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Become a Legendary
Data Analyst

Training for RCN Members • Flexible learning • Be future ready now

Learn valuable data analysis and visualisation skills that you can use right now in your current role. Be at the forefront of the Navy's data capability.

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What's included?

Data foundations
Microsoft Excel and Power BI
WYWM certification
Practical projects
24/7 support
Join the Navy Community of Practice
Work opportunities to support the Navy data projects

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Sign up for instructor-led and self-paced Data Proficiency and Data Analytics training to upskill you in your current role. Build the Data Capability in your unit and the Navy.

1-2

Bootcamps every month

50+

Trained every month

4.5/5

Instructor rating

90%

Would recommend it

Data Analytics Pathway

Develop core skills

The Data Analyst pathway will provide you with the core skills required to transform unprocessed data into insights that can enable decision making.

Data Foundations

  • Introduction to data analytics
  • Introduction to Excel and its formulas
  • Understand, interpret and apply basic descriptive statistics
  • Aggregating data
  • Create basic visualisations
  • Understand and interpret frequency distributions
  • Introduction to exploratory analysis using Pivot tables
  • Misleading statistics and how to avoid them

Data Analysis with Excel

  • Introduction to data analytics
  • Transforming data, including cleaning and joining data
  • Using exploratory analysis to identify trends and check hypothesis
  • Use Power Query to transform data gathered from different sources
  • Calculate and interpret measures of spread, including quartiles, percentiles and standard deviation

Data Visualization with PowerBI

  • Create powerful visualisations and interactive dashboards
  • Understand correlation and how to effectively visualise it
  • Storytelling with data
  • Understand the uses and scope of PowerBI
  • Calculated fields, sets and groups
CAF Data Strategy report thumbnail

Be part of the Navy's data driven future!

“Data are critical assets to modern organizations. Organizations that recognize the value of their data are better able to understand and engage with their stakeholders, generate insights that lead to the identification of opportunities, and improve their performance."

(The Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Data Strategy, 2019).

- Chief of Defence Staff, Canadian Armed Forces
- Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

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Harness the power of data

Become a Data Analyst at your unit

Access world-class data analytics training with practical data projects to give you the skills to support your unit and the Navy.

Yes I'm interested
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Canadian Navy on a ship

Empower the RCN team

This digital initiative seeks to empower and inspire all members of the naval team through the innovative use of leading-edge digital technologies, never forgetting that our most valuable strength stems from our people, their knowledge and the sage judgement they apply on a daily basis. We will work to adopt those digital technologies that augment the irreplaceable capabilities of our people, ensuring they have the tools and capabilities needed to meet increasing challenges of the digital era.

Yes I'm interested

Data-centric mindset

Reliable, quality data will be a fundamental enabler of this digital initiative. As such, our digital journey will require all members of the naval team to consistently place real emphasis on the production of accurate, reliable data, and to continually look for ways to leverage this data to enable informed, forward-looking decisions. This data-centric mindset will be key to our success going forward.

By saving time and effort, data analysts embedded in the Navy will enhance its future readiness, contributing to greater successes in combatting tomorrow’s global challenges, and supporting the implementation of Strong, Secure, Engaged.

Yes I'm interested
Canadian Navy screens on ship
Canadian Navy coms

Forward looking posture

In order to position ourselves to more proactively leverage modern digital technologies, we must adopt a persistent forward-looking posture. This includes establishing the capacity and expertise to identify those emerging digital technologies most likely to impact our way of doing business. It also requires that members of the naval team increase their awareness of modern digital technologies with a view to identifying opportunities that accelerate the RCN’s evolution as a leading-edge institution.

Yes I'm interested

The Digital Navy

The successful execution of this digital initiative will require a fundamental cultural change within the Navy, one that instills innovative thinking and agility as the default settings for all members of the naval team. Regardless of rank or position, we need to proactively seek out and seize upon the opportunities that will be made possible throughout our digital journey. As we work together, we will realize the vision laid out in the digital navy initiative will ensure that the Royal Canadian Navy is well positioned for success in the digital age.

