Miguel Saez
@masaez
One of the guys building Alphacast. Hope you enjoy it!
Miguel Saez
@masaez
One of the guys building Alphacast. Hope you enjoy it!
masaez's insights
Supporting internal links
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Links
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How to create your insights
Basic insights can be created by combining headers, charts, and images. Headers can be included by using #, ##, ###, Alphacast charts can be included by using '@chart' and '@Ncharts' Images can be inserted using the icon in the toolbar above Explore the toolbar for more options: Bold, Italic, Underline, ~Striketgeough~ and more. This is an Example Insight to paste an interactive chart, write '@chart' and find your chart and copy everything in the URL after https://charts.alphacast.io/grapher/ To add multiple charts use the command '@Ncharts" and paste multiple charts separated by a space Insights are created with Markdown language. For a full reference of markdown, features see here...
Alphacast Friday Update - January 14th, 2022
As we presented in our previous update, we kept working on our new pipelines engine. We have now reached features parity with our previous engine, so we are ready to start testing internally before we launch it to everyone. In this update, we are showing how some of the new features compare with our previous ones, and we hope you will find the new experience easier (and more fun) to use: Pipeline Migrations We have automated the migration of our previous pipelines definitions. This means that once we launch the new pipelines platform, you will be able to edit your previously created pipelines, and extend them with new features included in the new platform (such as merge dataset). As an example, check the "lineal combination" definition in our previous admin tool: Compared to the "Calculate Variable" step, with the given calculation already migrated: Datasets search When creating a pipeline, you usually need to indicate where data will come from, and where it should go to. In the past, you would need to remember in which repository your dataset was stored, in order to select it: We are now using our Search Engine, and as you start typing the name of...
Alphacast Friday Update - January 7th, 2022
Happy New Year! 2021 was great. In December, we took a couple of days to work on planning for 2022, and we are already at full speed working on new features. Check out our latest updates: New Pipelines Editor We are working on a new Pipelines Editor. This is a really ambitious project, that will change dramatically the way data can be processed within the platform. You will be able to create complex and powerful pipelines, process, merge, transform the data. Apply models, forecasting methods, and even create your own pythonic scripts. So here are a few first peaks at the editor. Stay tuned! Merge Datasets Probably the most requested feature we had from many customers. Alphacast already saves a lot of work to our users by providing easy access to financial and economic data. But combining data in Excel is still a lot of work, and you need to deal with multiple sheets or files at the same time. The new pipeline editor allows to merge with a given Dataset, allowing to indicate how the matching should be done. Calculate Variables Our current pipelines editor allows defining simple linear combinations between variables within a dataset. We have taken a...
Alphacast Friday Update - September 3rd
Hi friends! This was an exciting week with lots of updates on multiple fronts. As we remain focused on our upcoming Marketplace release, we also have other news to share: Webinars: It's a wrap! We are super grateful for the community response we had with our first Webinars series. We had almost 400 people registered to the series, and all videos are available for on-demand view. We want to thank our dev-economists rockstars Lionel, Juani, and Macarena for pushing an extra mile to deliver these series: Webinar #1: https://youtu.be/EjJAnpDmJdI Datasets, Charts, transformations and Dashboards. Webinar #2 : https://youtu.be/FQIte7hb0Es Integrating Alphacast with R. Webinar #3: https://youtu.be/yT8RoIFAy7Y Integrating Alphacast with Python. Webinar #4: https://youtu.be/Qhwp8J2uOMU Data Scrapping, transforming data with Alphacast API & Power BI Integration New Profile Views As we keep working to roll out the Alphacast Marketplace, we have updated users' and teams' profile views to highlight our partners' branding. Link sharing for repository access You can now invite colleagues to your repositories by exchanging invite links. If its a new user, the person will be invited to create an account, and will then be granted access to the repository: New API Coming Up next week Some of our Marketplace partners...
Alphacast Friday Update - August 27th
Another week is coming to an end. We had a great response to our Beta Testing call for the Marketplace. We don't want to overhype but big players already confirmed to be part of it. On top of that, let us share some other great news. Webinars, Brazil, and ALPHATON We had our third Webinar in the Cycle "Automatizing Economic Analysis" this time about integration with Python, APIs, pipelines, and transformations. Miguel Saez had an open architecture discussion showing some working of our data engine. First Webinar 1: https://youtu.be/EjJAnpDmJdI Second Webinar 2: https://youtu.be/FQIte7hb0Es Third Webinar 3: https://youtu.be/yT8RoIFAy7Y Next week we will have the last webinar about scraping data from the web to complete the automatization process. What's down the road? We are working on a round of Webinars in Brazil with our College Lucas Costa from Brasilia and.....THE ALPHATHON! Pipeline Editor As we showed in the Webinar, the pipeline editor is almost ready for production. You can create new datasets from any dataset applying transformations to the original data, and the new dataset will be automatically updated every time the original data is updated either by alphacast or by yourself. You can even create pipelines from datasets created with pipelines...
