2024 ASU Data Conference
Navigating Data in an AI World.
ASU is hosting its 8th annual Data Conference, where members of the data community will gather for two days of networking, knowledge-sharing and collaboration. Come hear about the tools that your peers use to extract and query data, create visualizations and build the tools that enable ASU leaders to make data-informed decisions every day.
In addition to a full slate of presentation sessions from your colleagues, this year’s conference will feature a “Tool Bar” where you can stop by and chat with data experts!
That’s not all – back by popular demand is our Sliced! live data visualization competition. Come cheer on your fellow data experts as they create data viz magic and compete to see who will be crowned Sliced! Champion!
Step Up to the Data Tool Bar at the Data Conference!
In addition to an exciting lineup of presentation sessions from your peers, we’re bringing back the our Data Tool Bar—your in-person hub for real-time insights, expert advice, and hands-on demos. Throughout the entire conference, you can drop by and chat with data pros from external vendors to, of course, Enterprise Technology at ASU.
Whether you're curious about the latest data solutions, want to see cutting-edge tools in action, or have burning questions about how to level up your data game, the Data Tool Bar has it all! Our industry specialists are here to guide you, answer your questions, and show you the tech that’s shaping the future of data.
Stop by, grab a spot, and dive into the data-driven discussions! The Data Tool Bar is open throughout the conference—don’t miss your chance to connect with the experts.
Datacademy / Data Success
AI Acceleration
Workday HCM
Governance & Security
Agenda
Each session is represented by a distinct colored line, with the length of the line indicating the duration of the session. The color serves as a quick visual reference, allowing easy differentiation between individual sessions.
Single Session Dual Sessions Double Session Sponsored Session
November 13, 2024
8:30 a.m. Doors Open
A light continental breakfast will be available at this time in the Turquoise Room.
9:00 a.m. Welcome & Keynote
Public vs. Private Data in Generative AI Tools
Presented by: Phil Hill, Educational Technology Consultant and Industry Analyst
Data usage has long been the fuel that runs the Artificial Intelligence engine, and the new generative AI tools take that usage to the next level. There has been plenty of discussion about the general policy and privacy implications of the training of these models, but there is also a growing variant that allows the AI tools to work off of private knowledge sources. Initially there were somewhat complex tools and frameworks for the enterprise IT approach to developing semi-customized models, but with Claude Projects and OpenAI Custom GPTs, there are also now end-user tools to train AI. What are the possibilities with this approach to address the needs of education, and what are the downsides? How should we think about public vs. private data in this emerging market?
10:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: David Sullivan, Feminto Francis & Nathan Nguyen
Discover an interactive and insightful Student Retention Dashboard. Join us to learn more about the creation process that includes query development and table creations, data preparation that highlights a smart use of official (Census) and unofficial (Snapshot/Peoplesoft) data, and automation that involves Alteryx workflow and scheduling.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Tasha Mohseni
Are you designing an AI tool where you would like to request feedback from users? Maybe you created a wearable device that will collect physiological signals and users will track their water intake in the device’s mobile app to assess hydration. If you plan to share these results outside of ASU you need IRB approval! The ASU IRB provides oversight to ASU human subjects research investigators. The session will discuss data collection/confidentiality and consent with respect to these technologies
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Coleman Wagoner, Solutions Engineer, Tableau
Tableau's approach to innovation has always been focused on identifying new ways to help our customers do more, with data, faster. This session will introduce new features that will augment the analytics experience and reach new audiences with AI. Come learn about some of our latest innovations like Viz Extensions, Tableau Pulse and more.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Vanshaj Grupta, Rachel Reed & Yash Pachchigar
We all have that office BFF—the one we share gossip, lunches, project updates, and deadlines with. They help us navigate daily work challenges. But what if your next BFF wasn’t a person, but an AI-powered assistant in Slack? In this presentation, you’ll explore how integrating AI with Slack can revolutionize your workflow, making it more efficient, collaborative, and interactive. Discover how this AI Assistant can become your expert data analyst, brainstorming partner, and innovation gateway.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Matt Clements & Alexis Pumel
This presentation is designed to provide new employees with a comprehensive overview of the essential tools and resources available within ASU's data environment. This session will equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate and leverage ASU’s data sources effectively from day one.
