Muse, an Astrophysics student at the University of St Andrews, shares his experience as a BI Support Analyst Intern with The Craneware Group.
This summer I’m interning at The Craneware Group (TCG) as a BI Support analyst working in Edinburgh. TCG is a software-as-a-service company that collaborates with US hospitals and healthcare systems to monitor their value cycle. My tasks/projects for the internship will be internal to the company looking to document internal processes the team has developed as well as testing data quality and creating reporting tools the help to make sure all the data that is held is accurate and future-proof.
I’m a big fan of the projects I’ve been assigned as that allows/requires me to pick up as much as I can about TCG and all the work the BI team do in order to accurately understand their processes. This was a goal of mine coming into the internship. I wanted to see all the sides of the job and follow the full process to pick up as much as I can about the use of data in businesses.
Before starting the role, a fear of mine was not knowing enough about the common tools/software used in the business as well as TCG’s processes. However, this was quickly solved as the team have been very supportive in this regard. This was done by setting up 1-to- 1 meetings with different members of the team to understand more about the internal processes of TCG, specifically in the CRM area, as well as getting recommendations on tutorial to complete and the time to complete them.
In just 3 weeks I feel like I’ve learned so much and I can’t wait to see where I am by the next entry.
Last week I received an email to schedule my mid-internship check-in and my first thought was ‘No way it’s been 6 weeks already’. Time has been passing really quickly and I have a feeling I’m going to say similar things at the end of this internship.
As for the last few weeks, I’ve been understanding what goes on in the different roles in the BI team, taking the skills I’ve been taught in the first few weeks and applying them to work that comes in for the team.
For example, for 2 weeks I was looking at part of the work our BI support analyst team member performs with the queue of tasks that come in for the team. During this process, a specific item came up asking to build reports using software that were similar to what I had previously used and so I requested if I could take that on. After receiving permission to work on it, I made a first draft, received feedback on changes to make and the next version was exactly what was wanted. The initial feedback was also really valuable as they also explained why certain changes were required, the thought process that went behind the formatting of reports and the internal stakeholders who would use it. I think this is the achievement I’m most proud of currently as it was something I had the initiative to take on and it also allowed me to learn more about what Power BI Report Builder can do.
Another favourite aspect of this internship has to be the fact it has allowed me to use computer science skills I haven’t had the chance to use since A-levels. Back then SQL was a language I knew the basics of but also didn’t have a chance to expand upon in university but now I feel like I’ve surpassed what I knew even during my A-level Computer Science days.
The Saltire Scholar Programme, right from the initial application all the way to the end of my internship today, has had a massive impact on my professional journey. The initial research and consideration of what I wanted to gain from the programme, the assessment centre experience and the multiple application and interview processes after that have been invaluable. In the past year, I have gained knowledge that might have taken me numerous years without Saltire.
During my time at The Craneware Group, I have deepened my interest in data science and now business information, both sectors that I have had the chance to explore in academia. My internship comprised a range of projects from developing paginated reports to documentation business processes as well as management of ticket support for the BI team. It’s because of this wide approach that I feel I got to understand a lot about the business for one but also about what’s required to work in this sector. This comes back to what I mentioned earlier about deepening my interest in the sector as a whole.
A highlight of my time here is one of the projects I worked on. Using Power Apps Dataflow and applying a set of logic given to me by my manager, we managed to develop a solution to a data duplication problem facing some of the company’s data. Having worked on this for several weeks, I had enough understanding of the data and the problem to be able to present this information alongside my manager to internal stakeholders and make recommendations on what should be done to follow up.
My biggest concern coming into the internship was my lack of knowledge on the tools the TCG uses as well as the sector they worked in (US Healthcare providers).
However, my key takeaway from the project mentioned above and this internship would have to be the company will allow me to learn and pick up the skills required, and I shouldn’t let not knowing something be a barrier as long as I am willing to learn to the best of my abilities.
I would highly recommend this experience to future students. The skills and insight I’ve picked up during my time at TCG are opportunities I don’t think I would have considered had I not gained this internship. And even outside of the internship, the experience I gained from the Saltire Scholars process has been, again, invaluable.