Data Ingestion
The current version of our API, allows for datasets to be uploaded into our platform. However, we used a different internal process for ingesting data from public sources, which allows us to perform data transformations, aggregation, and further manipulation. We are now isolating such processes allowing for data to be "Adapted" into the final Dataset. As we do that, we are also storing every raw dataset version, and keeping track of every difference. This new data ingestion platform also allows working with data that has multiple dimensions. In the past, we would only accept Date, and a general Entity dimension, that were used across different Variables in the Dataset: | Date | Entity | Production | Imports | Exports | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 2020-01-01 | USA | 2123 | 23000 | 25000 | | 2020-02-01 | Canada | 3223 | 24000 | 27000 | | 2020-03-01 | Mexico | 5423 | 22000 | 21000 | Our API now works with "Columns" rather than Variables, and each column can be specified as Entity, allowing for composed keys, or in other words multiple dimensions: | Date | Country | State | Production |...
Importing data into Excel
Excel allows to add data from different sources. We offer our Alphacast Excel Add-In to simplify the process of downloading data. However, some customers may not have the chance to install an Add-In. Here you can find an alternative way to embed data into Excel, by using our TSV data source: Getting TSV download links When you navigate through Datasets in Alphacast, you will find a Download link. If you filter variables, download links will consider variables selection, and only filtered variables will be downloaded. You will now find an option to download Tab Separated Values (TSV), which can make it easier to embed data into Excel: Right click on the TSV Download link, and choose "Copy Link Address". You will notice the URL already has your personal api_key, and should not be shared publicly with other users, outside your team. Now go to Excel, and select Get Data -> From Other Sources -> From Web, and enter the URL you copied from Alphacast website. The Excel team published a super easy video, describing how to do...
Friday Update - July 16th, 2021
Alphacast ultimate goal is to make analysts' teams collaborate better, and this week has to do a lot about that vision. These are some highlights that we would like to share with you. Creating repositories Many teams work with lots of data. And many times with charts and notes associated with that data. Repositories allow you to organize your data, charts and insights in a single place. When you go to our repositories page, you will now find a Create new repository button on the right, that will take you to the Repository creation page. Notice that repositories can be either public or private: Repository permissions After creating your repository, you can go to its settings, and assign which member has access to it. Members can be Readers, Writers, or Admins. You can also define permissions at a User level, or give access to a complete Team, chossing a Team account: Creating Teams Lastly, if you go to Settings -> Teams, you will find a Create new team button. Creating a team will make it easier to grant permissions, but also allow you to create content on behalf of your team, and not just your own. Alphacast Partners We are...
Alphacast Permissions
The present document describes the way that users can interact with content within Alphacast, based on their permissions levels. Entities within Alphacast User: an individual user logged in to the Alphacast platform that can access and create content. Team: a group of users within Alphacast. Content can also be published under a team name instead of individual users. Account: A user or a team, can be referenced as accounts. Every account has an id and an account type (User / Team). Dataset: A group of data, usually including multiple variables, with time-series data. Chart: A visual representation of data that can include variables from on or multiple datasets. Insights: A text description of a scenario, that can include references to data, charts or links on the web. Repository: A repository is the unit level under which content permission is established. A repository can include Datasets, Charts, Insights, and eventually other entities, and its permission is affected based of the repository permission configurations. Personas To describe the different interactions with each entity, we will be the following Personas: Alex: He is a social media star, creating content to boost his social capital. All his content is free and open for everyone...
How to create your insights2
Basic insights can be created by combining headers, charts, and images. Headers can be included by using #, ##, ###, Alphacast charts can be included by using '@chart' and '@Ncharts' Images can be inserted using the icon in the toolbar above Explore the toolbar for more options: Bold, Italic, Underline, ~Striketgeough~ and more. This is an Example Insight to paste an interactive chart, write '@chart' and find your chart and copy everything in the URL after https://charts.alphacast.io/grapher/ To add multiple charts use the command '@Ncharts" and paste multiple charts separated by a space Insights are created with Markdown language. For a full reference of markdown, features see here...