ASU has a wide variety of different tools - however there is still nuance to how to leverage all of the resources available. How do I gain access to reports? How do I make reports? What tools are available? This course will walk analysts through the tools available to them, how to publish reports, and share them with the community.
Room: Ventana C
Before Data Storytelling
Presented by: Josh Johnson
You want to tell a good story with your data, but first you need to understand what you're working with! So, let's talk about data exploration.
Data Cleaning and Preprocessing
Presented by: Jahnavi Lasapriya Vavilala
Data cleaning and preprocessing transform raw data into an analysis-ready format. This involves removing duplicates, handling missing values, correcting inconsistencies, standardizing formats, addressing outliers, and normalizing data. These steps improve data quality, enhance analytical accuracy, and facilitate smoother integration of diverse data sources. While time-consuming, thorough data cleaning is essential for reliable results and informed decision-making across various fields.
11:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Belonging at ASU
Presented by: Samantha Selby
Sense of belonging has been identified as being important for student persistence. This session will cover the Belonging at ASU Project, including development of a learner survey, its psychometrics, and current work.
Persistence, Retention, & Graduation
Presented by: Alecia Radatz
The presentation will cover information related to tracking persistence, retention, and graduation rates at ASU. Furthermore, it will provide an overview of tools to help track this information, resources to help act on the data, and strategic initiatives to help focus the effort.
Room: Gold
Presented by: TBD
Room: La Paz
Using Alteryx for Transaction Review
Presented by: Jessica Yeiter
Explaining how my first Alteryx workflow helps our team prepare for an internal audit.
Entry-Level Alteryx: Merging Two Excel Files into One
Presented by: Andrew Lukosus
This presentation is intended for new or potential future Alteryx users. It includes a brief introduction to Alteryx, an explanation of the canvas and tool palette, and an example use case showing methods for merging two Excel files into one using basic Alteryx tools.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Hamidreza Ghasemi Damavandi & Phil Arcuria
Transformers have revolutionized deep learning by enabling models to effectively capture and process complex patterns in sequential data, such as text and speech. Their ability to handle long-range dependencies and parallelize computations has significantly advanced natural language understanding and generation tasks. In this presentation, we will explore the development of transformers and discuss the key cornerstones that underpin their revolutionary impact on deep learning.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Kassidy Breaux
Think design is an art? Think again. Designers at major companies all over the world are using data to make informed decisions that improve their brand, visual identity, and media (website, print materials, and more). In this presentation we'll uncover how data analysis is used to improve customer engagement in relation to their design touch points.
Room: Ventana C
Demystifying Dashboard Design
Presented by: Kaushiki Kansara
In this 25 mins of presentation, I will be sharing the best secrets and practices for creating reports on Tableau and PowerBi. The major topics would be covered on Types of dashboards: operational, analytical, and strategic., organizing/arranging a dashboard, color formulas on basis of different sectors , knowing the audience and how to avoid common pitfalls in dashboard designing.
Emerging AI tools in Financial Analytics
Presented by: Khushi Wadhwani
Discovering trends, software, and practices used by financial firms of all scales in using AI for faster, more efficient, and accurate financial data processing procedures.
12:00 Lunch
1:10 p.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Usha Jagannathan
The data deluge threatens to drown insights. Through my talk, Let's conquer the data deluge together and make AI our ally, not our competitor.
