70-461

scaredoftests

Taking the test at 8:30. Nervous: Ready Stressed: Ready.. LOL..See you on the other side.

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DatabaseHead

What Eager said is not what I have seen, not to say he or she is lying I just haven't seen it. I log into boxes all the time and develop code daily. I literally have BIDS (now called something Tools) and SSMS up all the time. If I am not working in SSAS tabular or with cubes I am updating data, creating views out of complex SQL or whatever..... I think for me it's a pride thing but hey I can't seem to pass the exam. But I can set up SSIS packages to use JSON to strip zipped files and have them load into our data warehouse. LOL

DatabaseHead

@Daniel

I work as a master data analyst and these are the skills I see for junior and even middle level positions.

MS Access and Excel.
Beginning level of statistics. Difference between mean and median, standard deviation, cross correlation, variance.
Specific industry knowledge depending on what type of company you are working for. Health care, Finance etc.

Nice to haves.

VBA, you would be shocked but this has really made me shine. Most of the analyst can barely write macros I can build solutions and clean large ugly data sets with VBA, it really helps me stick out. In fact my last promotion was because of the VBA skills I would leverage all the time. I must of worked over 15 VBA projects in 2015 and I was promoted to senior. Just saying....

Relational database and even more important data warehouses.

Awesome to haves and things that get you paid.
Strong understanding of SSAS and cube, tabular technology.
Ability to build front end applications for ETL and data scrubbing.
SSIS or Informatica or another ETL tool. We have guys in our company that make about as much as you can make in IT and all they do is set up ETL's, of course they are VERY complex.

There are other things as well, but the most important thing is attitude. Be a team player and don't toss people under the best, no criticism it's garbage.

My last note, before you even touch SQL you MUST know how to use Excel and VBA. Everything comes back to the lowest common demominator eventually. Excel formulas and clean up is huge. VBA is part of that. Again this is for a master data analyst position, which is pretty close to what you are looking at except a pure data analyst is going to be more into the statistic and data mining. Right now I do a lot of time series forecasting using ARIMA and ARTxp to trend volume and spend analysis.

Clear as mud!? Hope this helps man.....

daniel108

Wow, thanks for the info.

I have a lot to work on.

I'm okay at excel...that's what I have been using to display data to clients but it's boring and hard to read.

I recently discovered MS Power BI, seems kind of cool, but I still haven't figured out how to make good visual data.

I'll have to definitely put some more time in Excel and VBA.

DatabaseHead

Yeah for dashboarding using PowerBI is great, we use Tableau which I prefer but it cost. We also use SSRS and WEBI, so I don't want to take away from reporting dashboard tools they are all nice to have. But when it comes to ANALYSIS those tools only help summarize, you always end back up with Excel usually, unless you fully transitioned to R or SAS or something similiar.

Just a heads up, there isn't one set way to do this, I just wanted to provide my insights.

DatabaseHead

scaredoftests wrote: »

and talk about deer in the headlights look. LOL. I have failed 2X as well @Databasehead. We should form a club. kidding...

SOT - I had to follow up with this. I'm still laughing every time I read it. I seriously just wanted to get up and leave.

I'm sitting there click next and guess what's next, another XML question. After 6 of those, I rolled into a challenging merge questions I had no idea about. At that point I just wanted to start guessing.

DatabaseHead

okay okay okay

I opened up the training guide just a second ago and I am starting with chapter 7, yes chapter 7. Querying and Managing XML Data. I'm going to stay on this for at least 2 weeks. Why I do this to myself is beyond me.

DatabaseHead

Thoughts on the way the XML alias are set up after using namespaces? [co:Customer] for instance. Kind of wonky if you ask me.....

daniel108

I just read the chapter on Clustered Indexes...man, I had to watch some videos to wrap my head around it. It's starting to make sense now haha..

scaredoftests

DatabaseHead wrote: »

okay okay okay

I opened up the training guide just a second ago and I am starting with chapter 7, yes chapter 7. Querying and Managing XML Data. I'm going to stay on this for at least 2 weeks. Why I do this to myself is beyond me.

Same here @Databasehead LOL

DatabaseHead

I gotta ask how did you progress?

scaredoftests

Progress in studying, you mean? I am now actually passing (mostly) in transcender tests. Still reading etc.

DatabaseHead

Well that's encouraging. I am currently working through some Lynda certificates that are free from my alma mater. Currently I am in need of ramping up on some machine learning techniques for a project I am working on. Volume and Spend analysis.

Just when you gain traction something else comes up.

daniel108

So my boss asked me to create some dynamic reports using Excel. I have created the queries and established the connection to excel but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to parameterize the report to where the user can filter by date. I figured out how to add in a calendar to insert a date into a cell but I dint know how to pass the value of that cell into the query

NotHackingYou

daniel108 wrote: »

Do you work as a SQL developer?

I'm hoping to be able to make the jump from help desk to a DBA type position in a year or so. Not sure if you have any advice.

I'm starting off with this certification and building my own databases.

At work, I look for opportunities to write custom reports for our clients to practice joins, declaring variables, subqueries, etc.

My manager even proposed that we add one of my reports as a supplement to our application for our clients.

Sorry I missed this question (New Username). I did previously a lot of SQL Dev and DBA work. I think you are on the right track with the other opportunities you look for at work and 70-461 is a great way to advertise those skills. If you have other questions, feel free to message me.

NotHackingYou

For those asking about XML on this exam I seem to remember that it really wasn't a big deal. It was important to understand the functions described in the book but everything I needed to know I had learned from the book and reinforced with practice on the AdventureWorks DB.