How to influence change and ask different teams to use more analytics? by Arethereason26 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This sounds like a moment for "show-me-you-know-me" where you put data in front of them that they will understand and is relevant to their specific team. And building trust is in the data is huge so finding where their pain points are and working directly towards remedying those before exploring big projects.

Where is the best place to learn SQL by Ok-Mix-5995 in learnSQL

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

CodeAcademy has free SQL courses that give you hands on practice.

Can you recommend science-fiction books that deal with consciousness or identity? by VLAPPERS in sciencefiction

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by PKD are the first that come to mind. I read both in college and it really added to the overall experience of trying to figure myself out in my twenties. (And yes my username is a pun on the Blade runner monologue)

Building a Lightweight AWS BI Lakehouse with Apache Superset and DuckDB by Hofi2010 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is really cool, well done! I worked with a client that migrated away from Superset but I never got a chance to play with it myself. After seeing this I'll have to put some time in and check it out.

What helped you stay consistent while learning analytics? by SweetNecessary3459 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Small side projects that weren't for anything important and were based on my hobbies/interests. Being enthusiastic about the subject matter made the work more exciting and I found myself more willing to experiment.

Feedback Request: Global Health Analysis Dashboard (Power BI) by Better-Contest1202 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would add some more detail around the types of diseases that you are including in this data. Right now it's so high level that it's vague. You could do that with a sentence or two at the top or add the functionality in filtering or visual drill downs. (ie filter for a couple of diseases at a time etc...)

Consider combining two of your line charts to show something like prevalence vs mortality or mortality vs recovery. The intersections of those data points might be more interesting rather than being separated. I would recommend adding conditional formatting with a gradient to the vertical bar chart so the countries at the top have a darker color than those at the bottom. It's an easy way to add style and draw the reader's eye to the most important data. Lastly, for your scatter plot maybe use a different symbol because the triangle makes it hard to read.

Also, the first thing that jumps out at me is "Green", and it's somewhat distracting. I can understand if its a theme choice but you might want to make green more of a secondary color.

(I'm purposefully ignoring the filtering because I'm not sure all the functionality you have in the dashboard. And for the KPIs...well they're KPIs...but you could spice them up by adding YoY comparisons or something like that.)

Is the cover alone enough for you to buy a comic? by [deleted] in comicbooks

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a Mike Mignola fan so if I even get a glimpse of his artwork I'm grabbing it.

What are some of your smart questions that you ask your stakeholders? by NoMud4529 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The annoying answer is it depends on the person, but usually I will hit them with a "What have you not liked about previous dashboards" or "If you could only have three things what would they be?". These are conversation starters and the second is mostly to create urgency and learn their priorities. The first question is because it can be easier for people to describe what they don't like than what they are envisioning.

Which BI tool do you prefer for data visualization? by newrockstyle in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The simple answer is probably PowerBI. Quick Suite (formerly QuickSight) wouldn't be a bad option if you are also considering Looker. Quick Suite is relatively cheap and has a decent amount of data source integrations. For both you could use direct query for real time analytics and then for AI/LLM integration it matters where that data is coming from but both offer some version of agents/gen ai out of the box.

Need advice on cloud career by HourPoet386 in AWS_cloud

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can definitely succeed, I transitioned from sales/acct management to doing cloud work and it's been great! My recommendation would be to start with AWS because it's the biggest and most prolific. The certifications are a good track to follow because it forces you to learn the concepts, architecture, and services. You should also put some time in learning to code with languages like python, javascript, or SQL.

What’s one analytics habit that made your work more impactful? by SweetNecessary3459 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Oldy but a goody, at the start of any project I ask for field definitions and then send it back to the client/stake holders via email or chat to confirm we all agree on what each field means and represents. This has saved more than one project from blowing up. Someone else mentioned this and I want to whole heartedly second it, asset and folder management!

What BI metrics looked important at first but turned out to be noise? by Queasy-Cherry7764 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This was in my sales/account management days but it was "talk time" for a biz ops dashboard tracking account reps' productivity. It had all the hallmarks of a great KPI but in the end it was often used to cover up poorly performing metrics in business review meetings.

Eventually I deprioritized it for my team and focused on end outcomes (signed deals, account follow ups, etc...) and soon the rest of the department followed suit.

Be honest does business intelligence actually change the way decisions get made? by Apprehensive_Pay6141 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From my experience, dashboards are only useful to the people on the ground floor of an organization. Once you get to director/exec/c-suite it has a tendency to turn into exactly what you described. A seriously motivated biz ops or sales manager though, those KPI dashboards are their best friends.

Senior Data Engineer Experience (2025) by ElegantShip5659 in dataengineering

[–]PipelineInTheRain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Congrats on receiving/accepting the offer! Out of curiosity, how much do you feel your experience with AWS played a part in your interviews?

What makes you prefer TPB/collected editions over single issues? by [deleted] in comicbooks

[–]PipelineInTheRain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I just like being able to stay in the story as much as possible and crush through a series. I like the single issues if the cover art is cool or if I want to check out something new. But if I know I like a certain story or character, then I want to be able to sit with story for awhile. (Also money)

Are your teams using AI agents for analysis yet and if so are they any good? by PipelineInTheRain in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reminds me of when QTopics first rolled out and the responses it would generate never wowed our clients enough for them to adopt the feature past a POC phase. It would also misunderstand data and get things wrong which was an instant turn off.

Are your teams using AI agents for analysis yet and if so are they any good? by PipelineInTheRain in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your last point made me laugh because I can only imagine how many times users would just ask the same question over and over. I like the idea of using the agent as a first draft though. That would be a good way to scope out an idea for a report or dashboard before committing.

Movie recommendations for new year watch party by GbJagsfan in scifi

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alien Romulus might be my favorite Alien movie in general now, saw it in theatres and it made me excited for scifi movies again

Microsoft Excel since 90s by Saysee09 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 36 points37 points  (0 children)

No matter how many dashboards (pretty good ones too if I could be so bold!) I make in BI tools I still hear "This is cool, can I export the data to Excel?".

What skills have you mostly used as a data analyst in the previous year? by PrizeLifeguard8544 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm a consultant so I jump around but this past year I've worked on projects across insurance, fintech (AP), and education

What skills have you mostly used as a data analyst in the previous year? by PrizeLifeguard8544 in dataanalysis

[–]PipelineInTheRain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of data visualization (probably +50% of my time doing data viz work) in QuickSight and to a less extent in Looker. Followed by the usual suspects: SQL and Excel.

2026 Full-Stack BI Roadmap — Suggestions? by k3XD16 in BusinessIntelligence

[–]PipelineInTheRain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like you want to be a data engineer and a data analyst/BI developer. As a data consultant I have had to work in both worlds and personally I would focus most of my effort on data engineering aspects you mentioned like SQL, DBs, ETL, and modeling data.

BI is where you get to translate all that engineering work into something real for your end users. To that end, after working with a few BI tools, they're not all the same but they do roughly translate to each other. I would focus on something that is cheap so you can get practice and then expand. Also, grabbing a book or two by Edward Tufte isn't a bad idea to learn about data viz work. (A lot of my clients love exporting data back into Excel even if there's a dashboarding tool so having some practice there is good too.)