August 2020 Zeenea Product Spotlight

Release

Your data teams will love Zeenea Explorer, our new data discovery app

While Zeenea Studio facilitates the administration and management (importation, completion, maintenance, etc.) of data for Data Stewards daily, Zeenea’s new application “Explorer” is aimed directly at data teams AKA, the end consumers of data in the enterprise.

The goal of this new application? To make life easier for data teams by enabling them to quickly and simply search for and discover information from their company’s internal data (see our connectors) or from open data.

Through Zeenea Explorer, our application seeks to address in greater detail these data end-users to respond to their daily uses and needs.

For this launch, Zeenea is particularly focused on Data Scientists to better address their needs for discovery and understanding (both business, statistical and technical) of enterprise data.

The advantages of the Explorer?

A design adapted to research and consultation needs,
Data profiling – the main statistical information represented in graphical form, which are very useful for a synthetic analytical reading,
Detail pages that make it easy to read and share knowledge.

In this first release, discover the first available features for your data consumers:

1. A design adapted to research and consultation needs

A quick search experience adapted to user needs

Accessible via the homepage and always present throughout navigation, users can use the search engine at any time to find what they need.They are able to consult their previous searches as well as view suggestions based on the most relevant objects in the catalog.

Easy-to-access filters

To answer the needs of Data Scientists in the first steps of their discovery phase, the main filters available allow them to quickly target the types of objects they want, their quality as well as their sources before offering them all the available filtering possibilities.

On the results page, 4 main filters are directly accessible in order to select:

One or more type(s) of objects present in the catalog (datasets, fields, visualizations, treatments)
One or more connector(s) (depending on the imported data)
The quality of the objects (some objects are declared as being of good quality and can therefore be used with serenity while others require more vigilance)
Object recency (the user can choose the period of time that refers to the object’s update date)
The other properties set via the Studio and necessary for filtering are then grouped together in a final filter presented in the form of a foldout panel.

In the filter settings, users can enter the desired values for even greater ease.

A hierarchy of information developed to meet the information needs at each stage of the investigation

Directly from the results page, Data Scientists access an advanced view of the catalog’ objects. Specific to their needs, they are able to have a look at the technical metadata as well as the source of the metadata that they are used to (re)working with. They also have access to the business specificities of the data, which was documented by the Data Steward teams.

This overview summarizes the essential information about objects such as their logical names, technical names, contacts, metadata source and all the necessary information about the objects. This saves the user from having to browse through each detail page to find the information they are looking for.

From this overview, users can perform actions such as searching for a field on a dataset or even search for a dataset from a visualization.

In short, the data discovery stage is optimized to allow Data Scientists (and more broadly, data teams) to gain in productivity right from the searching stage.

2. Data profiling: a statistical synthesis of the data present in the columns of a dataset

Authorized (or not) by the Data Steward from the Studio, this feature offers data teams, from Zeenea Explorer, a preview of the data present in a dataset.

For each column, a statistical view is available.

The main values taken from a sample of the dataset and sent back via the connectors (BigQuery, PGSQL, etc.) are displayed and represented visually through graphs.

The proportion of missing data, distinct values, medians, data distributions, main values, etc. are represented as graphs and allow the user to quickly grasp the content of fields (columns) such as strings and numeric values.

3. Detail pages that facilitate the reading and the exchange of knowledge

The object detail pages present all the information of each object in the catalog (datasets, fields, visualizations, treatments).

At the top of the page, the main elements of the object are concentrated in a synthesis of the element. Details are then presented in dedicated tabs. The “questions & answers” tab allows users to find answers on an object and to call upon a community to obtain additional information specific to their needs. This not only enables collaboration between users, but also allows the knowledge related to any object to be recorded, enabling enterprises to better share their knowledge on data over time.

Coming soon on Zeenea Explorer :

The objective of the next sprints will be to enhance the direct research with more advanced exploration steps.

Our efforts will focus on the creation of “exploration paths” that will allow data teams to discover and be guided in the discovery of the items in the catalog. Configurable from the Studio, the back office of the Data Catalog, these paths will adapt to Explorer users and will provide a more relevant reading of the assets made available to them in Zeenea.