Yes I'm interested
Canadian Navy ship

Your journey starts here

Become future ready

Access to world-class instructor led and self paced data training. Join hundreds of CAF members who are enrolled in training and preparing for the future of Navy.
4.5 Instructor rating
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"Investing in your employees to upskill is the way of future. This creates synergy in teams and creates a more efficient team.”
Student at CFINTCOM
“Having a skilled person to enable the chain of command is always important. Once established, automation will provide ease of access and collation of information, yet the data analyst is required, to interpret that data and present it to command.”
Student at Royal Canadian Navy
"Well and simply presented. Opportunity to stage course throughout working day. Ability to revisit and confirm points good."
Student at CFINTCOM
"Excellent that the course takes you from no knowledge to a decent level, or at least the knowhow to take skills further. I found sometimes the gap between the practise ad the assessments was very steep, though I cant tell if this is just my own experience being someone without a 'data oriented' way of thinking"
Canadian Armed Force Member
"Extremely practical, concisely delivered, assessments challenged what was taught but were clearly based off the lesson, allowing quick reference to the lesson if something was forgotten."
Student at CFINTCOM
"I found the course explained the basic functions of excel well, the exercises were easy to follow and applicable."
Student at Royal Canadian Navy
"Extremely practical, concisely delivered, assessments challenged what was taught but were clearly based off the lesson, allowing quick reference to the lesson if something was forgotten."
Student at Canadian Army
"Fantastic course. Very easy to follow and quite user friendly for someone who is not familiar with excel. Caters for the lowest common denominator."
Student at Royal Canadian Navy

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Frequently asked questions

Do I need approval from my chain of command?

Yes – chain of command approval is required because this training requires a time commitment. It will ensure that you have the approval that you need from your workplace to enable you to attend the instructor-led sessions because once you commence your bootcamp, it is important that you attend all sessions, just as you would any other course so that you can meet the training outcomes.

For the self-paced learning option, you don’t need chain of command approval to complete your training, but it certainly helps so that you can secure time to maintain a consistent study schedule.

What is my time commitment for a Data Analytics course?

The online course is about 140 hours of content which typically takes 2-3 months part time to complete.

I am interested in learning data skills but don’t want to become a full data analyst.

That’s absolutely ok, there are three different levels of training offered through this opportunity:
  • Data proficient: you will just go through the Data Foundations component of the data analytics pathway. This is a very useful course if you use Microsoft Excel daily and it will give you valuable skills and awareness in the basics of using data. It is an introduction into the foundations of data analysis and if you stop here, you will still be armed with skills to optimize your potential and increase your productivity and efficiency in the workplace.
  • Data Analyst: After Data Foundations, you will progress through the Data Analysis and Data Visualisation courses based on tools that are available on the DWAN: Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Power BI. At the end, you will be able to use data to solve problems and generate insights. The Data Analysis course will teach you how to transform unprocessed data into insights and the Data Visualisation course will enable you to create visualisations that enable faster and more accurate decision-making.
  • Data Analyst Advanced: At the conclusion of the Data Visualisations training there are plenty of options to continue your data analytics training on the WYWM Potential platform including visualisations in Tableau, SQL Integration training and working with Azure. If you're passionate about data analysis and interested in continuing your journey you're encouraged to complete this advanced training.

Where can I use my digital analytics skills?

Your new data analytics skills will be useful in many places, both in your personal and work life. These skills will give you the ability to better understand how to capture, manage and use data to help you, and your unit, make decisions based on real data. And if you go all the way and complete the data visualisation training, you’ll have the ability to visualise the data in compelling ways that enable you to influence decisions.

You’ll be able to use your skills for many outcomes – people are already using these skills to support things like:
  • Personnel and readiness management
  • Vehicle and equipment serviceability tracking
  • Finance management
  • Operations
  • Capability planning
  • Intelligence analysis
  • And more!

What other digital training opportunities is the Navy offering?

As the Navy continues to strive toward becoming Future Ready, it will need a range of different digital-based skillsets, regardless of rank or trade, to drive a culture of digital product innovation. We encourage you to explore our different course offerings such as New to IT, Cyber, Digital Project Management, Linux, Robotics Process Automation, Service Desk and Software Development that can be unlocked for any student who completes the Data Pathway.