When customers request new data analytics and reporting services and tools to facilitate their decision-making processes, the Analytics and Reporting team within Cornell Information Technology (CIT) provides industry-standard architecture and processes, along with custom designed dashboards to meet that need. But how does a team developing data analysis tools evaluate their own solutions?

“During my internship, I worked on developing a comprehensive Tableau dashboard that displayed the usage statistics of various workbooks created by the Analytics and Reporting team,” said Alexander Christen, an Information Systems and Business Analytics major at the University of New Hampshire who worked on the summer project through Cornell’s Alliance for Diversity and Inclusion (ADI) Student Intern Program.

Christen’s assignment began with a deep dive into SQL and Tableau: a programming language used to manage and manipulate relational data and a software package that supports data analysis and visualization. Once he felt comfortable managing data, Christen examined the available tables, created initial views, and validated the data by comparing multiple sources.

When his quality assurance testing revealed the lack of a timestamp necessary to answer prompts like “most viewed workbooks each month” and “number of unique viewers in the past three months,” Christen attempted several workarounds. The solution he presented at the end of his internship included three separate data models working in tandem to validate the data and obtain the necessary fields to finalize the dashboards, which ultimately provided accurate insights into the effectiveness and reach of the team’s current work.

One aspect of the internship that stood out to Alex was his quick acceptance into the group. “I was pleasantly surprised by the collaborative and supportive environment within the team,” he said. “The willingness of my supervisor and team members to assist, answer questions, and share their knowledge was instrumental in my learning process.”

Christen observed that the hands-on experience and skills he gained in data analytics, SQL, and Tableau have already shifted his career focus to further exploring data analytics opportunities. In addition to finding the work both challenging and rewarding, the practical examples of his work and the ability to showcase his contributions to a real-world project provide a solid foundation for future job or internship applications.