Data Exploration

Data Exploration Skill

Systematic methodology for profiling datasets, assessing data quality, discovering patterns, and understanding schemas.

Data Profiling Methodology

Phase 1: Structural Understanding

Before analyzing any data, understand its structure:

Table-level questions:

• How many rows and columns?
• What is the grain (one row per what)?
• What is the primary key? Is it unique?
• When was the data last updated?
• How far back does the data go?

Column classification: Categorize each column as one of:

• Identifier: Unique keys, foreign keys, entity IDs
• Dimension: Categorical attributes for grouping/filtering (status, type, region, category)
• Metric: Quantitative values for measurement (revenue, count, duration, score)
• Temporal: Dates and timestamps (created_at, updated_at, event_date)
• Text: Free-form text fields (description, notes, name)
• Boolean: True/false flags
• Structural: JSON, arrays, nested structures

Phase 2: Column-Level Profiling

For each column, compute:

All columns:

• Null count and null rate
• Distinct count and cardinality ratio (distinct / total)
• Most common values (top 5-10 with frequencies)
• Least common values (bottom 5 to spot anomalies)

Numeric columns (metrics):

min, max, mean, median (p50)
standard deviation
percentiles: p1, p5, p25, p75, p95, p99
zero count
negative count (if unexpected)

String columns (dimensions, text):

min length, max length, avg length
empty string count
pattern analysis (do values follow a format?)
case consistency (all upper, all lower, mixed?)
leading/trailing whitespace count

Date/timestamp columns:

min date, max date
null dates
future dates (if unexpected)
distribution by month/week
gaps in time series

Boolean columns:

true count, false count, null count
true rate

Phase 3: Relationship Discovery

After profiling individual columns:

• Foreign key candidates: ID columns that might link to other tables
• Hierarchies: Columns that form natural drill-down paths (country > state > city)
• Correlations: Numeric columns that move together
• Derived columns: Columns that appear to be computed from others
• Redundant columns: Columns with identical or near-identical information

Quality Assessment Framework

Completeness Score

Rate each column:

• Complete (>99% non-null): Green
• Mostly complete (95-99%): Yellow -- investigate the nulls
• Incomplete (80-95%): Orange -- understand why and whether it matters
• Sparse (<80%): Red -- may not be usable without imputation

Consistency Checks

Look for:

• Value format inconsistency: Same concept represented differently ("USA", "US", "United States", "us")
• Type inconsistency: Numbers stored as strings, dates in various formats
• Referential integrity: Foreign keys that don't match any parent record
• Business rule violations: Negative quantities, end dates before start dates, percentages > 100
• Cross-column consistency: Status = "completed" but completed_at is null

Accuracy Indicators

Red flags that suggest accuracy issues:

• Placeholder values: 0, -1, 999999, "N/A", "TBD", "test", "xxx"
• Default values: Suspiciously high frequency of a single value
• Stale data: Updated_at shows no recent changes in an active system
• Impossible values: Ages > 150, dates in the far future, negative durations
• Round number bias: All values ending in 0 or 5 (suggests estimation, not measurement)

Timeliness Assessment

• When was the table last updated?
• What is the expected update frequency?
• Is there a lag between event time and load time?
• Are there gaps in the time series?