We will demystify LLMs by unmasking common biases and "hallucinations" to ensure fair and ethical data analysis, become AI detectives to apply practical techniques to detect and mitigate biases, and build trustworthy frameworks discovering tools and frameworks to validate LLM outputs as I share a few real world examples.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Mark Fornefeld
An Introduction of the Data Warehouse Team and How Snaplogic Streamlines Processes
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Jeff Nessen, Google
This discussion will focus on using AI to help analyze data stored in a BigQuery data warehouse.
**This is a double session**
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Namita Shah & Nicole Brewer
In this session, we will explore how to transform static data displays into interactive, user-friendly dashboards. We'll dive into how programmers familiar with Jupyter Notebooks can leverage interactive widgets - like checkboxes, textboxes, and sliders - to make data more accessible and engaging for diverse audiences. Attendees will learn how to package interactive notebooks into easy-to-deploy dashboards that bring data to life.
This presentation is geared toward researchers and audiences who are familiar with Jupyter Notebooks. While we don't assume any familiarity with these tools, we think that audiences with that background will get the most out of our presentation.
Room: Ventana B
Creating the CHS DEW Rate Dashboard
Presented by: David Sullivan, Feminto Francis & Nathan Nguyen
Discover how a new grade analysis dashboard from the College of Health Solutions tracks and compares D, E, and W grade frequencies among our students versus those in other colleges. This session will cover the development process, technical challenges, and how the tool enables course-level exploration to support data-driven decision-making for improving student success.
Double Dipping Dashboard using DARS Data
Presented by: Nishanth Prathap & Lori Harkin
Double dipping is when a course is used to meet more than one degree requirement. In this presentation, we will present the Double Dipping Dashboard created with DARS data and some insight highlights.
Room: Ventana C
New Data Classification and Storage Selector Tools
Presented by: Rachel Clark,Ben Archer; Bri Mascheri & Olli Honkkila
In this presentation, we will showcase the new Data Classification Tool and Data Storage Selector Tool. Attendees will learn how to effectively use the Data Classification Tool to accurately identify the classification of their data and the Data Storage Selector Tool to determine the appropriate storage solutions based on the identified data classification.
Metadata, huh, yeah -- What is it good for? Absolutely everything!
Presented by: Alexis Pumel & Josh Johnson
What is metadata? Why is it important? Where is it leveraged for ASU data? How can everyone contribute?
2:10 p.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Elisa Thomas, Natalie Alexander & Ava Bianco
Imagine having insight into your employer's commitment to fairness before accepting a job offer. While many companies claim to foster an equitable environment, the Women’s Power & Influence Index offers a pioneering tool that deeply analyzes gender equity within Fortune 500 companies. Created by a diverse, predominantly female team, the Index brings a fresh perspective on gender equity, leveraging data visualization to champion equitable policies for women.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Michael J. Jabbour, Chief Innovation Officer @ Microsoft Education
Artificial Intelligence has revolutionized data analysis and management in this Era of AI. Join the Microsoft team to learn about and see our approach to leveraging AI and Generative AI utilizing our Unified Data Platform to extract valuable insights from your existing data, transforming it into actionable intelligence.
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Ralph A
A comprehensive guide to creating and managing macros and workflows. This presentation aligns with documentation / best practices and takes a methodological approach to using Alteryx macros and how to handle them in a production environment.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Jennifer Hornsby
This presentation will cover the most commonly requested student records data and explore concepts such as New/Returning/Continuing, major, campus, primary record flags, enrollment status, academic level, and GPA. Note that this is about the Student Profile tables in data warehouse, PeopleSoft and ODS, it is not about the Student Profile information displayed in Salesforce
Room: Ventana C
Presented By: Ishrat Lallmamode
The goal of dashboard designers and creators is to visualize complex systems with many interdependent relationships that can envelop environments, data structures and data narratives. This session will provide best practices using real life examples from Decision Theater to create effective digital scaffolds to create effective, adaptive dashboards.
