Jeta Gjana

It is hard to pinpoint only one specific skill, as the amalgamation of skills learned from classes helped me in my internship. One interesting skill has been project management from MIS3535. Every work activity fit into a project management framework, and two weeks of my internship were spent on the project management workstream. Understanding common project management issues, techniques, and priorities helped me start working quickly. I could immediately consider scope and sequencing issues, for example, and flag or correct them. Consulting revolves around people management and motivation, so I needed to leverage teachings from MIS3535 on change/people management. Moreover, every task funneled into project goals, so seeing the bigger picture of project management was critical.

The online excel course has helped me tremendously in my success at the School District. Mostly every document I work on for my advisor is done in excel. With the excel course experience, I was able to efficiently finish my assignments, make accurate calculations in pricing summaries using formulas, and clean charts. I learned all of these skills in the excel course. If I didn’t take this course before doing my internship, I would have struggled to get anything done because I didn’t know that much about excel. Excel in general is an important skill to have and it is something I continue to improve on everyday.

I cannot attribute my internship success to just one classroom skill. I would say however it is a mix between professor Doyle’s flash papers, Gottliebs excel course, and the Business Analysis course. Almost every day I am working within excel, even when pulling reports from LegalServer – I am then downloading them as excel files to analyze and use for projects. The flash paper formula that I learned while in Doyle’s class was extremely beneficial in terms of being given research and then needing to present to my supervisor. I have already had to create to memos on topics unbeknownst to me before hand, his training in that class helped me do those effortlessly. The BA course helped me strengthen those skills related to gathering requirements from clients and applies to my work at VIP immensely.

What have I learned in the classroom that I leveraged in my internship? I would say the Excel class, MIS 3501, and learning how to use Dreamweaver in CIS 0835. Almost every day, I work within Excel to organize data and put them into various different tables and graphs. MIS 3501 has taught and strengthen my coding experience. Sometimes at work, my boss would toss me these little side projects where I have to create different pages for the company’s website. The web application tool that I use at work is Dreamweaver and I am grateful that I learned it early on at Temple. Knowing these particular skills prior to my first day has helped me tremendously and pretty much set me up to do well in my position.

I think that there are quite a few classes where I have been able to take the things that I have learned and leverage them in my internship. My 2502 and 0855 classes helped prepared me for some of the data analytics tasks I have worked on. I have been able to apply what I have learned with Tableau to create custom dashboards of survey data that we have collected. The Business Excel class helped a lot with this as well. I have had to edit excel files before I could properly do my analysis, and having a firm grasp of excel really helped to simplify the process.

Within my internship I have been able to utilize multiple tools that I’ve learned in the classroom. I have found that primarily the skills that I’ve learned in Shaffer’s coding class have been the most beneficial to me. My internship currently deals with a multitude of data sets that I was able to write a code for to simplify how it is viewed so that only the necessary information is displayed. In addition I have recently been working a lot in excel. Leaning how to use Microsoft Project in 3535 is a tool that I have been utilizing frequently to create schedules and such to keep my team on task. Of course there are multiple other skills that are used everyday such as pivot tables and data manipulation within Excel. Thanks to the background knowledge I have in Excel I am able to use it’s hidden features to analyze that large data sets that are presented to me relatively stress free.

I believe the project management skills that I learned in MIS 3535 were very helpful to me in my internship. I have used the skills I learned in that class to maintain proper due dates and meeting times with my team. That class has helped me develop a set of skills that are critical to my time at QVC, and these skills have allowed me to assist my managers and teammates in ways that increase productivity. I also thing the excel class I took was very helpful to me during my internship. I have had to work on VLookups, and have had to deal with many other activities within excel. Taking the excel class really helped me find easier ways to accomplish tasks that may otherwise take much longer. Overall, there have been multiple classes that I have leveraged during my internship, and I know there will be many more instances where I will be able to put this knowledge to use.

Business Communications was very useful. I tend to want to elaborate in my emails to make sure that I’m explaining things without any ambiguity. However, I accept that most people don’t want to read a long email so I spend more time editing my messages to make sure they’re straight to the point.

Data Analytics was one of the most useful classes I had taken while I in school in terms of what helped me in work. It gave me experience in terms of utilizing Excel most efficiently when dealing with large data sets. The class also gave me an understanding on databases and how things link together in the collaboration database system we use to manage and store data records. Most of my higher ups were pleasantly surprised at how I knew most of the technical jargon which comes from database systems (ex: field, records) and how I understood that you would have to join certain tables together to link the information of a record in Table A with that of Table B.

With the education I have received at Temple University, I have learned many skills that have helped me in the business world. I have learned how to have an open mind and accept change within the work place. I have a wide scope of knowledge pertaining to different types of systems. The MIS program covers so many things. The program in general has enabled me to be creative and think quickly on my feet. The most beneficial skills for me are learning programming languages, and project management skills.

