January Homeruns Lunar New Year Edition 🐍⚾

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Qlik

What is it: Qlik has launched Data Flow in Qlik Cloud Analytics, offering users a drag-and-drop experience for setting up data transformations. For context, Qlik Cloud Analytics is Qlik’s end-to-end analytics platform, which includes data integration, modeling, and data visualization capabilities.

Data Flow is the data integration and transformation layer in Cloud Analytics. The drag-and-drop interface, which may feel familiar to Alteryx users, is designed to be especially useful for business users by eliminating or minimizing the need for code. In its documentation, Qlik highlights Data Flow’s simplicity and GUI interface, reinforcing the idea that this functionality is targeted at business users. Check out the quick demo below if you're interested in learning more!

Why is it relevant: Most BI tools are making strides to abstract underlying complexities and cater to less technical users. The drag-and-drop GUI approach has been used by other platforms in the past, with varying degrees of success. Governance and performance remain key challenges with such implementations. Additionally, Qlik Data Flow uses Qlik Script, which is similar to SQL but has a learning curve, especially if you’re transitioning from another platform.

You can also read all about this feature here.

dbt

What is it: The dbt January update has just dropped, right after dbt’s acquisition of SDF Labs!

The standout highlight of this update is the dbt integration with Sigma, giving Sigma users the ability to directly expose metrics and queries in Sigma dashboards. Plus, users can now explore dbt models using Sigma’s embedded SQL-based explorer. Check out the video below for a quick demo. Go on, don’t be shy!

Shifting gears, the auto exposures capability (think ability to view downstream lineage) for Tableau in dbt has been beefed up. dbt can now auto orchestrate pipelines to keep connected Tableau dashboards up to date.

Read the entire release here.

BigQuery

What is it: BigQuery Metastore has been launched, offering a managed metadata service for multiple processing engines. Confused? You’re not alone!

Metastore is the catalog to rule them all, providing interoperability and flexibility across different data processing engines. Most data processing engines create their own catalogs to efficiently query table representations of stored files. With Metastore, you can centralize all those catalogs in one place, ensuring a more intuitive developer experience.

Why it matters: BigQuery Metastore is offering its take on a processing engine-agnostic catalog. Unlike its more popular sibling, Databricks Unity Catalog, Metastore promises to free users from the confines of data processor lock-in. Will it truly deliver on that promise? Well, time will tell!

Read more about the feature here.

Data events action calendar 📅

• dbt Cloud launch showcase is scheduled on March 19th and 20th. Details here.

• Microsoft Fabric Community Conference is in Las Vegas from March 31st-April 2nd. Details here.

• Netflix data engineering open forum is happening in April. Register here.

• Tableau conference is scheduled from April 15th-17th in San Diego. Details here.

• Google Cloud Next is happening in Las Vegas from April 9th-11th, 2025. Details here.

• Alteryx Inspire is scheduled for May 12th-15th in Las Vegas. Details here.

Cool Jobs in Data! 👩‍💻

• Atlassian is hiring a remote data engineer in US/Canada

• Databricks is hiring a Solutions Architect in New York

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