Hey folks!
Sadly, I was unable to attend the conference this year but one of my coworkers heard some rumblings about Power Query while she was there. She came back and told a few people about it and now I'm getting a lot of push from certain people to get it up and running here asap!
I've downloaded in onto my own computer now and have done very minimal testing of it. I already see some issues and I'm wondering how other organizations, that are already using it, have addressed them.
1) Do you have special user(s) created for power query's purposes that only have access to limited tables? Obviously, connecting to the database as I normally would I have access to ALL the tables. Not only do I have concerns about what data people are accessing (do I really want someone in marketing to have full access to a contributions table?) but I worry that people will easily misinterpret data from pulling from the "wrong" table. Any of you that deal with the SQL database know that sometimes pulling data from one table won't give you the info you're looking for! The number of tables in Tess can be really overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing with them and how to find the right ones.
2) Do you only allow certain people to have access to Power Query for Tessitura's purposes? If yes, who has access and what are their comfort levels with accessing the correct database information? Is it only people with database experience or do you train key people on certain areas that pertain to their needs? If no, have you had issues with the more inexperienced users creating queries incorrectly, misinterpreting things, or accessing info they shouldn't be accessing?
3) In general, how are you using it? What kinds of things do you find it easier to use Power Query for? Do you have any specials tips or gotcha's that I may find helpful?
Thanks!
Beth
Hey Beth,
I don't have much direct experience to offer you, but Seattle Opera definitely talked about this in at least one session this year, and I know they have a lot of experience with it. You might reach out to their DBA Stuart McLeod in particular.
Nicholas Walls (now at Seattle Symphony) touched on Power Query for development purposes in the Rankings for Development session, (PPT here, relevant portion starts on page 12.) He might be a good person to talk to as well.
I did some cursory experiments with it and concluded that it didn't really have a place in my department, (I'm likely the only one who would end up using it, and when I need something specific it's generally just as easy for me to pull the data directly via SQL.) Re. your question #1, I'd considered putting together some local views that would pull in all the relevant info (and only that info) for easier analysis in Excel. I imagine that approach could certainly aid in security too.
Definitely keep us posted--interested to hear how this goes!
Correction -- page 12 is in the PDF I was looking at. It's slide 23 in the PPT. :)