There are many things I have learned in my MIS courses that I have leveraged in my internship. One of them being how to use an analyze google analytics. Currently, I am working on developing a more user friendly website that is optimized for both users and search engines. Additionally, the data analytics class taught me how to analyze the data we collect from google analytics in order to properly implement it. The class also taught me how to identify clusters and define segments. Currently, I am taking Digital Design and Innovation, which has provided me with a great prototyping tool that I am able to leverage to produce prototypes of our pages and test out the flow from a customer perspective without implementing any changes just yet.

Temples MIS program has helped me adapt to my current work situation in multiple ways. Currently in MIS 3506, we focus on qualities and skills that a good Business Analyst should have to be successful. Understanding the basic communication skills and formats for eliciting Business Requirements helps me better communicate with the current BA that I am doing a project for. Understanding these concepts also help me to derive specific questions to ask the BA when there is a misunderstanding. In my Business Intelligence role, I mainly deal with “Big Data” which directly correlates with MIS 2502, Data Analytics. Although the software I currently use (Business Explorer Query Designer and Analyzer) was not taught in the class, it still gave me the basic understanding of data warehouses and different analytical techniques to be successful in my work.

During my internship I wouls say the skills I learned in Business Communications and Excel class were skills I was able to use. Communication in the workplace is paramount and being able to get your point across in a well crafted email can make your life way easier especially in a large company when people are receiving many emails everyday. Excel class comes in handy because many projects still use excel to create matrices and tables. The skills learned in that class help me get things done more efficiently than others.

I completely re-designed our marketing initiative using the HTML/CSS skills I learned in Professor Shafer’s class. Previously we were just sending the standard mailers and we had little to no digital marketing. Now I’m completely redesigning the company website utilizing those skills and the project management skills I learned in 3535 with an external team.

My Virtual Wallet app for PNC tells me my balance.
Specific and Measurable- it tells me how much money I have currently and that is a precise measure/amount.
Achievable- I can deposit more money for a specific goal.
Relevant- it determines whether or not I can withdraw money and whether or not I should deposit money if there isn’t enough funds.
Time-variant – I can look at my balance over days, weeks, etc.

An example of a KPI that is especially relevant to students is calculating Grade Point Average (GPA). It is a medium used to measure the performance of a student in school/college. It is specific and measurable as it is measured on a 4.0 scale, and the average number is calculated by dividing the total grade points earned by the total number of class credits. It is achievable as students can perform according to their specific goal. It is relevant as GPA is directly linked to a student’s chances of getting a scholarship and a job – higher the GPA, higher the probability of getting a high scholarship and a good job. It is a time-variant as the student can keep track of his/her GPA over the course of the academic year.

I like to check my credit score through the Discover app that I have. It is not something that I use on a daily basis but I mostly go on there to see how I am doing. There are many factors that go into how the credit score is formed and they can be considered as the KPIs. According to the SMART criteria, Specific, Measurable, Relevant and Time-bound would relate to the KPI that form the credit score. Specific because the score lets you know where you stand on the scale, Measurable because they provide you the score every month, Relevant because credit scores are important to know since based on the score, you can tell if you are doing well or not and Time bound since the score changes every month.

GPA is the first KPI that came to mind. GPA is a measured used to determine the overall performance of a student by taking the grade points allocated for the grades achieved in a course load and dividing it by the total credit hours. It is achievable as a student can gauge what their target GPA is and the grade needed to achieve the goal. GPA is relevant because a higher GPA results in more job opportunities, college and graduate school scholarships. Time-variant because you can calculate your GPA at any point during the day, week, month and semester.

My body weight is a KPI for myself. It is specific as it pertains to me and only me. It is measurable by stepping on a scale and telling me the number of pounds I am. It is achievable by me able to stay within a certain range by exercising. It is relevant as it directly affects my health and body. It is time-variant as I can see the change in my weight over time and adjust accordingly.

A KPI or set of KPIs that’s relevant to me and other Temple students is their DARS score(s).
S – It is a set of numbers that tell how many credits they need to complete their university requirements as well as major requirements.
M – Total credits are measured out of 120, but students can earn more if they double major, minor, change major, etc. University credits are measured out of 34. I don’t believe that number may be exceeded. Major credits vary according to major, but are detailed in the report as well.
A – As a student completes courses, the DARS report fills up. On the page there is a pie chart and several bar graphs that can be used to measure benchmarks.
R – As a Temple student, the DARS determines whether or not a student has the necessary credits to graduate.
T – Just like a student’s GPA, the DARS scores are affected over the course of time depending on the courses taken and are necessary to take.

The KPI that I use daily is the percentage of battery on my phone. The battery percentage tells me how often I use the phone or which applications require lots of battery such as video call. It is specific and measurable because battery percentage is precise. It is achievable because I can charge my phone for some certain cases in which I need to use lots of battery and could not charge later. It’s relevant because the battery percentage shows whether I’m spending too much time on my phone and I need to put it away to focus more on studying and real social life. And it’s time-variant because I can check the battery percentage anytime during the day to adjust my phone activity.

