Laura Peterson

After her MBA at London Business School, Laura spent over 6 years working in Excel-based environments as a consultant and then as a commercial finance analyst. She enjoys analyzing and presenting data in new and unique ways to aid in decision making. After discovering Tableau at work, she was quickly impressed with its ability to transform complex data into simple, easy to understand charts. Wanting to make Tableau a part of her everyday life, Laura applied to the Data School and is now excited to be learning from the very best.

In addition to data, Laura also loves dogs, American Football and Welsh Rugby.

Blog Posts

Wed 24 May 2017 | Laura Peterson

Key to Success at Data School - Ask Questions

If I could do it all again, what advice would I give myself before starting DS5? This is a tough one. At first, I came up with a generic list of Dos and Don’ts

Sun 21 May 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 13 - Teaching Week

Data School Week 13 – Teaching Week I have fallen behind with my blogging once again! Here is a recap of week 13, it was student teaching week for the DS. To help get us comfortable teaching/training others on Tableau and Alteryx, we were each assigned a topic to teach the class

Tue 16 May 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 12

Data School Week 12 Week 12 was another client project week, with some student teaching mixed in. The week kicked-off with a one-hour Makeover Monday [http://www.makeovermonday.co.uk/]session visualising Sydney Ferries Network data. [https://public.tableau.com/profile/laura

Sun 07 May 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 11 - SQL and Advanced Tableau

Data School Week 11 Week 11 it was back to business as usual with another client project interspersed with training sessions on SQL and advanced Tableau Desktop skills. Client Project This project was especially exciting because it was my first time working with data extracts from Google BigQuery

Sat 06 May 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 10 - Dashboard Week

Data School Week 10 – Dashboard Week In case you missed it, week 10 was Dashboard Week at DS. Every day we were given a dataset, and a list of requirements from Coach Kriebel [https://twitter

Wed 26 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 9 - Easter Week

Week 9 – Easter Week Easter Week at Data School was short and sweet! We had a 3-day client project and then a day SQL training, and then a bank holiday on Friday. Alteryx Best Practices My part of the client presentation this week highlighted some general Alteryx best practices

Mon 24 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

A break from the Kriebel regime - Data School Week 8

Week 8 – break from the Kriebel regime With our head coach on holiday for most of Week 8, I thought this week would be easier than usual, like having a substitute teacher in primary school

Sun 23 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Dashboard Week Day 4

Dashboard Week Day 4 -Andy’s Runkeeper Data Final day! The end is in sight. Even more exciting than that, today’s topic isn’t equine deaths! Breaking with the trend of morbid topics, today we are looking at Andy’s marathon training. For those of you that don’t know, Andy Kriebel [https://twitter

Thu 20 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Dashboard Week Day 3 - Risk Factors for Noncommunicable Diseases

Dashboard Week Day 3 Another day, another cheery topic! We have gone from UK Crime to Migrant Stock to today’s topic: Risk Factors for Noncommunicable Diseases

Wed 19 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Dashboard Week Day 2 - International migrants

Dashboard Week Day 2 During Dashboard week we do a project every day, (usually we do one per week), and write a blog for each project. International Migrants Today’s project had the following requirements: 1. Get International migrant data [http://www.un

Tue 18 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Dashboard Week Day 1 - UK Crime

Dashboard Week It’s Dashboard Week [https://www.thedataschool.co.uk/andy-kriebel/dashboard-week/]! It’s only day one, and I am already pulling my hair out! We do a project every day, (usually we do one per week), and write a blog for each project

Sun 09 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

LODs and Table Calcs - Data School Week 7

Week 7 – LODs and Table Calcs -Let the Mind Melting Begin! Week 7 was one of the toughest weeks yet; I was balancing being the team lead for the client project in afternoons with terrible morning training sessions from Head Coach Andy [https://twitter

Thu 06 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

My First Alteryx Macro

Alteryx Macro Workflows This week André [https://twitter.com/andre347_] came in and taught us about macros in Alteryx. There are three different types of macro workflows you can create in Alteryx: 1. Standard – runs once 2. Batch – repeat a process for each incoming record 3

Sun 02 Apr 2017 | Laura Peterson

Secret to successful design: Data School Week 6

Design Success – Week 6 of Data School Some people are born with an eye for design, and it all comes very naturally to them. I, however, am not one of those people. My professional background involved a lot of number crunching in Excel where the focus was on function rather than form

Mon 27 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 5

Week 5 – Blog Week Blogging does not come naturally to me, so I found week 5 of data school relatively difficult. We were each required to write a blog a day, or five blogs for the week

Fri 17 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Documenting your Tableau Workbook

Documenting your Tableau Workbook Why bother? There is nothing more annoying than inheriting a complex Tableau workbook with zero documentation designed by someone who has just left the company

Fri 17 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Custom Admin Views - Concurrent Users on Tableau Server

Server Week It is Tableau Server week at Data School and the genius,Jonathan MacDonald [https://twitter.com/macdonaldj]is here with us all week teaching us the basics. We have covered installs, permissioning, tabadmin command prompts and yesterday we looked at custom Tableau Server admin views

Wed 15 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 4

Week 4 – Alteryx Week Week 4 was intense; we were busy learning about predictive analytics and spatial analytics in Alteryx, AND we had or first client project this week. Predictive Analysis DS2 graduateBenedetta [https://www.thedataschool.co

Mon 13 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 3

Week 3 Week 3 of Data School was another Tableau training week. We were lucky enough to have the guest speaker,Caroline Beavon [http://carolinebeavon.com/], come in and teach us a day long class on Infographics

Sun 12 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 2

Week 2 Week 2 at Data School I got my first taste of Alteryx, an incredibly powerful data preparation tool

Fri 10 Mar 2017 | Laura Peterson

DS Application Makeover

After spending most of week one learning about best practices for data visualisation, our first project was to use our new-found knowledge to make over our original Data School application

Wed 22 Feb 2017 | Laura Peterson

Great Expectations: My Data School Goals

Great Expectations To be honest, before starting at the Data School I did not have any specific expectations. I knew I was going to be with a group of smart, interesting people learning Tableau and Alteryx from the very best and having fun along the way

Tue 21 Feb 2017 | Laura Peterson

Data School Week 1- Where to start?

Where do I even begin? Day 1 at the Data School was exhilarating and overwhelming all at once. I felt the excitement that comes from doing what you love, combined with moments of mild panic when asked to sketch a viz for a data set, and you have no idea where to start