3:30 p.m. End of Day 1
November 14, 2024
8:30 a.m. Doors Open
A light continental breakfast will be available at this time in the Turquoise Room.
8:45 a.m. Welcome & Keynote
Around the Data Campfire: Navigating BI in the Age of AI
Presented by: Erin Barringer-Sterner, Chief Data Officer, ASU Enterprise Partners and Elizabeth Reilley, Executive Director, AI Acceleration, Enterprise Technology
From enabling more intuitive data visualization to improving predictive capabilities, AI is fundamentally changing how data professionals interact with and interpret data. Join two ASU data leaders in a fireside chat on how they anticipate AI will impact the field of business intelligence in the months and years ahead.
9:30 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Josh Johnson
Presenting updates on the use of LLM/GPT chatbots for SQL development, including demos of ASU-built models.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Tray Geiger, John Kozel; Elizabeth Barbee & Jorge Garcia
In this presentation, we'll discuss E2E Achieve, ASU's enterprise-wide student appointment scheduling system. We'll first explain how the E2E system works for both students and staff, and then take a deep dive into the E2E data in the Enterprise Data Warehouse. We'll explore multiple E2E data tables and how to best leverage them for your operational and evaluative needs.
Room: Pima
Presented by: Heather Harris, Field Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Alteryx
In this session, we will get beyond the hype of LLMs and dive into how Generative AI is being used by organizations to automate the creation of analytic insights, visualizations, and impactful data storytelling. We will also cover what it means to leverage Generative AI responsibly.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Michelle Welker & Allison Shive
Needing a better way to track data projects and requests, two college data teams created an flexible and customizable Airtable base.
Highlights include:
• Automatically generating tasks and subtasks based on project type
• Automatically notifying requesters and team members via email and Slack at critical points
• Incorporating and documenting QA and other processes within the base
• Using interfaces for intake, project entry, documentation, and reporting
**This is a double session**
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Christina Smith
Are you responsible for tracking student enrollment for your unit? Did you know you can use Power Query to create your own custom reports? In the first half of this double-session we will cover the Enrollment Tracking datasets available to use with Power Query in Excel and how you can create your own custom reports. The second half will allow participants to get hands-on (bring a laptop or share with your neighbor, and be sure you have Student data access). We will also cover advanced Excel formulas and features and ways to validate your results.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Jennifer Hornsby
What data does Registrar Technology Services (Enrollment and Records) provide, how to use Enrollment and Records reports, how to get help
10:30 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Namig Abbasov
"Out you go, no place for you anymore" says Tom’s human in the 1952 "Push-Button Kitty" episode of Tom and Jerry after she replaces him with a robotic mouse catcher. This quote, from a cartoon many of us remember from childhood, now feels strikingly relevant in the current age of AI. Just as Tom was replaced by automation, today we face the question: will AI advancements replace human roles in fields like data science? In this presentation, I will explore whether the rise of AI signals the end for data scientists and what this means for the profession.To address this, I will begin by covering the history of AI's development, including its highs and lows, and how earlier promises led to periods known as "AI winters"—times of reduced interest and investment in the technology. By examining past patterns and the role of current advancements, particularly in hardware and GPUs, I will assess whether AI is headed for another winter or if this time the technological momentum will carry it forward transforming data science.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Carlos Gallegos & Steve Rothfeld, AWS
Implementing an effective data strategy is a critical priority for organizations looking to drive innovation, improve decision-making, and gain a competitive edge. Data lakes have become a core component of modern data architectures, enabling organizations to centralize and democratize access to a wide variety of structured and unstructured data. However, building and maintaining a data lake can be a complex and time-consuming undertaking, often requiring significant technical expertise and manual effort. In this session, we will explore how the latest advancements in Generative AI (GenAI) can help accelerate the implementation of your data pipelines having demonstrated remarkable capabilities in areas like natural language processing, code generation, and knowledge synthesis.