One KPI I use daily is the Stocks app on my phone to know stock price changes and what to invest in.
Specific and Measurable- The prices are always kept up to date and accurate.
Achievable- I can set a goal of what I want to earn.
Relevant- The money I invest is always changing.
Time- I can look at past history to know the previous performance.

A KPI metric that I use for performance daily would be my personal weight scale. This is specific and measurable to me as I can see the fluctuation of my weight on a daily basis. It is is achievable in that I can maintain a weight that I seem fit and make sure I stay relatively in shape. This is relevant to me as I am able to understand if I am eating healthy or not. Time is determined by making sure on a yearly basis I maintain the same figure and weight. This is the most common KPI I use as a performance metric.

A KPI that I try to use on the daily basis to track my sleep is the the sleeping app on my iPhone. This is specific and measurable because it tells me how I sleep and also measures my sleep meaning if I move a lot or not. It is achievable because it would help me improve my sleeping in the future compared to how i currently sleep. It is also relevant because it helps me check if I have the right habits before I sleep or just sleep badly. Lastly, it is time-phased, I am able to check how I slept today compared to other days, weeks, etc.

A KPI that I use daily is checking my online banking on my phone.
It is specific and measurable because I can see my exact balance and any pending charges.
It is achievable because if there is a number I want to strive for than I can set that goal in mind while checking the account.
It is relevant because my money is important to my everyday life and things I do.
It is Time because it shows me my history dating back months and years.

A KPI that I use daily is the amount of steps that I take each day, and a certain goal for a number of steps I should be taking to be considered “fully active”. It is specific and measurable as I can always see the exact number of steps I have taken not only today, but every day as it is estimated. It is achievable as it gives you a goal for the amount of steps you should be taking everyday. It is relevant because I believe it can motivate someone to be more active in what they do in a single day. It shows time in how many steps per day, hour, and average steps per week and month.

A KPI that I use daily is my phones battery percentage. It is specific and measurable by the percentage number of battery life I have left. It is achievable because I can charge/use my phone to gain or decrease battery percentage. It is relevant because when it is charged, it has an impact on my phone bill/how much I use my phone. Its time-varient is how long my phones battery lasts/where it is at throughout the day/week.

A KPI that I use daily is my calendar. It is specific and measurable, as i can see my events for any upcoming day. It is Achievable, because i set to complete all marked events on the calendar. It is relevant, because it has my work scheduled and class assignments/Exams that i need to be reminded of. Time- i can keep track of all past events and future events, over days, weeks & months.

A KPI that I use daily is the performance indicator on my Bloomberg terminal for the Owl Fund’s investment portfolio.
Specific: Tells us how specific stocks and sectors have performed over a period of time
Measurable: Performance is measured by including a benchmark for comparison, which is usually an index like the S&P 500
Attainable: Holdings are replaced and added to the portfolio through various pitches by which the performance fluctuates
Relevant: Allows us to see if our portfolio is beating the benchmark or not, which creates added value in an active management fund
Time: Tracks the historical performance of the fund’s portfolio and can be customized for two specific dates

Amount of calories burned while running on Treadmill

S: Tells me the exact number of calories I burned
M: It’s measured by my putting in personal weight and age. Also, it’s measured by how fast I am going and how many miles I ran
A: The number is displayed on the screen while and after I’m running. I can use it to track my process in weight loss.
R: Allows me to determine how quickly I can loose weight or burn calories.
T: The number of calories is dependent on how long I am on the treadmill. I can burn a certain amount of calories in this amount of time.

A KPI that is regularly utilize is Robinhood, which is a stock application on my cell phone.

Specific – Tells me the daily, weekly, and yearly performance of a specific security.

Measurable – The stock is part of both a market and an index, such as S&P 500 and NASDAQ, and it can be compared with either of the options.

Attainable- Based on certain metrics, such as PE ratio and other methods, I can assess which stock to hold in my portfolio, and when to sell the position.

Relevant – Since stocks are infamous for their rapidly changing price due to an increase in high frequency trading, this app helps me stay on top of the market!

Time Variant – As mentioned before, this KPI tracks the prices of stocks daily, weekly, and yearly, which allows me to track the performance for each security.

One different type of KPI I thought of is the overall rating of my Madden ultimate team.

S – The rating is specific to the players in my lineup.
M – The game uses a formula to measure team overall.
A – I can acquire different players and put them into my team to achieve the overall I want.
R – Team overall is relevant to the level of difficulty when I play against an opponent.
T – The overall is time-variant, as better players get released over time.

