A game of table tennis is always a good way to unwind – over a few drinks with colleagues after the to-do list is done or perhaps during lunch break. But, if you’re looking for a way to rev up competitive spirit and even take on teams in other ZIP codes or countries, we have created the perfect solution.
If your office has access to a ping pong table (essential) you’re eligible to climb the global ranks soon to see if you can beat other companies – and even the data.
Let us introduce you to our new Ping Pong leaderboard & Predictor dashboard, powered by Tableau. Our data analysts, data engineers and data scientists have been working hard behind the scenes to bring this new product to offices across the world – soon.
How does it work?
Put simply, you play a game of ping pong, input the scores – and then you can start seeing where you rank on the dashboard.
“Companies can sign up and get their own dashboards for their employees,” explains James Faure, Calligo Data Scientist and Ping Pong Predictor project champion. “It’s the perfect way to add some additional energy into work get-togethers. You can keep the competition internal, and just play against your colleagues. Or you can expand your competitive horizons to within your country, or even the whole world.”
The more you play, the better – the predictive model is hungry for data, to get an accurate understanding of your state of play. Through the app you’ll be able to see who’s predicted to win the next match. If you’ve decided to take on a rival business across the street, for example, previous data fed into our Ping Pong Predictor might lead it to say you’re going to lose by 18-21. But…will that ring true? Can you not only beat your human competitors, but also take on data analytics, engineering, and science?
A bit of geekery
On that note, while this no doubt sounds intriguing, you’re probably wondering how it’s even possible. Well, the brains of our data analysts, data engineers, and data scientists are constantly whirring, devising creations that are not yet out there – and not just for our clients. This is the latest example of their combined, extraordinary skills; the perfect trinity of Calligo’s disciplines – with (more than) a little help from React, Python, Snowflake and openFaaS. And, of course, Tableau – that not only powers the dashboards, but makes them highly intuitive to use and pleasing to the eye. A mighty partner, indeed.
Analytics + Engineering + Science
Firstly, data visualization and analytics expertise combined to create the dashboard in Tableau. (On a quick side-note, now seems an opportune moment to mention that a piece (Human Disease Network) by one of our data visualization experts – Anjushree B V – was chosen last year by Tableau as its Viz of the Day (VOTD). You can read more about this here.)
Then came the data engineering – SQL database programming and designing the system. This ascertained how data would flow between the dashboards. As we get more match data, we will start to take it across to train the models – aka Machine Learning, that will be deployed back into the app.
“As well as being interactive entertainment for companies, this demonstrates the Calligo team’s exceptional skills,” says James. “Our Ping Pong Predictor is an awesome playground where we can test new technologies that we want to implement for our clients. I also love to teach people about data – and this is a diverse way to illustrate what it involves for younger professionals considering a career in this field.”
Coming soon…
Back to what are likely to be hotly contested corporate competitions… Ping Pong Leaderboard and Score Predictor Dashboard powered by Tableau is coming soon to offices near you. We are currently beta testing the platform, and by signing up to Calligo’s newsletter, we will provide an update as soon as the platform is released to the public. It’s time to put the ping back into office pong…
A shout out to Calligo’s Ping Pong Predictor team
And those exceptional skills deserve a special mention. Thanks to Nick Mischko – our Senior Data Analytics Team Lead who built the Tableau dashboard. Supporting James Faure with engineering insight was John Jackson, Calligo’s Director of Data Integration & Engineering, and internal tech help – such as deploying pieces of code – from Gary Bright. The Machine Learning element of this app will become more prevalent, thanks to Peter Matson, our Data Science Practice Lead, and Tessa Jones, our VP of Data Science Research & Development. And, last but not least, software engineer expertise came from Artur Kruell, showing how software engineering is still very important in the data field as the glue that sticks different pieces together.
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