The Informed Company

Chapter OneStarting with Source Data

When starting from scratch, keep in mind the potential for the data to grow and the usability needs of users in the future. In the beginning, sources are their own islands separated from each other. Data streams remain in their own “silo.” When a data team is small, a collection of sources is easy to maintain and monitor. For example, to support new data teams, many data sources have their own built‐in dashboards and reporting capabilities (see Salesforce, Heap, and so on).

While single‐source data isn't all that powerful, it's not at all useless. Some everyday use cases of solutions built from single‐source data include:

• Database queries that generate customer acquisition metrics.
• A dashboard that displays monthly sales featuring a downloadable spreadsheet.
• A custom web application that allows searching of referral traffic.

Siloed reporting does not yield the powerful data insights that more sophisticated teams need, but this is often where teams must start. The analyst's role becomes that of an instructor to stakeholders—the analyst must understand sources and support business stakeholders who read and interact with this limited data. An analyst may pull together numbers from separate comma‐separated value files (CSVs) and run manual analysis in Excel or with basic SQL queries.

As we explore data sources, remember that analysts can do much more for their teams than work with business intelligence tools, Excel, and simple queries. In ...