Data Team

Maintained by:

Welcome to the Data Team Handbook

Our Mission is to Deliver Results That Matter With Trusted and Scalable Data Solutions.
Read our Direction page to learn what we are doing to improve data at GitLab.
Our Principles inform how we accomplish our mission.

Would you like to contribute? Become a Data Champion, recommend an improvement, visit #data. We want to hear from you!

How We Can Help You

Self-Service Data

We are actively building Self-Service Analytics Workflows across our Go-To-Marketing and Product Spaces, enabling you to do more with data by yourself. Examples include Product Geolocation Analysis and Customer Segmentation Analysis, with more coming soon.

Review the KPI Index to see how GitLab is performing or to Develop a new KPI.
Browse the Data Catalog to find ready-to-use Self-Service Analytics Workflows, Data Definitions, and Dashboards.
Learn about SiSense to access existing Dashboards or build your own Dashboard.
Review our Data Sources to see data we have available for analysis.
Conduct your own SQL Analysis with our Snowflake Data Warehouse.
SheetLoad: Load spreadsheets and CSVs into our data warehouse that you can connect to SiSense Dashboards.

Data Programs

Explore the programs we've created to help you in your analytics journey.

Connect With Us

#Data Slack Channel Issue tracker What time is it for folks on the data team?

How We Work

Responsibilities

The Data Team is a Sub-department of the Business Operations Department and provides a Data & Analytics platform, programs, and services to the entire company.

Define and publish a Data Strategy to help maximize the value of GitLab's Data Assets
Build and maintain the company's central Enterprise Data Warehouse to support Reporting, Analysis, Dimensional Modeling, and Data Development for all GitLab teams
Integrate new data sources to enable analysis of subject areas, activities, and processes
Manage and govern the company's Key Performance Indicator definitions, database, and data visualizations
Build and maintain an Enterprise Dimensional Model to enable Single Source of Truth results
Develop Data Management features such as master data, reference data, data quality, data catalog, and data publishing
Support the company's governance, risk, and compliance programs as they relate to Data & Analytics systems
Provide Self-Service Data capabilities to help everyone leverage data and analytics
Help to define and champion Data Quality practices and programs for GitLab data systems
Provide customizable Data Services, including Data Visualization, Data Modeling, Data Quality, and Data Integration
Broadcast regular updates about data deliverables, ongoing initiatives, and upcoming plans

Slack

The Data Team primarily uses these channels on Slack:

#data is the primary channel for all of GitLab's data and analysis conversations. This is where folks from other teams can link to their issues, ask for help, direction, and get general feedback from members of the Data Team.
#data-daily is where the Data Team tracks day-to-day productivity, blockers, and fun. Powered by Geekbot, it's our asynchronous version of a daily stand-up, and helps keep everyone on the Data Team aligned and informed.
#data-lounge is for links to interesting articles, podcasts, blog posts, etc. A good space for casual data conversations that don't necessarily relate to GitLab. Also used for intrateam discussion for the Data Team.
#data-engineering is where the GitLab Data Engineering team collaborates.
#business-operations is where the Data Team coordinates with Business Operations in order to support scaling, and where all Business Operations-related conversations occur.
#analytics-pipelines is where slack logs for the ELT pipelines are output and is for data engineers to maintain. The DRI for tracking and triaging issues from this channel is shown here
#dbt-runs, like #analytics-pipelines, is where slack logs for dbt runs are output. The Data Team tracks these logs and triages accordingly.
#data-triage is an activity feed of opened and closed issues and MR in the data team project.

You can also tag subsets of the Data Team using:

@datateam - this notifies the entire Data Team
@data-engineers - this notifies just the Data Engineers
@data-analysts - this notifies just the Data Analysts

Additional channels which are not guaranteed to be long-lived are:

#data-fy21-q3-platform-and-strategic-project - For the Platform Team for FY21-Q3
#data-fy21-q3-product-analytics-fusion-team - For the Product Analytics Fusion Team for FY21-Q3
#data-fy21-q3-lead-to-cash-people-and-operations-project - For the Lead to Cash, People and Operations Fusion Team for FY21-Q3

GitLab Groups and Projects

The Data Team primarily uses these groups and projects on GitLab:

GitLab Data is the main group for the GitLab Data Team.
GitLab Data Team is the primary project for the GitLab Data Team.

You can tag the Data Team in GitLab using:

@gitlab-data - this notifies the entire Data Team
@gitlab-data/engineers - this notifies just the Data Engineers
@gitlab-data/analysts - this notifies just the Data Analysts

Team, Operations, and Technical Guides

TECH GUIDES	INFRASTRUCTURE	TEAM GUIDES
SQL Style Guide	Data Platform	How We Work
dbt Guide	CI Jobs	Triage
Python Guide	Permifrost	Calendar
Airflow & Kubernetes	Snowplow	Learning Library
Docker	Data Infrastructure	Data Team Organization
Data CI Jobs		Team Duties
Data Learning and Resources