This week was another week of firsts! We had our first introduction into Alteryx and our first week long (two days!) Client Project.
We began with the Internal Client Project. Overall the first meeting and presentation of our initial sketches went well, where we were able to ask most of the questions required to gain a sold foundation of what the client expected. We were able to create various sketch designs for dashboards for the client to select. Unfortunately, both of the dashboard sketches I created were not listed as high priority, but this did give me an opportunity to create an Overview dashboard. This would highlight the key financial metrics of Profit, Expenses and Revenue, as well as some of the other measures that were mentioned as vital or provided a potential reason for the underperforming of the business. In this case, it was Customer Ratings, Top 5 Least Popular Products and Average Employee Tenure Length by Type. Working in pairs, we had one person on data prep and one person on dashboard building, which helped with communicating insights quickly to someone who would be able to give answers for whether a specific feature would be possible or not.
The next part of the week included a session on Life after Training, gaining an insight into what life will be like on placement, and some of the colleagues at the Data School who will be able to support is in the process.
Our first introduction into Alteryx was insightful. The software helps those with or without coding skills, to be able to prepare and analyse datasets. It streamlines data processes and integrates well with other tools and softwares. We learnt about the interface and worked through an example, then proceeded onto some of the Alteryx Challenges. The drag and drop interface will take some time to acclimitise to, understanding where to find functions and actions that I have become accustomed to in Tableau Prep.
The middle of the week included a session on Data Security and Ethics from Louisa O'Brien, which provided a welcome change of pace from working on the laptop, head down in software normal itinerary. Being forced to think and consider some of the practical issues that are sometimes forgotten when focusing on values and letters on a spreadsheet.
The end of the week was a switch back into Client Project mode. The last day of the project included a lot of "Friday Magic", with all of us working to finish our dashboards, prepare slides and presentation. With what I am sure will become a regular occurrence, issues cropped up with data prep, dashboard creation and other side pieces, which thankfully we were able to fix as a team. For our first client project, I was happy with how I performed as well as how we performed as a DS53 cohort.
Next week will mark the first External Client Project, as well as a revisit of Tableau Desktop and PowerBI DAX. It should be another week of learning and growing, which I look forward to.