A KPI that I use daily is the calorie counter.
Specific: it shows the calories of each food, and calculates the needed calories based on my weight and height.
Measurable: I can measure the calories by entering the food and its serving size.
Achievable: I could adjust what I would consume in a day so that my calories would not exceed the necessary amount.
Relevant: An adequate amount of calorie intake is essential to maintain my current weight.
Time-phased: I can measure this daily, or as often as needed.

A KPI that I regularly utilize is my fitness app.
S- the app is specific for me as I enter my personal information in
M- it shows the amount of steps I take along with calories burned
A- I can set a goal for how many steps and calories I want to burn
R- It helps maintain my activity
T- Tracks how long I am active for and I can set when to measure activity

A KPI that I use regularly is my Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app on my phone.
S- The app is specific to me because it measures my sleep and has settings for my alarm set to my preferences
M- It shows the exact time that is best for my body to wake up
A- I can set the alarm or time range for what best works for me
R- Helps keep my sleeping schedule in tact
T-Is relevant to me on a daily basis for when I am supposed to wake up

A KPI I use regularly is my Fitbit Application.

Specific – The app is personalized to my activities.
Measurable – Measures how many steps I take in a day and throughout the week.
Achievable – I am able to set weekly/daily goals for steps.
Relevant – Step count has an impact on my health.
Time-variant – I can check my steps for the day, and the entire week as well as my average steps.

A KPI that I use on a regular basis would be a weighing scale. It is specific and measurable because it is precise when telling me how many pounds I weigh. It is achievable because I can set my goal weight and try to reach that the weight whether I am trying to gain/lose pounds. It is relevant because weight has an impact on my health. And it is Time-variant because I can look at my weight over the course of days, weeks, months, etc.

A KPI I use on a regular basis is my PNC Virtual Wallet.
Specific/measurable: It tells me my current balance and keeps track of my pending transactions.
Achievable: It lets me know when I hit a certain balance and I can deposit more to reach a goal of rent, shopping, etc.
Relevant: If I do not have enough money for rent, I can be evicted.
Time-variant: It allows to me go back to previous account activity from weeks ago to see past bills I have paid or if I got charged multiple times for something.

An example of KPI that I use on a regular basis is how much battery life I have left on my phone.
Specific and Measurable- it tells me the exact number at what my battery is at
Achievable- I am able to get it fully charged
Relevant- i can use my phone for a certain amount of time depending on how much battery I have.
Time-variant- if its fully charged it will last a lot longer than it being on 40 or 50 percent

An example of a KPI that I use on a regular basis is my Fitbit App. It fits the SMART criteria because is:
Specific: The app is personalized with my height, weight, calories intake and my daily activities.
Measurable: It measures the number of steps I walked or climbed per day. Also measures for example, amount of calories burnt and sleep quality.
Achievable: Because I can set goals for weight, steps, calories burnt and hours of sleep per day.
Relevant: Fitbit App is relevant because since I have all my activities controlled (even considering a margin of error) I can feel the impact on my health and helps me maintain my daily activities.
Time-variant: The app allows me to check on a daily, weekly or monthly basis my progress. Thus, I can measure my level of activities considering the period of time that better suits me.

An example of a KPI that could be used on a day to day basis could be heart rate. This KPI follows the SMART criteria:

Specific: Your heart rate at any given moment has a specific number/measure which correlates to a specific state of health. Depending on what your heart rate is, you could be healthy or not healthy.
Measurable: Your heart rate is a number that has value.
Achievable: If your heart rate is at an at risk number, there could be goals to achieve a better and healthier rate.
Relevant to success: Continuing to check your heart rate regularly and changing your lifestyle/diet can affect the actual change in the heart rate — potentially/ideally improving your health, a sign of success.
Time-variant: If you keep a physical log yourself, you would be able to go back and check previous rates, or even some sort of app, you’d be able to do the same thing.

The KPI that I use are stocks I bought.
S- How many shares stock I want to buy.
M- How much money I have and what’s the price of the stock.
A- Based on the market. choose different kind of stocks.
R- Dose the profit achieve my goal.
T- I have weekly goal, monthly goal and year’s goal.

One example of a KPI I use is my credit card (Discover) account and my credit card score. My Discover card gives me a free credit score every month.

Specific and Measurable- Tells me specifically how much money I need to pay off and the other financial activities that are still processing.
Achievable- If I want a better credit score, I would use my credit card more often and pay my credit card bill immediately.
Relevant- My credit score is relevant when taking out loans for school or for a car.
Time Variant- I can look at the changes of my credit score every month online through Discover’s website.

Even if I do not use it on a daily basis, the bitcoin online wallet I created an year ago could be considered as a KPI. The wallet contains a specific amount of bitcoins, I am personally able to manage the bitcoins and exchange money into bitcoins, they are relevant to me because they allow me to take advantage of the rapid growth bitcoins have had in the recent years and their value is rapidly increasing the and finally, the account shows the transactions made in a specific period of time.

