opportunity at teaching all the things we've been learning up until now, to the general public. I was tasked with teaching beginner Table Calculations (you can check out some of my blogs on these!).

Initially I was super nervous about this session, despite having taught in the past. I had manically prepared about 40 slides for a 45 minute class, and, as you might expect ended up being a bit over prepared! No harm done, and a good thing to remember for other people thinking about teaching - always be prepared! Even if that means having 20 extra slides just in case.

Despite my initial nerves, I actually really enjoyed teaching again, and it was a great way to see how far I've come on my own Tableau journey, and have the opportunity to help others on theirs.

Friday - Presentations!!

Tomorrow is Friday aka presentation day. I normally feel a bit nervous by this time on a Thursday, but I think I'm on too much of a high after my teaching success to worry right now! Hopefully this carries me through to 1pm tomorrow!