My name is Will Strouse, and I’m a Principal Analytics Consultant at phData, as well as the Sigma Computing Tech Lead. With a focus on data visualization and behavioral analytics, I’ve found Sigma’s speed to insight, flexible platform, and intuitive UI to be game-changers for my work.
To explore Sigma’s full potential, I teamed up with Sr. Analytics Consultant James Zirbes in Manhattan for an immersive Sigma Architecture workshop. In this blog, I’ll share what we learned, my feedback on the experience, and who in your organization should consider attending future workshops!
Meet the Team
The team leading these events at the Sigma Computing offices in Manhattan was just as impressive as the setting. Senior Director of Enterprise Architecture Prashant Soral and Solutions Architects Tyler Spencer and Neil Coleman were our instructors. Each one was a skyscraper of knowledge, with solid foundations and a passion for the endless potential to build even higher.
Though the room we were sitting in was called “Empire State Building,” we thoroughly enjoyed the view of the Chrysler Building, seen here right over James’ shoulder.
A special shout out to our hosts, including David Porter, Antony Luxton, and Donny Alfano, who made an expert recommendation for our team dinner that I will only reveal if you put the secret password at the end of the article on our LinkedIn post!
Performance & Efficiency in Sigma Computing
Performance and efficiency were our first topics. Whether I’m migrating reports from another BI tool or remodeling existing Sigma workbooks and datasets, sound performance optimization strategies are extremely important. As with most modeling challenges, the best solution is to work upstream, beginning with the Warehouse configuration, Data Modeling approaches, and then identifying possible Sigma performance levels.
For example, if you are using a Snowflake warehouse, implementing clustering keys and clustered tables will help reduce the size and complexity of your base data sources before they are pulled into Sigma. When modeling several tables (preferable to views), remember that columns drive up compute costs much more than rows. So, taking the extra time to ensure you are only passing the needed fields through each step of your model is worth the effort.
Once the data is in Sigma, here are two great resources from Katrina Menne on optimizing your calculated fields and improving overall performance in your models, which align with the content in this workshop.
Another Sigma-level performance lever to pull is the built-in Sigma Usage Monitoring workbook. This tool was invaluable in my previous Sigma Development and Training engagements, helping me identify poorly performing queries, prioritize support for the most popular views, and promote a healthy data culture through accountability.
While there, I had the honor of introducing James and his excellent Call Center Analytics workbook he created for the November Sigma User Meetup. Seeing the growth in our community has been amazing, and I know James turned more than a few heads with this striking design and deep analytical insights.
Security in Sigma Computing
Security was definitely our most discussed topic, and for good reason. Correctly scoping the work required to implement new enterprise and customer-facing analytics tools requires a detailed understanding of authentication, authorization, and row/column-level security.
As you might expect, this is where the complexity of the content increases, and my summary becomes more sparse. I could not summarize all of this content into a single paragraph or a few bullets, and that is exactly why I recommend that those in your organization tasked with creating a strategy for and implementing solutions for these kinds of problems attend this workshop. Not just Sigma developers but your own data architects, warehouse administrators, and data stewards will find tremendous value in the workshop versus depending on technical documentation alone.
Thanks to our training team’s thoughtful planning, the combination of frequent hands-on labs, interactive quizzes, and personalized one-on-one support made absorbing what felt like terabytes of information surprisingly effortless.
From here, I was able to really understand exactly what information needed to be passed between environments and warehouses to configure the embed code details. Up to this point, I had always copied out bits from what I could look up on my own, then tagged the amazing Live Chat support team to help me fill in the gaps without ever really understanding it. The outline of the embed coding options they provided in the course materials and Pipe Dream transformed Embed URL coding from scary to approachable for me.
My lab partner, Sigma Solutions Engineer Nancy Duan, had similar feedback,
“It was great to see how quickly people can get up and running with embedding in Sigma. In just one session, we were able to collaborate, design, and deploy a dynamic embedded dashboard. I also loved seeing some of the pro dashboard designers at phData in action!”
Final Capstone Project
Our workshop labs culminated with a final Capstone project, where we used the Plugs sample data to create a series of workbooks utilizing all of the knowledge we had gained, including embed coding to recognize and direct users, custom row and column-level security tied to user attributes and team configurations and automatically applying different themes through the embed codes.
James went with different themes and logos for divisions while I went with varying themes by user credentials within the same division, but how about the phData-mind-meld displayed by blindly selecting similar color and chart schemes for our fictional clients?! Sigma’s KPI elements are my favorite!
This was definitely a workshop and not a series of lectures. The lessons had lab exercises, and each time we were allowed to fail on our own, knowing the instructors would come around and help get us on track. An important but often overlooked aspect of learning this way is seeing how your peers and professors research and solve problems. Just like when I’m training new Sigma users, the help button in the bottom right corner of your Sigma workbook is an invaluable resource, and I was glad to see everyone else leaning on it too!
Until the Next Sigma Training
We live “Extreme Ownership” at phData, so I will close by saying whoever owns the success and security of your Sigma environment should attend this workshop. And if you want some great food in NYC, the secret password to leave on our LinkedIn post comment section is “Key Pair Authentication!”
Looking to stay in the loop with Sigma Computing updates, resources, and professional services? Check out our Sigma page on the phData website!