A KPI that came to my head instantly when I thought about a performance KPI is a speedometer.
1.) Specific: It’s specific because it is showing you how fast you are going at a certain time and also when to shift your car if you have a manual.
2.)Measurable: It is measurable because the speedometer is tracking the tires and seeing how many times they rotate on the road, they measure your miles per hour and display it on the odometer so you can follow the speed limits.
3.)Achievable: You can notice the speed changes in different parts of the city.
4.)Relevant: Speed has a huge impact on how we drive it determines if we get there faster by going faster other than going later on and driving slower.
5.)Time Variant: Like I said before, the faster you go the faster you will arrive and the slower you drive the slower you will arrive to your destination.

Apple watch tells me how many steps and calculate the calories burns each day. According to the SMART criteria, I can check how many steps I walked and how many calories burn each day. If I sit too long and need more exercise to achieve the daily goal, it will alert me. Keep exercising is good to maintain health. I can check All history data Apple watch collects.

A KPI that I interact with on a daily basis is my move goal which is calculated on my watch. I have set my goal at 700 calories per day, requiring me to workout to make that goal. It covers the SMART criteria because:
1) Specific: It measures exactly how many calories you have burned through activity in a day.
2) Measurable: It is easily trackable and measures your activity based on movement throughout the day
3) Achievable: You can tell when you have been more active and therefore more healthy in a day versus the amount of movement when you have been sitting all day.
4) Relevant: The more I move the healthier I am. As a student, it is easy to be lazy and sit inside to study and go to class all day. Making a conscious effort to exercise and move makes me a healthier and happier person.
5) Time Variant: You only have so many hours in a day to make your move goal and seeing how much time you have left motivates you.

A KPI that I use on a daily basis is my GPA. As I am applying to internships and jobs my GPA is a key indicator in my dedication to school. This is specific and measurable as the GPA is a specific number based on a 4.0 scale. It is achievable as I can do more, or less, to alter my GPA. Worse grades make it go down and better grades in my classes make my GPA go up. It’s relevant because my GPA could or could not get me a job. Lastly, it’s time-variant, I can look at a certain year, semester, my fox upper management course or lower, ect.

As a business student, a KPI that I use on a regular basis is stock prices. Stock prices definitely have SMART criteria. They are specific; they tell you how much money you need to buy one share of stock in a certain company. They are measurable: they are measured in dollars or other monetary units in other countries. They are achievable: companies can set and reach stock price goals in order to gain more shareholder and more money. They are relevant: stock prices going up are a good sign that the company is doing well while if the stock price is going down then it is an indicator that the company isn’t doing too well. They are time-phased: you can measure stock price hour-to-hour, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year to see the state of the company.

A KPI that I use on a regular basis is iPhone health app especially “sleep” features.
Since I use it everyday, and it also meets the SMART criteria.
Specific and Measurable: I can set an exact time, and it is also measurable that there is sleep analysis that tells me average sleep hours, and how many times did I wake up while sleeping.
Achievable: I can set a time that how long am I want to sleep and also able to set a range of it.
Relevant: It is relevant since it helps my daily conditions.
Time-variant: It also indicate the time that how long did I sleep or will I sleep.

A KPI I use on a regular basis is attendance of club meetings for Temple University’s American Marketing Association. It is specific because it is the amount of people in attendance of a certain meeting, measurable because it’s possible to count the people in attendance at a meeting, achievable because we can affect attendance by email reminders and advertising events, relevant because meeting attendance contributes to our annual report and chapter ranking, and time-variant because we can look at attendance for one meeting or attendance for the whole year.

A KPI that I use every day is an app that tracks how many calories I eat each day. It’s specific because I am allowed to eat a specific amount of calories per day. It’s measurable because calories are a unit of measurement. It’s achievable because it is possible to eat the amount of calories per day that I assign for myself. It’s relevant because caloric intake is directly related to my health, which is important. It is also time bound because I’m measuring the calories on a daily basis, so every day I have a goal I’m trying to meet.

One KPI that i use on a daily basis is my pedometer app. It is measurable because it tracks my steps every day and I try to reach at least 10,000 steps. If i can achieve this goal of 10,000 steps it will motivate me for the next day. It is relevant because it affects my health and my cardiovascular system to keep me in shape.

A KPI that I tend to use frequently would be my online banking app. In order to see and keep up with my finances it’s vital that this type of KPI uses the SMART criteria.
S: It’s specific in the way that it only pertains to my account number, therefore; my balance only.
M: It’s measurable in the way that it tells me exactly how much I’ve spent and what I have left.
A: it’s achievable in the way that I have a set-up limit in how far my balance can drop.
R: It’s relevant because it automatically updates my account and balance one a transaction or deposit is made.
T: It’s time-phased in the way that I can look at my spending history and how much I’ve spent since I’ve opened the account.

A KPI i use in my everyday life is my Charles schwab brokerage account. It tells me how im preforming in my stock portfolio relative to the market. It follows the smart criteria because it is specific measurable, attainable, Relevant to real world, and time phased.

