DataWorks provides the DataAnalysis service that you can use to smoothly query, analyze, process, and visualize data to gain an insight into data. The DataAnalysis service also allows you to edit and share data online. This topic provides an overview of DataAnalysis, including its benefits, features, and permissions.
Benefits
Compared with offline data analysis, DataAnalysis brings the following benefits:
High capacity: DataAnalysis uses compute engines to analyze large amounts of data in an efficient manner.
Data mobility: DataAnalysis allows you to obtain data from different data sources for query and analysis and share analysis results with specified members.
High security: DataAnalysis allows you to analyze data online without the need to download data to your on-premises machine. DataAnalysis also allows you to manage the permissions to analyze and share data.
Go to the DataAnalysis page
Log on to the DataWorks console. In the left-side navigation pane, choose . On the page that appears, select the desired workspace from the drop-down list and click Go to SQL Query.
The DataAnalysis homepage contains the following sections:
Shortcuts: In this section, you can click a card such as SQL Query, Spreadsheet, or Upload to go to the corresponding page and perform related operations to analyze data.
Recently Edited: In this section, you can view the files that are recently edited and click the name of a file to perform operations. You can select a file type from the All Files drop-down list to filter files. The file type can be Spreadsheet, Dimension Table, or SQLNotes.
Features
SQL query
The SQL query feature allows you to execute standard SQL statements to query and analyze MaxCompute data. For more information, see SQL query.
The SQL query feature allows you to write SQL statements to quickly query and analyze data in data sources on which you have query permissions. For more information, see Features.
The SQL query feature provides high scaling flexibility and convenience. You can add some self-managed data sources and the compute engines that are associated with your workspace to the SQL query feature. The added data sources and compute engines can be used as datasets for DataAnalysis. You can preview data in the datasets and generate SQL statements for data tables. For more information, see SQL query.
Workbook
The workbook feature is the core feature of DataAnalysis. The feature provides a personal space in which you can create and configure a workbook to obtain, explore, and analyze data. For more information, see Create and manage a workbook.
The feature also provides common workbook functionalities to help you get started with workbooks. For more information, see Analyze data.
You can import data from data sources or your on-premises machine to a workbook. For more information, see Data profiling.
You can also perform data profiling and share a workbook with a specified member to allow the member to view data in the workbook. For more information, see Data profiling and Share a workbook.
Dimension table
The dimension table feature allows you to upload data from your on-premises machine to a MaxCompute table and use the MaxCompute table together with other tables to analyze data online. For more information, see Create and manage a dimension table.
In some cases, data analysts and operations engineers must manually maintain an online MaxCompute table. If the dimension table feature is not used to create a MaxCompute table, the following operations must be performed each time data changes occur:
Operations engineers describe their requirements to data analysts.
Data analysts submit the requirements to developers.
Developers edit SQL statements by using DataWorks, create an Excel table, synchronize data to the Excel table, and then deliver the Excel table to operations engineers.
If the dimension table feature is used, operations engineers need to only create, modify, and save a MaxCompute table in DataAnalysis. This improves efficiency.
Permissions
Since June 1, 2022, only users to which the Data Analyst role is assigned can use DataAnalysis. If you want to use DataAnalysis, you can contact the user that is assigned the Workspace Administrator role to assign the Data Analyst role to your account. For more information, see Manage permissions on workspace-level services.
Users that are assigned the Visitor role or a custom role but are not assigned the Data Analyst role before June 1, 2022 can no longer use DataAnalysis after June 1, 2022.
Users that are assigned a role other than the Visitor role or a custom role are automatically granted the permissions on DataAnalysis and can continue to use DataAnalysis.
For more information about users, roles, and permissions, see Overview of users, roles, and permissions.
What to do next
After you understand the benefits, features, and permissions of the DataAnalysis service, you can log on to the DataWorks console to further familiarize yourself with the DataAnalysis service. For more information, see Getting started with DataAnalysis.