Basic data analysis concepts

Alain Rousseau opens the webinar by introducting himself and Sepia Solutions. He also explains what he likes most about data analysis projects.

Alain highlights the must-have features for serious data analysis software. Such features include “no data size limit”, “read-only data access”, “audit trail”, etc. Besides the software, additional resources such as training, webinars, events, user groups and support are also important elements to consider when selecting a data analysis tool. Arbutus has all of this covered (and much more besides).

What data source of data set can we use without breaking confidentiality? All the analyses in this webinar is based on a data file of over 500.000 records that is available to us all.

Should you be interested in evaluating Arbutus Analyzer yourself, just let us know.

Alain defines the building blocks of data analysis, such as data, table and table layout, records and fields. He also illustrates some details of the fields such as name and type (Character, Numeric, DateTime).

Analyzer supports complex data analytics, but Alain shows the most basic analysis commands such as COUNT, TOTAL, and STATISTICS. All the while, all these commands are written out into the log, as well as the results of those commands.

Also filters (based on functions) are introduced in this chapter.

Computed fields, are wonderful as they add they can add information without changing the source data.

The Conditional Computed fields are particularly useful to add business logic or interpretation of the data.

By way of example, Alain creates several computed fields.

Arbutus provides various ways to group data together. In this case we group all the files together per year in which it was modified and total the file sized in MB.

Note that there are multiple appearances (like skins) for these visualisations and that they are also drill-down; so a double-click takes you right back to the relevant data.

Have you ever wondered how many duplicate files can be found in the C:\Windows file structure?

Using the DUPLICATES command in Analyzer, we analyse the files based on multiple parameters and come to remarkable results.

Finally, whether you group data, perform a duplicates test, or run various other commands the true value of these analyses lies in the business insights you may gain from them.

Whether it is about reduced turnover, increased margins, or cost savings, this business value is what really matters.

One way of increasting the ROI (Return on Investment) of your analysis work, is to copy the commands from the log into a procedure so that this analysis can be repeated by a push of the button.

You can schedule the procedure to be run automatically. The latter is the road to continuous monitoring.

Alain summarizes what we went through in this webinar, from data source and meta data to simple data analysis commands such as COUNT, TOTAL, and STATISTICS. Then proceeded with concepts such as filters and computed fields, grouping commands, a duplicates check and some visuals.

Questions based on this webinar are answered. If you have questions based on the recording, or suggestions for new webinars, simply reach out to us.