Since my experience with excel is very limited I have never made one of these mistakes due to not having an opportunity to. The most important data corruption mistake to avoid is to not click Yes when the message says “do you want to remove this from the server?”. This is the most important to avoid because it is extremely detrimental to the work you are doing and it deletes not only the data but also the metadata.

Before taking this course, I rarely worked with data and programs like excel. But, If I were to relate to one of these, it would be clicking “yes” without carefully evaluating the message that says “do you want to remove this from the server?” I have definitely made this mistake before on my computer and deleted things I did not mean to get rid of. I probably did not make this mistake on excel because I do not use the program often. But I have made the mistake before and deleted important information by accident. I think it is very important to avoid clicking “yes” without completely evaluating what the message is saying because you could lose data and information completely, or create much more work for yourself.

During senior year of High school, I had to use excel to create my own credit card balance and show what will happen if I only pay the minimum amount and how much more I would end up paying. Since the assignment asked us to put an amount of $100,000 or higher, the rows were extremely long. I fell in the stupid corruption tricks of “Copying formulas that use relative coordinates” where I “intended to copy cell contents all the way to the end of a row set, but the copy-down operation stops at an empty cell” that I didn’t notice. I then had to start all over again because my data had already become dirty.

I had an experience with number 4, it was during my high school year when i was trying to sort my data from my bio lab and I accidentally forgot to select all of the columns. It was not something that could be easily fix and i have learned my lesson since then. The one thing I would mostly want to avoid is working on the database w/o doing a full backup prior. That way if I were to mess up, I can easily pull up the database that I saved before and rework on the database.

Most of my experience with Excel has come this semester, and I have yet to have any major issues with data corruption. I believe the most important mistake to avoid is clicking “yes” without reading the “do you want to remove this from the server.” This can lead to the deleting of metadata and configurations, as well as data.

I believe the most important thing to remember is to create the backup. Anything can happen within a software and we always regret it when it happens after we do a ton of modifications. Sometimes, but not always, Excel has the auto save feature, but that rarely occurs when the computer itself loses power. Having a backup ready or even saving a worksheet periodically can save one time and money.

There have been a couple of instances where I have copied formulas that use relative coordinates when trying to make calculations using a set of data. When this happens, the formula doesn’t use the correct cells and there will be a miscalculation. Luckily, these problems have been easy for me to fix because the data sets I have worked with are relatively small and it is obvious when there has been an error in the formula. However, these minor errors show the importance of being careful when using formulas in Excel.

One mistake that I have made quite often is to copy the formulas that use relative coordinates. The error occurs when the correct cells are not selected in the formula which results in a miscalculation; you wish to copy all the cells till the end but the copy-down operation stops if there is an empty cell. There have been times when I fail to notice the glitch in the calculation until I go back and review the entire data set. To avoid this issue, certain values must be locked so that they don’t change when the cells are dragged down. This just shows that you cannot assume that all the information in Excel is accurate, and you have to be careful in order to avoid miscalculations.

I’ve used Excel a lot throughout both high school and college. It’s safe to say that I’ve made a number of these errors. I’ve definitely opened a CSV file directly into Excel without meaning to. I was probably aggregating phone numbers and trying to tie them to various DMAs. I’ve also copied formulas that use relative coordinates without editing the formula. This has happened in many assignments at Temple. The data would have errors all over the place and I had to edit it before using the formula.

I make the mistake of not backing my excel data up before editing it. As I never had any really big issues, it still is a concern that I don’t do it. The main reason I’m getting lucky Is because of the Excel “reverse” function that allows me to fix a quick mistake. However, in the future if I am doing a big project in Excel, I think the backup would be necessary.

I have made two mistakes that are stated in the article. The first mistake is that I started working on a database without backing up the original file. The reason this was bad was because I did not remember what I had before I have made the changes. Also, I couldn’t compare the two types of data or even delete the data and try again with the original. The other Mistake I have made was missing the data type, because if you put a zero of the beginning, it would automatically be deleted if the data type is not text. I thought if I had the type on numbers I would be able to put zero at the beginning but that was not true.

I think the most important mistake to avoid when it comes to working with excel is to “start working on the database without doing a full backup first” because if you don’t back up or save the original copy and you make a mistake, there is no way to go back. You would have to start your excel sheet all over again. It wouldn’t matter if you were sure not to make any of the other data mistakes like missing the data type, if you screw up your entire spreadsheet and can’t go back to the original.

Since my experience with working Microsoft excel I have committed mistake number 6, which would be “Miss the data type.” This occurred when I was working at my front desk job at Temple and mistakenly misrepresented a date as an integer. Because of this mistake, the dates were messed up and did not correlate with the rest of the data I had in the excel spreadsheet. This caused false data to appear for my co-workers and I. I now always try to avoid at all costs making that same mistake again.

