Meet our Academy Consultants – Cati Davies

After the completion of their training, our Academy Consultants are deployed into client teams across the country. Thanks to their development from experienced consultants and support from our Wellbeing team, they’re able to join your tech team and make an impact right away.

Cati Davies joined the Ten10 Academy in 2022 and joined her client in Defence sector as a Tableau Product Engineer. We spoke to Cati about how she’s adapted to her project work, what other teams or departments she works with, and the difference she’s making to her client.

Take us through your client work – what teams have you worked with and what projects have you worked on?

I work as a Tableau Product Engineer for the Tableau Support team. My primary responsibilities are managing user access on Tableau Server, responding to queries and issues regarding Tableau and creating/editing dashboards for users in different business departments. This has allowed me to get to know many different teams with my client’s organisation and learn more about the larger business.

The projects I have worked on have ranged from adding new features to an existing dashboard to:

• fixing problems and creating additional features to help business users
• creating dashboards from scratch to visualise data from departments as they’ve moved over to using Tableau
• creating a product catalogue of all the dashboards available, what they’re for and who approves access for users
• liaising between users and Tableau support to solve issues within the product
• supporting in a server rollback when there was a problem with data.

How do you feel you’ve transitioned from the Ten10 Academy to your client work?

I feel that my transition has been challenging but incredibly rewarding. I joined my client to work on Tableau, a piece of software that I had no prior exposure to, so the first few days were quite intimidating as I wasn’t sure what to expect. My team is very small with only five of us working across Tableau and Archer so I was able to get to know my colleagues very quickly and they were really kind and welcoming. I was able to start learning the ins and outs of Tableau through Udemy courses and calls with my manager to help me understand anything that was confusing me.

I wasn’t expected to come in knowing too much about the program which took a lot of stress off my shoulders and has allowed me to learn the product on the job and has given me exposure to trying to resolve issues by myself with the extra layer of support there if I need it. My client is full of friendly people who have been very supportive and encouraging of my journey so far, I couldn’t have asked for a better client than I’ve gotten and I’m excited to continue working and learning from them.

What technology, tools, frameworks, and processes have you gained experience with?

I have primarily gained experience in using Tableau, as this is the core product of my role. This includes Desktop, where data visualisations are created; Prep, where data can be linked together and cleaned to create a primary data source to use in Desktop; and Server, where all visualisations in the company are hosted and user accounts are managed.

I have also gained experience using Command Prompt with more complexity which allows me to interact with Tableau Server and generate various logs and reports. As part of my role, I have become more confident using Excel to look at raw data and compare it with Tableau when required.

Away from technology, my soft skills have also massively improved. My emails are much more professional and I feel a lot more confident being part of meetings with my colleagues as my ability to convey myself has improved.

What parts of the Ten10 Academy training have been most useful in your work?

The product I’m using wasn’t directly part of the Academy training, however the data and database fundamentals were extremely helpful as we use SQL within our team. Learning more about command prompt was also helpful as I utilise it a lot to create data logs from our server. The development training (which I completed a specialist pathway for) has been particularly useful as it taught me how to learn new software effectively and efficiently, whic has given me a core understanding of code that I can use to learn new languages and software. I also found training covering workflows to be helpful as it has aided me create a workflow that allows me to efficiently manage multiple projects at once.

What is a normal working day or week for you?

A regular day for me begins at 9am, when I log in and check both my personal inbox and the Tableau Support inbox for any problems that may have come up overnight which I need to flag to do that day. I then have a daily stand-up with my team at 9:30 in which we discuss how the previous day went for us and what our goals are for the day. This gives us a chance to plan any meetings we need or anything we may want from each other before the day kicks off. After the stand up I’ll check on ServiceNow for any Tableau access requests that may have come in overnight. I will usually refresh this every few hours to make sure I catch any that come through during the day.

After this, my day greatly varies. I will respond to any emails that have come in overnight to get processes started to fix problems, and then break my time up between any ongoing products on Tableau. I try to arrange to talk to the users relating to the project once a week to keep them updated and make sure no further changes are needed.

How have your client and Ten10 supported your development?

My 121s with my manager have been incredibly helpful and I have individual training for every new skill I learn, with an open invite to call back for help if I need it. My team is very supportive and encouraging overall during our stand-ups and is open to talking about their experiences as new hires which helps build my confidence.

Ten10 has supported me by paying for any Udemy courses I have needed whilst picking up new software. I’ve also been able to reach out to the Wellbeing team whenever I need more support. The bi-monthly Ten10 Academy meetings I have are a big help because my team is small and I don’t get much exposure to other Ten10 Academy Consultants so it’s great to catch up with them and know a bit about what’s going on in other projects.