Slaters You Should Know
Slate Community Ambassadors are active Slate users who share knowledge through forum posts, user group leadership, Slate Summit presentations, participation in calls or working sessions, and peer-to-peer assistance.
Get to know…Danielle Buczek
Danielle Buczek is the Senior Business Systems Analyst at Brandeis University.
How long have you been a Slate user?
According to my Summit badge, I've been a Slate user since February 14, 2014 so this is my 10th Slate-iversary! Happy Valentine's Day to me and Slate! 😍🥰❤️
What user groups are you a part of?
I'm most active in the Slack community, but I'm also in the Super Slate Technolutions Friends group on Facebook, the CAS User Group, and the Graduate Slate Community User Group
How have user groups helped you grow?
I work in central ITS and part of my job is supporting the Slate Captains in the graduate admissions offices. I've honestly lost count of the times that a Slate Captain has brought me an issue and I've realized I just saw a user at another school post a resolution or workaround; I really appreciate how the broader Slate community helps me support my users. Additionally, I enjoy spending time digging into issues with users at other schools as a way to develop my own skills--I actually count it as a form of professional development!
What are your favorite features in Slate? How did you learn them?
I never would have said this four years ago, but I really love configurable joins! I initially learned through forcing myself to build complicated CJ queries while validating against known results from existing queries. That was supported by RHB's fantastic 3-part training series and lots of Community Conversations.
What recommendations would you give to someone wanting to improve their Slate skills?
Make time to attend relevant Community Conversations. They are such a great FREE resource for Slate users. Reading posts in the forums, Slack community, Facebook group, etc.--or even better, participating in those channels--is a great way to learn about processes at other schools or to gain new tips and tricks. Lastly, pick something new and build it out! Most of us learn best by doing.
What is your favorite Summit memory?
The Thursday night party is always a blast, and I really appreciate the rare opportunity to hang out and have fun outside work with colleagues from my university. And I was completely obsessed with the dolphin drones the first time I saw them!
What is something you've learned at a Summit that you have since applied?
I always appreciate the great ideas that are shared at Summit, even if it's not something that I can use immediately. That said, I had some fantastic conversations in the External Applications affinity group last year that were helpful in managing our use of the CAS API.