[Kevin Praet (Adm)]

Several UAI members having been asking questions about the focus of UAI’s new Safety Analytics Community.

 

At a high level, this group will offer safety, data scientist/analytics, IT, and operations professionals the chance to collaborate on how to improve safety using analytics.

 

Some folks have expressed interest in specific areas like distribution, generation, or fleet safety. Others want to understand the technology, tools and analytics methods being used by other utilities. Some want to learn how others are addressing data capture challenges while some would like to focus on the human side of safety analytics. Our expectation is that the group will hone in on common areas of interest and also cover a lot of ground. Ultimately, the group’s focus will be driven by input from its leaders and members.

 

The community’s first meeting is on Jan 28^rd at 2pm CT where we will discuss the group’s proposed charter and scope. If safety analytics interests you, we recommend that you register for the group and join that meeting to share your preferences. From there, you can decide whether, how, whether and when to participate. The registration link is:  http://pages.utilityanalytics.com/working-groups-signup

Thanks!

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Informa
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-14-2020 16:30
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: New Safety Analytics Community

Hey Kim,

Thanks for your question! I’ve asked our group manager/facilitator Kim Gaddy to reach out to you directly to provide some more high level detail. She’ll be in touch soon!

Thanks,

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Informa
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-14-2020 12:51
From: Kim Boynton
Subject: New Safety Analytics Community

Kevin,

 

Is the focus of this group primarily around human safety or will it also encompass other safety programs (I’m thinking specifically of Fleet Telematics)?

 

Regards,

Kim

 

 

Kim Boynton | Avista Corporation

Data Science

w-(509) 495-4744

c- (509) 435-3039

mailto:Kim.boynton@avistacorp.com

 

 

 

Original Message——

Hello everyone,

Happy new year and I hope all is well!

I wanted to send out a reminder for our brand new Safety Analytics Community (kicking off Tuesday, January 28th at 1:00 PM CT). We’re working to develop some exciting topics for this group and look forward to creating a group entirely around safety! You can register for this group (and our other communities) by using our registration form here.

Special thanks to our group sponsors/leaders (listed below) who are working to help get this group up and running. If you are interested in becoming a leader or a presenter for this community, please reach out to me to be considered. 

Sponsors:

Ankush Argawal, Director, T&D Analytics, Exelon Utilities

Bert Hargesheimer, Senior Director Fleet Operations & Safety, CPS Energy

Leader:

Kevin Harris, Sr. Manager, Safety-Environmental-Human Performance, Exelon Utilities

If you have have any questions please let me know otherwise I look forward to connecting with many of you in this new community!

Thanks,

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Informa
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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[Shawn Fountain]

1. Is your organization using R Shiny? Yes
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny? Since 2016 by many people in our analytics CoE
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology? There are several, the biggest benefit in my opinion:

* Leverage existing R skillsets within our team

* Fast iteration on both the analytical modeling and front-end interface, since both are written in R

* Generally more flexibility in terms of analytics and interface is available than in point-and-click tools like tableau

* Code-based dashboarding tools like Shiny are easier to QC and version control than point-and-click

4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?

A Shiny app requires R knowledge to edit, and normally requires an R instance running on the machine where it is served. This may or may not be an issue depending on your business users’ (viewers’) needs.

5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one? Yes

——————————
Shawn Fountain
Director
Navigant
3038809207
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2020 08:12
From: Stephen Payne
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​Good morning!

At American Electric Power (AEP) we are going down the path of making R Shiny solutions a standard technology stack for delivering analytics solutions that require a user interface.  I have a few brief questions and welcome responses even if companies are not using R Shiny.

1. Is your organization using R Shiny?
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny?
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?
4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?
5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter!  We are hoping to hear back from many folks across UAI.  Have a great day.

Sincerely,

——————————
Stephen Payne
IT Architect
American Electric Power
Columbus OH
614-716-1429
——————————

[Mo Movassat]

​

​1. Is your organization using R Shiny?  We have used R Shiny for few applications. We are using R as the primary programming language for now and as part of that we used Shiny.  2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny? 6 months 3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology? Another tool that we were using for the same purpose was PowerBI. The biggest advantage of shiny is you can tie your analytics codes in R with Shiny application easier. It also provides you with more flexibility compared to pre-coded software solutions.  4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution? It is more complex as you are coding things rather than drag and drop. However, it doesn’t take very long for a person with programming skills to learn. Also there are online forums to help with that. 5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one? sure. will be happy to do that.

——————————
Mo Mavassat
Analytics Section Manager
OPG
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2020 08:12
From: Stephen Payne
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​Good morning!

At American Electric Power (AEP) we are going down the path of making R Shiny solutions a standard technology stack for delivering analytics solutions that require a user interface.  I have a few brief questions and welcome responses even if companies are not using R Shiny.