I have never had a personal experience with any of the data corruption mistakes described in “Stupid Data Corruption Tricks”. However, by reading the article it does become fairly clear which mistakes out of the ones listed are worse than others. To me, I believe the mistake which is most important to avoid is “start working on the database without doing a full backup first”. Saving your work and backing it up is very important. If you do not save your work or make a mistake like this, you may lose all of your work and be forced to start all over again. This is a mistake which I believe is the most important to avoid out of the mistakes discussed in the article.

I have indeed made one of the mistakes listed in “Stupid Data Corruption Tricks”. I don’t have much experience with working with data, but in all of the times that I have I have never made a backup of my data. At my level, the slip up doesn’t really matter as none of my data mattered, but it could quickly become a much larger problem as I start working with more important data that would need to be backed up. In the future, I will start performing backups of my data in case an unexpected problem occurs.

I believe that the most important mistakes to avoid is number 3. Starting to work on a database that has not been fully backed up first is one of the easiest mistakes to make. It is also one of the most simple tasks to follow.

One of my most unforgetful Excel mistakes involves number 4 – sorting. It was last summer when I was recruiting attendants for my 200-person study-abroad event. Instead of only clicking the first cell of the column I wanted to sort, I selected the entire column and sort. Hence, all the data mixed up but the worst part was I did not realize that. I even sent out all the acceptance and rejection letters for more than 500 people. When my teammate found out that we messed up the data sheet, we had to start all over again and even had to find a way to recover the original sheet. Then we had to email all 500 people again with apologies. I would never forget this mistake and this great Excel lesson.

Since I have a very limited experience on Excel I haven’t made none of those mistakes. However, by reading the article I believe the most important and relatively easy one to avoid is “start working on the database without doing a full backup first” because by having a backup is a secure way to have always your starting point in hands in case of any mistakes along the process or even just to check information in the original data. Without a backup your ability to review any points of the original data gets impaired and correcting this is an easy step that would bring a lot of positive rewards.

When working for an energy efficiency company we were collecting data on energy efficiency rebate programs throughout the country. The database would then be read by a system that could auto populate the rebate applications. For the system to read the data though it needed to be formatted perfectly. It was very difficult to determine the proper data type while collecting the information. We also were able to easily corrupt the data by uploading excel docs twice or not converting them to CSV files.

I think the most important thing to avoid is #3 “Start working on the database without doing a full backup first.” This is because small edits or changes can corrupt the data or interfere with reports. This can cause frustration on the database administrator’s end, but more importantly result in inaccurate information or a crippled system.

I have yet to make one of these mistakes but I am sure over the course of the next few years here at Temple I am bound to break one of them. I feel the most important thing to avoid would be Number 1. The absolute last thing any person wants is to lose all their hard work they’ve created without realizing it. In the past, I’ve deleted papers by accident and didn’t realize until I tried to pull them up days later; there’s no worse feeling than that.

One of the common mistakes I have made in excel are placing values in fields that are supposed to be pointers or references. Sorting through vasts amounts of data can be difficult to coordinate, especially when there are saved references. Usually, I have a difficult time dealing with this in excel or a CRM system. To avoid this, I began highlighting the referenced points in either a different font or color. This ensures that the saved data won’t be corrupted or come up with a “Reference Error.”

In my previous internship I was assigned a task to pull all the clients with all their information. This entailed a lot of fields and columns in excel. I made the mistake of working on this document without ever saving it. One day I was in a rush to leave work and forgot to save the file on my drive. That night the tech restarted all computers and updated the software. I sadly lost all the information that i was working on for weeks. i believe backing up your data is one of the most important things you could do.

One of the problems I encountered from the article is sorting a spreadsheet without including all the columns, I was working on a database for an organization I volunteer for and I was sorting the members by status––how often they come depicted by “A,” “B,” and “C.” The database contained all personal information such as full name, phone number, address, status, position within the organization, etc. All of the data got jumbled up; however, I was able to correct it since I had a backup file available.

Start working on the database without doing a full backup first

This is the one that I feel would be most important. Before working on something you must make sure you have a backup. There are so many things that can happen and you always want to have a backup just in case. That is my number one rule when working with anything on the computer. I always have a backup saved somewhere. To me it is most important.

I have not used excel too much in my life, so I have not made any of the mistakes listed. However, if I had to pick I would say, “Click “yes” without carefully evaluating the message that says “do you want to remove this from the server?” is the worst mistake. We as individual workers are always trying to get our work done as fast as possible and it is easy to misread a pop up window. That is why I think this is the most important mistake to avoid because it is something that could dramatically effect our excel sheets.

I think the mistake that I have done from this article is not backing up data before working on it. I have worked on certain things and a handful of times my computer would shut down and the material that I was working on didn’t save and I lost everything. This could easily be avoided if I continue to backup my files and I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my work.

