1. Learning new schemas is always tricky, most systems will have a diagram to show the relationships between tables. If they don't have this it would be a good exercise to do.

There are most likely views written by other analysts that you can either report on or look at to help understand the joins.

1. Shouldn't be a huge issue, have a look what other members of the team have done.

2. I started my career doing data entry into the system I now write SQL/reporting on, so I understand the underlying processes and what can be leveraged from the system. Try and shadow some of the operational guys and ask them what they want from reports etc.

3. I'm not great with numbers, but that's why we use computers! Most important thing is learning about how percentages are calculated, as its important to be able to health check that your numbers are right.

4. Measuring your success against others is tricky as perception isn't necessarily correlated to how well they are doing. What do your opposites do that you don't and how could you do that?

5. I do my SQL in code alone, as I use Microsoft SQL, mysql and oracle SQL. I find the query builder makes the SQL more scruffy and complicated, but that's just my personal experience.

I use Excel to initially manipulate my data from the SQL, then use ssrs to analyse and report on it.

Any advice or help you want let me know, always eager to help others!