Room: Pima
Presented by: Bailu Li, Amy Felix & Melissa Soucy
ASU Personalized Graduate Admissions (ASUPGA) streamlines the transition for ASU undergraduates into graduate studies without requiring an application. The presentation provides an overview of ASUPGA, focusing on its business processes and data analytics. The presentation will cover workflow optimization and the development of dashboards and reports to track key metrics, assess performance, and support decision-making.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Wanpeng Xu
In this presentation, I’ll dive into how to better communicate data insights to people with different levels of data know-how, whether they’re totally new to it or just not super technical. I’ll share some real-world tips from my time in marketing and academia on how to make complex data easier to understand and more useful for everyone—whether they’re your boss, teammates, or students. If you’ve ever struggled to get your data insights across, this session is for you.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Patrick Samuels
This presentation will outline ASU’s transition from PeopleSoft to Workday HCM for HR data analytics. We'll start by discussing our current setup, where PeopleSoft data feeds reports on the ASU Analytics Portal via the Enterprise Data Warehouse. With Workday, most HR reporting will be done directly within its interface, but we've prepared the EDW to continue supporting our data needs. This change will streamline reporting and open new possibilities for future HR analytics.
11:30 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Data Models. Even you can be Super!
Presented by: Mike Lavarias
Review why data modeling is important before writing a single line of code.
Gen AI Then and Now
Presented by: Joey Choi
Chat GPT launched in November of 2022. How did people perceive GEN AI then? How are people perceiving AI now? Where are we headed with it?
Room: Gold
Presented by: Gunner Tillemans
In "Automations with Alteryx: Tips and Tricks," we'll dive into streamlining workflows by connecting with Alteryx Scheduler, automating report generation and distribution using the Reports toolkit, efficiently connecting to external data sources, and more. This session will equip you with practical skills to elevate your automation capabilities in Alteryx.
Room: Pima
An Introduction to Survey Reporting Site
Presented by: Sehee Kim & Gerald Blankson
This proposed session aims to raise awareness of the Survey Reporting tool and promote its use within the ASU data community. Although the University Office of Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness provides a self-service survey reporting tool that makes data accessible, many potential users are unaware that this data is readily available. In this session, our team will introduce the structure and functionality of the tool, and demonstrate how to create custom survey reports.
Cracking the Code of Rankings Data
Presented by: Scott Brenden & Bryan Lietz
How ASU tracks, dissects, reverse-engineers, communicates, and coordinates college rankings.
Room: Ventana A
Onward 2 Victory -- Predicting Football Game Attendance
Presented by: Kaelah Fordyce & Mike Sharkey
ASU Athletics asked for help in creating a model to predict attendance at ASU home football games. While not a true "big data machine learning" problem, this was a fun challenge for us to attack. Come hear from the data team that created the model and learn the ins and outs of the process.
Data Quality
Presented by: Josh Johnson
What is data quality, why does it matter, and how can it be improved to help us all get to where we need to be in our "data-driven" world?
Room: Ventana B
How to get the data you need
Presented by: Christina Smith
When you ask for data do you then get back a host of questions trying to clarify what you really want that ends up delaying the delivery of the information you need? When you get a data request, and have questions, do you struggle with efficiently asking for everything you need with the first reply back? This session will cover a simple strategy for requesting or clarify data requests to help develop a more efficient dialog between leadership and data specialists.
Beyond the Spreadsheet: Dynamic Dashboards for Course Planning
Presented by: Jenna Graham & Morgan Johnson
Curious how New College is using data to power smarter course scheduling? Join us as we walk through two dashboards that turn classroom scheduling data into insights you can actually use. Wondering if you're packing high-demand courses into the right-sized rooms? Or if you’re offering enough sections of popular classes—or maybe too many of the low-demand ones? We’ll show you how these dashboards help the curriculum team make data-backed decisions, plus uncover a few more surprises along the way!
