Generated by All in One SEO v4.9.10, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # VizForVets Using Data to Tell the Story of Our Heroes ## Sitemaps - [XML Sitemap](http://3.226.155.90/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website. ## Posts - [Reformatting DAX Queries in Power Pivot with VBA](http://3.226.155.90/2023/06/19/reformatting-dax-queries-in-power-pivot-with-vba/) - As a follow up to a previous post on how to call an API and format all of your Power Query code in Excel, here is a walk through on how to do the same thing with DAX queries in Power Pivot. Add a reference to the Microsoft WinHTTP Services Prerequisites: Add a reference to - [Calling USASpending.Gov From #PowerQuery](http://3.226.155.90/2023/06/17/calling-usaspending-gov-from-powerquery/) - This week I was asked several times about connecting to the USASpending.gov API. It can be done with a little help with testing from Postman. Once you figure out which endpoint you want to query, you need to figure out: Whether it is a GET or POST request If you need to pass parameters (some - [Mapping the Iraq War with Power BI](http://3.226.155.90/2023/10/03/mapping-the-iraq-war-with-power-bi/) - by Chris Aragao Years ago, I found political science papers that referenced "significant activity" (SigAct) data. SigActs can be thought of as a record of notable events that occurred while service members were deployed overseas. There are many categories of SigActs and also other data points tracked in these datasets, like who or what the - [#PreppinData Playlist Updated Through 2023 Week 25](http://3.226.155.90/2023/06/25/preppindata-playlist-updated-through-2023-week-25/) - Hey, do you want to learn some cool tricks on how to manipulate data like a pro? Then you should check out the #PreppinData playlist on Youtube! We have a playlist that covers all the challenges from Week 1 to Week 25, and trust me, you don't want to miss them. Week 25 was especially - [#PBICoreVisuals: Coast Guard Casualty Response Report](http://3.226.155.90/2023/06/08/pbicorevisuals-coast-guard-casualty-response-report/) - A long time ago I found some data on data.gov that detailed historical Coast Guard data. It had a lot of information ranging from pollution data to casualty information. Over time I prepped the data as best as I could, but I wasn't sure what to actually do with it. Until now! I decided to - [#PreppinData Playlist Updated Through 2023 Week 22](http://3.226.155.90/2023/06/04/preppindata-playlist-updated-through-2023-week-22/) - The #PreppinData playlist has been updated through 2023 Week 22! If you haven't tried it yet, PreppinData is a Tableau Community Project that aims to help people learn and maintain data prep skills. If you are new to #powerquery, I highly recommend the website Powerquery.how. It is a great resource put out by Microsoft MVP - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 14 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/04/15/preppin-data-2023-week-14-with-power-query/) - We received a reprieve from advanced challenges with Week 14. It was a good practice challenge to reinforce some fundamental best practices with prepping data. This challenge required some pivots and unpivots. These are more expensive processes, so remember: Filter early! Filtering early limits the impact of these processes because it ensures that you are - [New Viz: Women's Army Corps WWII Survey](http://3.226.155.90/2023/04/11/new-viz-womens-army-corps-wwii-survey/) - As a follow up to the Survey 32 dashboard I did, I was fascinated with the survey project as a whole conducted by Dr. Edward Gitre and his team, so I decided to take a crack at another survey from the website. Survey 194 was titled "Attitudes of Enlisted WAC Personnel in Continental US." There - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 13 - With Power Query](http://3.226.155.90/2023/04/04/preppin-data-2023-week-13-with-power-query/) - This week I decided to spare everyone a really, really long video and focused on the trickiest part of this week's challenge: dynamically selecting trades and then providing a rolling average. Nested tables with a nested let statement allowed me to dynamically select, but it was a little tough to figure out to be honest. - [Preppin Data 2023 Week 12 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/03/27/preppin-data-2023-week-12-with-power-query/) - This week was uh, complicated. Anytime you have to take out Table.Buffer, then you know that it was an advanced query. The challenge involved banking data from two countries, the UK and Ireland. You were tasked with summarizing the data based on reporting days and oh by the way each country had different holidays. The - [2023 Preppin Data Week 11 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/03/19/2023-preppin-data-week-11-with-power-query/) - So this challenge involved a lot of tricks that were great to practice with Power Query. It involved calculating distances, finding the closest branch for each csutomer, then making a priority list for each branch. First, I set a constant for the conversion from decimal degrees to radians. That is as simple as creating a Power Query - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 10 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/03/12/preppin-data-2023-week-10-with-power-query/) - This week's challenge built on last week's answer. The steps involved using data scaffolding to insert rows for missing dates. The data set had gaps in dates and the trick to completing this challenge was trying to figure out how to do that without duplicating data that would have skewed your answer. One trick I - [Preppin’ Data 2023 Week 9 – With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/03/05/preppin-data-2023-week-9-with-power-query/) - This week's challenge had an append with 3 tables, some joins (merges) and some trickiness with a running total by groups! A common thing with PowerQuery is using "Group By" a dimension and then using "All" to generate a nested table in a column. If you are able to understand this, then you can perform - [Batch Format Excel Queries With VBA](http://3.226.155.90/2023/03/03/batch-format-excel-queries-with-vba/) - I realize that there are a lot of tools out there to help you with DAX, Power Query, and all sorts of Excel and Power BI things. I am sure any one of those tools does this more efficiently than what I am about to write about. For folks that are using high end tools - [Preppin’ Data 2023 Week 8 – With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/02/24/preppin-data-2023-week-8-with-power-query/) - This week's challenge was a great one in terms of practicing with using the "from folder" functionality in Power Query. There are a lot of things that you can do with this to automate data collection and prep, especially when you are collecting data from multiple sections at work. Having them drop a file in - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 7 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/02/18/preppin-data-2023-week-7-with-power-query/) - This week's challenge was a challenge aimed at practicing multiple joins/merges with filtering. There was an issue I had (that may have been me honestly). I was having issues with the account numbers not merging correctly. I explained what my issue was and what I normally do with IDs and account numbers and talked about - [Preppin Data 2023 Week 6 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/02/09/preppin-data-2023-week-6-with-power-query/) - So this challenge was another intermediate challenge. Unpivot was the main trick to get the data lined up and I walk you through that in the video. One thing to note is that a lot of times conceptually it may be easier to break up your tables and solve issues in a set-by-step fashion. This - [Finding Jobs with Google and Python and ... TikTok?](http://3.226.155.90/2023/02/04/finding-jobs-with-google-and-python-and-tiktok/) - There has been a lot of news lately about corporate layoffs. It is a tough thing to hear about and obviously much worse if you are affected. A while back Tim Blaisdell during one of our internal meetings asked about how we could connect folks with jobs better. Out of that came the USAJOBS Report, - [USAJOBS Report for Data Analysts | Engineers | Scientists](http://3.226.155.90/2022/12/29/usajobs-report-for-data-analysts-engineers-scientists/) - The USAJOBS Report for Data Analysts, Engineers and Scientists is a report that helps veterans, military spouses, and national guard members obtain a data job. This report uses data from the USAJOBS (website for US federal jobs) application programming interface (API). It refreshes multiple times a day, every day. Tips: If you click the filter - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 5 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/02/01/preppin-data-2023-week-5-with-power-query/) - So for this challenge, the same dataset was used, but more tricks were needed. There was a number of groupings that needed to be done, some joins, a nested table... yeah. It definitely kicked up a notch! Here is the video walkthrough: Here is the M code: let Source = Input, #"Promoted Headers" = Table.PromoteHeaders(Source, - [Veterans Advocacy TUG: January 2023 Meeting](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/12/veterans-advocacy-tug-january-2023-meeting/) - Using Data to Tell the Story of Our Heroes - This month Doc Kevin Lee Elder shows you how to break into analytics - RVSP now! - [VA TUG Call Video and Slides - January 2023](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/30/va-tug-call-video-and-slides-january-2023/) - We had a great call with Doc Elder, who has been a great advocate and teacher to veterans over his long career in analytics. The video recording of the call is posted below in case you missed it. Doc provided a great presentation that distilled what to look for jobs, how you can train yourself, - [February 2023 Data Challenge: Survey 32](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/29/february-2023-data-challenge-survey-32/) - Read more about how you can tell the veteran story while building your portfolio by visualizing Survey 32, which surveyed African American soliders during WWII. - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week Two - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/21/preppin-data-2023-week-two-with-power-query/) - The Preppin' Data 2023 Week Two Challenge provided some ways to practice common data prep techniques like joins and merging columns. The data was related to banking and the end result is a table with International Banking Account Numbers. Tip for Merging Columns: When you merge multiple columns, the data types for all the columns - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week 4 - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/26/preppin-data-2023-week-4-with-power-query/) - Follow along as I solve Preppin' Data Week 4. Learn how to deal with multiple tabs on an Excel spreadsheet efficiently with Power Query. - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week Three - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/23/preppin-data-2023-week-three-with-power-query/) - Back with another Preppin' Data Challenge solution using Power Query in Excel! This one was a little more complex than the last one. I stuck to the declarative features in Power Query so that anyone newer to prep can follow along. This challenge involved an unpivot, a join and some other trickery to get the - [Preppin' Data 2023 Week One - With Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/19/preppin-data-2023-week-one-with-power-query/) - I was able to complete this first challenge for this year. They started with some back-to-basics challenges, which was good in terms of practice. If you would like to do the challenge yourself, here is the link. This is a really great community challenge for building data prep skills. Here is my video walkthrough: Lastly, - [Preppin' Data 2022 Week One, with Power Query!](http://3.226.155.90/2023/01/16/preppin-data-2022-week-one-with-power-query/) - I noticed Will Sutton started making videos based off of the Preppin' Data data prep challenges. He has videos on his channel on how to complete the challenges using SQL, R, and Python. I highly recommend those videos for people upskilling in any of those languages, Will is a natural presenter and so good at - [Vet2Viz Story: Chris Aragao](http://3.226.155.90/2022/12/28/vet2viz-story-chris-aragao/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ theme_builder_area=”post_content” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ custom_padding=”54px|||||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” min_height=”711.4px” custom_margin=”-3px|auto||auto||”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]If you asked me in 2005 what I would be doing now, I would have told you I would be a lawyer. 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