Business Analytics, Data Management, and Technical Concepts

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering business requirements, analytics concepts, SQL, Excel, Power BI, Tableau, Python, statistics, machine learning, supply chain operations, project management, and interview responses.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

A measurable value used to track progress toward a business goal.

Business Requirement

A specific capability or outcome a business needs.

Business Case

An explanation of why a project is worthwhile, including costs, benefits, risks, and expected value.

Stakeholder

A person or group affected by a project or interested in its results.

Deliverable

A specific output produced by a project, such as a dashboard, report, or database.

Baseline

A starting measurement used to compare future performance.

Benchmark

A reference point used to evaluate performance against a standard or competitor.

Actionable Insight

A finding that suggests a specific decision or action.

Root Cause Analysis

A process used to identify the underlying reason a problem occurred.

ROI (Return on Investment)

A measure of the financial return generated relative to the cost of an investment.

Data-Driven Decision

A decision informed by data and analysis rather than intuition alone.

Assumption

A condition accepted as true for analysis even though it may not be fully verified.

Limitation

A constraint that affects how an analysis or conclusion should be interpreted.

Descriptive Analytics

Analysis that explains what happened.

Diagnostic Analytics

Analysis that investigates why something happened.

Predictive Analytics

Analysis that estimates what may happen in the future.

Prescriptive Analytics

Analysis that recommends what action should be taken.

Operational Metric

A measurement used to monitor daily business operations.

Strategic Metric

A measurement used to evaluate progress toward long-term organizational goals.

Leading Indicator

A metric that may help predict future performance.

Lagging Indicator

A metric that measures results that have already occurred.

Variance

The difference between an actual value and a budgeted, planned, or expected value.

Data Pipeline

A sequence of steps that moves and transforms data from sources to destinations.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load)

A process that extracts data, transforms it, and then loads it into a destination.

ELT (Extract, Load, Transform)

A process that loads raw data first and transforms it within the destination system.

Data Cleaning

The process of identifying and correcting inaccurate, incomplete, duplicated, or inconsistent data.

Data Validation

Checking whether data meets specified rules or requirements.

Data Integrity

The accuracy, consistency, and reliability of data throughout its lifecycle.

Data Quality

The degree to which data is accurate, complete, consistent, timely, valid, and fit for use.

Data Lineage

The record of where data originated and how it changed as it moved through systems.

Metadata

Data that describes other data, such as column names, formats, definitions, or update times.

Data Dictionary

A reference that defines data fields, formats, meanings, and allowed values.

Database

A structured collection of data that can be stored, managed, and queried.

Primary Key

A column or combination of columns that uniquely identifies each row in a table.

Foreign Key

A column that references a key in another table to establish a relationship.

Normalization

The process of organizing database tables to reduce unnecessary duplication and improve consistency.

Denormalization

The intentional combination or duplication of data to improve certain query or reporting tasks.

Schema

The defined structure of a database, including tables, columns, data types, and relationships.

Data Warehouse

A system designed to store integrated data for reporting and analysis.

Data Lake

A storage system that can hold large amounts of raw data in different formats.

Data Mart

A focused data store designed for a specific business function or department.

OLTP (Online Transaction Processing)

Systems designed to record frequent operational transactions.

OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)

Technology designed to analyze data across multiple dimensions.

Structured Data

Data organized into a defined format, such as rows and columns.

Unstructured Data

Data without a fixed tabular structure, such as free-text documents, images, or audio.

SQL (Structured Query Language)

A language used to retrieve, manipulate, and manage data in relational databases.

SELECT

The SQL command used to choose which columns or expressions to return.

FROM

The SQL clause that identifies the table or data source being queried.

WHERE

The SQL clause used to filter individual rows before grouping.

ORDER BY

The SQL clause used to sort query results.

GROUP BY

The SQL clause used to group rows for aggregate calculations.

HAVING

The SQL clause used to filter groups after aggregation.

DISTINCT

The SQL keyword used to return unique combinations of selected values.

COUNT()

An SQL aggregate function used to count rows or non-NULL values.

SUM()

An SQL aggregate function that adds values.

AVG()

An SQL aggregate function that calculates an average.

MIN()

An SQL aggregate function that returns the smallest value.

MAX()

An SQL aggregate function that returns the largest value.

CASE WHEN

An SQL expression that applies conditional logic and returns results based on conditions.

JOIN

An SQL operation that combines rows from tables using a related condition.

INNER JOIN

Returns rows that have matching values in both joined tables.

LEFT JOIN

Returns all rows from the left table and matching rows from the right table, with NULLs where no match exists.

RIGHT JOIN

Returns all rows from the right table and matching rows from the left table.

FULL OUTER JOIN

Returns matched rows and unmatched rows from both tables, where supported.

CROSS JOIN

Returns combinations of every row in one table with every row in another.

Self Join

A join that matches a table to itself.

UNION

Combines query results vertically and removes duplicate rows by default.

UNION ALL

Combines query results vertically and keeps duplicates.

NULL

A database marker indicating missing, unknown, or unavailable information.

IS NULL

An SQL condition used to identify NULL values.

COALESCE()

Returns the first non-NULL expression from a list of expressions.

CTE (Common Table Expression)

A named temporary result defined using WITH and used within a single SQL statement.

Subquery

A query nested inside another SQL statement.

Window Function

An SQL function that calculates across related rows while retaining the individual rows in the result.

ROW_NUMBER()

A window function that assigns a sequential number to rows.

RANK()

A window function that assigns rankings and allows gaps after ties.

PARTITION BY

A window-function clause that divides rows into groups for separate calculations.

OVER()

The SQL clause that defines the rows used by a window function.

Index

A database structure that can speed up data retrieval, often at the cost of storage and slower writes.

View

A saved SQL query that behaves like a virtual table.

Stored Procedure

A saved group of SQL statements that can be executed as a unit.

Transaction

A group of database operations treated as a logical unit.

ACID Properties

Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability: principles that help ensure reliable database transactions.

Query Optimization

The process of improving how a database executes a query.

SQL Injection

A security vulnerability in which untrusted input changes the meaning of a SQL query.

Aggregate Function

A function that summarizes multiple values into a result, such as SUM or AVG.

Data Type

A definition of the kind of value a field can hold, such as integer, text, date, or decimal.

Excel Workbook

An Excel file that can contain multiple worksheets.

Absolute Reference

A cell reference locked with dollar signs, such as 1. A

XLOOKUP

An Excel function that searches for a value and returns a corresponding result from another range.

VLOOKUP

An Excel function that searches the first column of a range and returns a value from another column.

INDEX MATCH

A lookup approach that combines INDEX and MATCH to find and return corresponding values.

SUMIFS

An Excel function that sums values meeting multiple criteria.

COUNTIFS

An Excel function that counts cells meeting multiple criteria.

IF

An Excel function that returns one result when a condition is true and another when it is false.

IFERROR

An Excel function that returns an alternative result when a formula produces an error.

OR

An Excel function that returns TRUE when at least one specified condition is true.

PivotTable

An Excel tool that summarizes and analyzes data by grouping fields and calculating totals or other metrics.

PivotChart

A chart connected to a PivotTable that visualizes summarized data.

Power Query

A tool for importing, cleaning, combining, and transforming data in Excel and Power BI.