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Jennifer Hornsby
We want to demonstrate the processes that create and update commonly used academic records, including discontinuation, term activation, and completion (graduation), with a little info about other processes too (admission matriculation).
12:30 p.m. Lunch & Sliced!
Back by popular demand, the 2024 Data Conference will host another Sliced! competition. Come cheer on your fellow data enthusiasts as they create data viz magic and compete for the coveted Sliced! championship!
2:00 p.m. End of Day 2
Parking on campus
The ASU Memorial Union is located at 301 E Orange St. (noted by the star) in Tempe on campus.
We highly encourage using alternative transportation such as carpooling, a golf cart, ride sharing or stretching your legs for a quick walk. With school in session, the parking lots will be very full, making alternate transportation an ideal choice.
Parking validations will not be provided, participants are responsible for paying for their parking.
Which data persona are you?
Data Citizen
The Data Citizen is a capable user of data as a product. The Citizen’s focus is on analyzing the output of various datasets and reports rather than creating data content. Often tasked with answering questions or substantiating facts or assumptions by colleagues or leadership, the Data Citizen does not write code or use a BI Desktop, preferring to consume data in flat files, or pre-built reports that can be filtered and downloaded. Using data may be only a small part of this citizen’s job.
Data Apprentice
The Data Apprentice is a consumer of existing reports to perform analysis and derive insights. They may modify existing reports or perform basic ad hoc queries based on pre-built logic. The Data Apprentice may use a BI Desktop for some functions, like using a visual query tool, or may simply leverage existing assets. While skilled, data wrangling is usually not the apprentice’s primary job.
Data Knight
The Data Knight is a fearless creator of content across multiple platforms and methodologies. Adept at writing queries, creating tables, and scheduling jobs to refresh them, the Data Knight shows no fear of data monsters. The Knight will readily create reporting and visualizations to serve their department or the broader data community.
Data Wizard
The Data Wizard is an academic at the core. While this data magician may have a great understanding of many different tools, is most renowned for skill in data science, statistics, and modeling. Experienced with and capable of using multiple platforms and software, the Data Wizard typically uses them to derive inferences and analyses rather than producing data products or apps.
- We encourage alternative travel such as walking, carpooling or using an ASU golf cart to attend our events.
- Promote bringing your reusable water bottles to reduce single use cup usage.
- Our team only uses evergreen signage and decor which is reused each year.
- Our events work with Zero Waste & Aramark on Think Before You Throw waste awareness.
Request attendees leave lanyards behind to be reused for future events.
Menu Offerings
Please remember to bring your reusable water bottle to this event!
If you have specific allergies, please note this on your registration. We will do our best to accommodate these requests.
November 13, 2024
A light continental breakfast will be served in the Turquoise Room.
- Assorted muffins, danishes and breakfast breads (GF & Vegan options)
- Coffee, tea and water
Lunch will be served in the Arizona Ballroom.
- California Turkey Ciabatta with Avocado, Spinach, Cucumber, Tomato and Ranch Dressing (GF option)
- Roast Beef with Tarragon Horseradish Spread on Wheatberry Bread (GF option)
- Veggie Ciabatta with Chickpeas, Tomato, Spinach, Radish, Carrot, Feta, Dill and White Bean Hummus (Vegan & GF)
- Assorted Cookies & Chips (GF & Vegan options will be available)
- Water & Iced tea
Menu continued
November 14, 2024
A light continental breakfast will be served in the Turquoise Room.
- Assorted muffins, danishes and breakfast breads (GF & Vegan options)
- Coffee, tea and water
Lunch will be served in the Arizona Ballroom.
- Build your own Yucatan Bowl
- Lettuce, Cilantro Lime White Rice, Charro Beans, Braides Beef, Shredded Chicken and Roasted Portobello Mushrooms, Guacamole and Pico De Gallo, Salsa Roja.
- Dulce De Leche Brownies (GF & Vegan options will be available)
- Water & Iced tea