A mistake I have made before from this list, is the error in #4 where when you sort a spreadsheet and you do not add all the columns. I was organizing a list of internships for my job in the STHM CSPD, but neglecting to add 3 extra columns when sorting which would have left the data out of place for these specific 3 entires. I was able to fix it however since I went back to check my work before finalizing and passing it on to my boss.

One of my biggest mistakes I made in excel was not making a back up. My professor for my excel class actually told us that we should do this in case we made a mistake. However, I didn’t think anything of it and because of that I faced the consequences. While doing an assignment I made a mistake in the excel documented and couldn’t go back and because I didn’t had a back up I had to start all over. Ignoring that tip was’t the best idea and me having a back up has became a habit every time I use excel.

I have not worked with Excel as much as other people but I do think that number 3 is the most important to avoid. A lot of times I make sure to save my Excel file at least every 20 minutes before I continue working. I am always scared that I will forget to save my work. I even put it on my flash drive and work on the file on my computer than replacing the finished file in my flash drive again.

I usually forgot backup my works before. The most serious situation I faced about half year ago. My computer’s hard drive was broken, and it could’t start. When I brought my computer to fix, a lot of pictures, word, excel and data couldn’t recovery any more. So backup important documents is very important.

I have never really worked with Excel before so I have not made any of these mistakes. I think number three is the most important problem to avoid: “start working on the database without doing a full backup first.” I always save everything that I do about 3 times before I am actually finished working on whatever it is. I get very paranoid that wha I am working on will not get saved at all, or not saved after I am finished with the final product.

Though I have made mistakes using excel before, I cannot clearly recall a time where I made any of these ten mistakes. However, I would think that the one that is most important to avoid would be mistake number 5: using a deduping tool with “loose” criteria. For most of the mistakes listed in this sheet, it seems that making that mistake can be undone if you realize the error quickly enough. However, the article says that merges, which is part of mistake 5, cannot be undone. If you were to make this mistake then it is extremely difficult to rectify your mistake.

In my opinion, creating a backup is more important than anything else. No matter what I did wrong, I can open the backup and do it again. Once I was typing an essay on an old version of Microsoft Word, and the computer was very slow and automatically shut down after a few hours. All my work was unsaved, and I have to rewrite the paragraphs I have done. After that, I click save button almost every 3 minutes to make sure I have the backup.

Since I use excel very infrequently I haven’t experienced these mistakes off hand. In my opinion I think the most important data trick is being able to identify what system your logged into. If you don’t log out of your account before switching from computer to computer people can change the data or even delete your files.

Since I have not used excel that much before I did not make any of the mistakes listed in the article. However, I think the number 1 that “clicking “yes” without carefully evaluating the message that says “do you want to remove this from the server?”” will be the most important things to avoid because it could actually delete metadata and configurations, not just data as indicated in the article.

I have never really used excel frequently throughout my high school career. I now see how many different mistakes can be made from such a program. but one of the mistakes I think is the most important to avoid is number four. It is very important that you sort out the data correctly because if it is not done right, you can corrupt all the data and mess up the entire file which then is useless.

I am not a continuous user of excel, but the one mistake that seems to be the most important to avoid would be #3. Forgetting to do a full backup first could be detrimental because someone could lose a lot of data. It is so important to backup while working on a database, and so that is why you should be aware of this issue at all times.

I’ve accidentally made mistake number four from the article (sort a spreadsheet, but not include all the columns). Some of the columns in my spreadsheet were separated by an empty column, so the columns on the other side of the empty columns weren’t’ sorted. My data was across rows, so the values got mixed up between the rows and I had to go back and use another copy of the data before I made the error.

Although I haven’t had to work with excel very much, the times that I have I definitely suffered from Number 7: Put values in fields that are supposed to be pointers or references. It’s so easy to get caught in all the number at hand that sometimes you forget about the numbers that were initially there to either compare or contrast with at the end. All numbers look the same sometimes and if you’re not careful with spacing and separation, you’re bound to get the whole table-set wrong when it comes to forming calculations.

One of my most common mistakes for utilizing Excel would be that of not backing up the database, and start working on it without the mandatory or recommended backup. I believe that since Excel saves automatically i don’t need to save it much often; however, i realized after several lost of data instances, that I need to save data more often so i can prevent data losses in the later future. Hence, this is one of the most common mistakes from the article that I commit.

I’ve never personally made any of these mistakes because I never really have to deal with numbers(outside of a classroom setting), but I assume the main thing to look out for is the subject category so things like dropping the initial 0 in the Jersey zip codes doesn’t happen.

I have downloaded CSV files directly into excel. When I did this nothing that I know of happened and things seemed to work out fine. But I think a really important thing to look out for is clicking “yes” when the popup asks if you want to remove this from the server. Personally when I see popups like that on my computer I just hit yes or save or what ever option is going to happen when I hit the enter key on my computer. Like the article says this can severely corrupt the meta data consequently corrupting the interpretation of your data.