About ET1, A Tool to Help Uncomplicate Data
It is undeniable that data can be overwhelming, and those who work with it daily are adept at navigating this complexity. ET1 is designed to assist individuals in managing this chaos, eliminating the constraints associated with outdated software that is over 20 years old.
ET1 is an easy-to-use tool. My intention was to create an ETL tool that empowers everyone to participate. We are no longer recommending ETL solutions that are overly complex, necessitate lengthy installations, frequent online searches, community forum posts, and rely on code that is 10 to 20 years old.
ET1 facilitates the repeatable cleaning of data within a user-friendly environment.
ET1 is a visual data workbench that enables users to explore, cleanse, and articulate data solutions more efficiently than costly “legacy solutions.”
ET1 simplifies data management.
The vision
With 13 years of experience in drag-and-drop data engineering, data lakes, data warehouses, and dashboards, I have developed ET1 for users of all backgrounds. My intention is for ET1 to be intuitive and user-friendly, evoking the feeling of playing with guitar pedals to create music, rather than a complex, “engineer-only” interface that overwhelms even experienced users. I recognize that not everyone associates data cleaning with the ETL process – extract, transform, load – and I aim to make ET1 accessible and understandable for those unfamiliar with ETL terminology.
To illustrate, envision ET1 as a music platform facilitating the flow of data through inputs and outputs. Each node within ET1 functions similarly to a guitar pedal, each with its own inputs and outputs. These “pedals” are designed to be compact, require minimal configuration, and offer a streamlined, intuitive user experience.
What is ETL? Extract, Transform, Load.
Extract, Pull the data.
Transform, Filter, Sort, Join, Merge, Update, and essentially change the information.
Load, Send the data to a file, database, chart, report, or dashboard.
Core Functionality
The core functionality of ET1 will change and mutate over a period of time.
- Data Input: Supports CSV, JSON, and GitHub data sources
- Data Transformation: Various transformation nodes (filters, joins, aggregations, etc.)
- Data Output: Export to CSV, JSON, and Excel formats
What’s exciting is it’s easy for us to add new features because we are not a large platform!
ET1 Key Features
Here are a few features about ET1 that make the app exciting.
- Node-Based Interface:
- Drag-and-drop nodes for different operations
- Visual connections between nodes
- Real-time data previews, flow data downstream
- Node Types:
- Input: CSV, JSON, GitHub, Manual Table
- Transform: Filter, Join, Union, Pivot, Sort, etc.
- Output: CSV, JSON, Excel
- Advanced Features:
- Branching and versioning of data flows
- Node settings and configuration
- Collapsible nodes for better organization
- Context menus for node operations
- Data Processing:
- Column operations (rename, filter, normalize)
- String operations (concatenation, splitting)
- Aggregations and calculations
- Data types aren’t very interesting to solve
- Data types are for databases
- ET1 is not a database, it’s JavaScript
- Data is stored in graphs
- Data types are boring
- UI/UX:
- Responsive design, everything just flows downstream
- Interactive previews, makes it easy to see what changed
- Not scary, eager to avoid the developer style tools
- Highlight cells per data grid to visually inspect across canvas
Technical Specs
This application is not mobile friendly, mobility will not be a major focus, with that said, this will requires a computer.
There are no specific computer requirements needed, any machine should work, thanks for giving this an attempt.
The software requires no installation, and no setup.
We currently do not store any information about users, or your data. When we decide to add authorization, we will more than likely use Auth0, we are familiar with Auth0 due to our development with Canopys.
Thank you for learning about ET1.
Jump back to the ET1 Overview to continue learning about how ET1 will help your team save time and money when removing the chaos from your data.