1. Is your organization using R Shiny?
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny?
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?
4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?
5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter!  We are hoping to hear back from many folks across UAI.  Have a great day.

Sincerely,

——————————
Stephen Payne
IT Architect
American Electric Power
Columbus OH
614-716-1429
——————————

[Mo Movassat]

At OPG, we have used R-Shiny in the past 6 months for a few cases. The biggest advantage of it is that you can tie other analytics codes in R with it. And it is more flexible because it is an open source compared to commercial software packages. For the same reason, it will take some time for the user to learn, however, there are online resources to help. I’d be happy to talk about it more. ​

——————————
Mo Mavassat
Analytics Section Manager
OPG
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2020 08:12
From: Stephen Payne
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​Good morning!

At American Electric Power (AEP) we are going down the path of making R Shiny solutions a standard technology stack for delivering analytics solutions that require a user interface.  I have a few brief questions and welcome responses even if companies are not using R Shiny.

1. Is your organization using R Shiny?
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny?
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?
4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?
5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter!  We are hoping to hear back from many folks across UAI.  Have a great day.

Sincerely,

——————————
Stephen Payne
IT Architect
American Electric Power
Columbus OH
614-716-1429
——————————

[Matt Kocoloski]

Hi Stephen,

TVA has been using R Shiny for the past couple of years to deploy a number of analytics apps, mostly in the finance area where my team sits.  It’s been great for people (like myself) who have a lot of experience in R but zero experience in actual web development and want to deliver models that can be run by folks with limited technical skills. 

That being said, it does require some expertise in R, and is not as good as dashboarding tools like Tableau/PowerBI for pure data visualization and exploration.

I had a chance to give a webinar on our experience with Shiny to the UAI Architecture and Technology subteam a couple of years ago.  I’d be happy to send those slides along to you if you’d like, or find a time to chat more about our experience with it.    

Thanks,

——————————
Matt Kocoloski
Tennessee Valley Authority
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2020 08:12
From: Stephen Payne
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​Good morning!

At American Electric Power (AEP) we are going down the path of making R Shiny solutions a standard technology stack for delivering analytics solutions that require a user interface.  I have a few brief questions and welcome responses even if companies are not using R Shiny.

1. Is your organization using R Shiny?
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny?
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?
4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?
5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter!  We are hoping to hear back from many folks across UAI.  Have a great day.

Sincerely,

——————————
Stephen Payne
IT Architect
American Electric Power
Columbus OH
614-716-1429
——————————

[Patrick Dever]

Here are some thoughts from one of my analysts that uses R Shiny.

3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?

Flexibility.  You can develop applications that exactly meet user requirements with very little limitation on which data sources/formats can be incorporated in the solution. 

 

Additionally, it’s an all-in-one solution with no need to daisy chain multiple tools (ETL tool + analytics tool + viz/UI tool) and it works with some awesome R libraries like Plotly (for interactive graphs) and shinyWidgets (for nice prebuilt UI elements) as well as all the powerful analytical R packages we know and love.

 

4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?

There is a pretty significant learning curve to go from developing R scripts to building Shiny apps. It is app development – not just a plug and go solution – and you’ll need people with the right technical abilities available to support those apps.

——————————
Patrick Dever
Chief Data Strategist
Avista Corporation
Spokane WA
509-495-8000
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——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-17-2020 10:42
From: Mo Mavassat
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​

​1. Is your organization using R Shiny?  We have used R Shiny for few applications. We are using R as the primary programming language for now and as part of that we used Shiny.  2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny? 6 months 3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology? Another tool that we were using for the same purpose was PowerBI. The biggest advantage of shiny is you can tie your analytics codes in R with Shiny application easier. It also provides you with more flexibility compared to pre-coded software solutions.  4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution? It is more complex as you are coding things rather than drag and drop. However, it doesn’t take very long for a person with programming skills to learn. Also there are online forums to help with that. 5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one? sure. will be happy to do that.

——————————
Mo Mavassat
Analytics Section Manager
OPG
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2020 08:12
From: Stephen Payne
Subject: What companies are using R Shiny to Deliver Analytics User Interfaces?

​Good morning!

At American Electric Power (AEP) we are going down the path of making R Shiny solutions a standard technology stack for delivering analytics solutions that require a user interface.  I have a few brief questions and welcome responses even if companies are not using R Shiny.

1. Is your organization using R Shiny?
2. If yes, how long have you been using R Shiny?
3. In your opinion, what is the biggest benefit in using R Shiny to deliver a solution verses another technology?
4. In your opinion, what is the biggest drawback with a R Shiny solution?
5. Would you be willing to have a brief 30-minute conversation to discuss your organizations use of Shiny one-on-one?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter!  We are hoping to hear back from many folks across UAI.  Have a great day.

Sincerely,

——————————
Stephen Payne
IT Architect
American Electric Power
Columbus OH
614-716-1429
——————————