Alation

What do you like best?

Once upon a time, when we used to work at the office, I worked at a satellite campus with no peers. I envied the analyst groups that all sat in pods, and they constantly helped each other and trained newbies. Leaning over and asking a question feels very different than phoning or IMing colleagues multiple times a day, but the truth is when you are new, you really need tons of help. I use Alation almost every day, and it answers both simple questions, like "what does AT43 mean?" to more complex questions, "Which table do other analysts go to as "the" source of truth? How would I join that to my data?" Alation puts tons of tribal knowledge at your fingertips and saves you from wild-goose-chases and mistakes.

What do you dislike?

One of the only downsides I can think of is that long-term analysts don't always have buy-in. They think they know their area and their data. Some don't see the value of adding their queries to Alation to help others. To mitigate this, I often add their queries myself (say if they emailed me something), so others can refer to them, and I can easily search for them again in the future.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I do tons of COVID reporting, and the questions never stop pouring in. Alation helps me to write code faster (because I am not having to ask multiple people for help) , so it has been instrumental in me keeping up with the demands of my job.