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Planning for the COVID-19 Pandemic at OptimalBI
We find ourselves in unprecedented times. All across the globe the impact of COVID-19 is being felt, it’s heart-breaking reading the stories of loss, the impact on societies, businesses and individuals as a result of measures put in place to restrict the momentum of...
Building Services and Applications for Generic Data
One of the things many developers love about MongoDB and other NoSQL databases is the ability to store flexible objects in their native format. When you walk around the office singing its praises, experienced developers chime in and tell you that this is a quick path...
What is data literacy and why should you care?
You might have heard this term thrown about a bit recently. Perhaps it's because you've heard politicians referring to it when discussing educational reform, or you've noticed how your job has you doing more with spreadsheets than you did five years ago. What ever...
What is algorithmic bias and why should you care?
What is algorithmic bias? A systematic error in computer algorithms which leads to unfair outcomes and giving privileges to one of the groups of users over all others. An algorithm is a set of instructions designed to perform a specific task. This can be a simple...
I tried the Qlik Data Literacy course
I've spent the last 8 years of my life surrounded by data nerds, and while I've learned so many new things about data, I can not even pretend I'm a data nerd myself. An enthusiast for sure, but a nerd... no way! I lack what my peers would consider the hammer and...
Fun with Identity fields in Sparx EA
After a bit of inventive adjective use the other day I found out that the way you create new database tables in Sparx Enterprise Architect database models has an impact on whether or not you can specify an Identity column for a SQL Server database table. ...
Everything you need to know about BEAM* to define data requirements
We first came across BEAM*, Lawrence Corr and Jim Stagnitto over seven years ago when we were scratching our heads trying to figure out a better way to design an agile data warehouse. Since then, we've convinced Lawrence to travel to Aotearoa many times...
Meri Kirihimete from OptimalBI
Kia ora koutou and welcome to the last OptimalBI newsletter of 2019 - hasn't this year flown by! We have enjoyed supporting our customers to create amazing outcomes for their organisations this year with a range of really interesting projects - payment integration,...
Single Source of Truth and Interpretation
One thing I've been thinking about lately is Single Source of Truth (SSOT), it's relationship with interpretation, and how that lands with data. We often consider the data warehouse, in at least it's traditional star schema sense to be a record of fact, obviously.....
Data Quality 30 years on – what’s changed
My second full-time job was a data quality one back in 1989 (yep I am that old). Timberland the footwear company had massively diversified in the 80's adding clothing lines and opening their first branded store outside the USA - in London on Bond Street. The UK...
Learn and Earn – Kaggle
Working in the Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing space I'm constantly keeping abreast of what's hot and what's not. Obviously Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence fall under the BI/DW banner, somewhere. So today I want to share Kaggle!...
Open Source Datasets
Have you ever needed data for a work or academic project? If so, are there any good sites on the internet where you can easily access data? I have had to complete several projects at work where I had to build reports in various BI tool (Qlik and PowerBI). I needed to...
Data Science Pioneers Movie
This month OptimalBI is hosting a Data Science Pioneers documentary screening. The first screening was crowded and the rest of the sessions are booking up very quickly, so you might have heard about it already. I'm guessing, the selling point (although it's completely...
How To Intnx With SAS
We like making life a little bit easier here at OptimalBI and one of the ways we have found to do that is by making quick how to guides. The standard text bullet point style guides isn’t what we do, we do cool sh!t. Below is a guide we have on the SAS function INTNX....
Power BI Learning Resources
Are you new to Power BI? If the answer is yes, where do you start to learn how to use it? There is a lot of useful information on the Internet, but how do you know if it is any good? Look no further, I have compiled a list of useful resources that I have used over the...
New Zealand premiere of Data Science Pioneers documentary
Join us for the first public screening of this documentary in New Zealand. Cut through the hype and see what is means to be a data scientist. Featuring our very own Shaun McGirr, now Head of Data Science and Business Intelligence at Cox Automotive UK, this one hour...
4 reasons why BEAM* is great for those who work with data
I have used Business Event Analysis and Modelling (BEAM*) many times at work over that last five years. So, what makes it great and why do I use it time and again? First of all, I should explain what BEAM* is. What is BEAM*? BEAM* is a flexible methodology allowing...
Electric Garden: My First IoT Device
Probably you know that our boss Victoria supports many digital initiatives across New Zealand. One day she has shared with us one of the latest Digital Future Aotearoa initiative called Electric Garden. This is an Internet of Things solution for garden monitoring...