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Data Analyst / Business Intelligence Analyst Roles

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  • 02-09-2009 10:29pm
    #1
    MartinAnt
    Registered Users Posts: 58 ✭✭


    Hi,

    Are any of you currently working in one of these roles or have worked in them in the past? I am a database developer but am thinking that this kind of role would be more suited to me and would like an insight into the type of day to day or project work involved in the roles.

    Any info appreciated!

    Cheers,
    MartinAnt


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    #2
    stephenlane80
    Registered Users Posts: 163 ✭✭stephenlane80


    A previous roles i has was as a Business Analyst, aka Data Analyst or Business Intelligence Analyst

    I worked in a particularly large team, with a high turnover of business reports, the reporting team consisted of on site and off shore analysts.

    Generally the on site employees worked with the business users to gather requirements, and create report prototypes, then the prototypes were sent to the off shore team to optimise and install on an SQL server.

    The biggest challange is getting data from source systems, newer Oracle/MS SQL systems are obviously easier to work with, and older legacy file based mainframes are more of a challange (tandem ect..). If your are a database guru you will take to this like a duck to water !! There is also going to be a lot of politics in relation to getting data extracted from live systems if you work in a mdeium/large company (with goos reason most of the time !)

    Data operations are generally handled by an Extract Transfom Load system like DTS or SSIS, but be prepared to write custom code/scripts for complicated proceedures,

    The presentation layer we used was trusty Excel, so most people in the team were expert in VBA, which is useful for whipping the reports in to shape, and producing PPOint Presentations automatically. A lot of companies would use things like Business Bojects, SQL Reporting Services, or custom web based reports fro presentation.

    I found this role interesting for a given period of time, but after i mastered most of the technologies, it gets a little repeditive, if your are based on site you will also get a lot of hasstle from Business Users looking for this view or that view of a particular report, what they think is 5 mins work can take 2 weeks, and you cant so no if the requester is of a certain rank in the org, so be warned !!


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