Mobile button
Table of Contents
Links
- Can you share your professional background and what led you to pursue a role in business analytics at Boundless Learning?
- What are your primary responsibilities as the Manager of Business Analytics, and how do you contribute to the organization’s overall success?
- How do you develop and implement data strategies that align with Boundless Learning’s goals and mission?
- Can you provide an example of how your team’s analytics work has driven a significant decision or change within the organization?
- What tools, platforms, or technologies do you rely on most for data analysis?
- How do you work with other departments to ensure data insights are effectively communicated and actionable?
- What are the biggest challenges you face in managing and analyzing data, and how do you overcome them?
- How do you see data analytics shaping the future of EdTech, and what role does Boundless Learning play in that transformation?
- How do you foster growth and innovation within your analytics team to stay ahead of industry trends?
- What are your long-term goals for the business analytics function at Boundless Learning, and how do you plan to achieve them?
Title (title extra extra large)
‘It’s Always an Adventure’: Discussing Data, Analytics, and Collaboration with Joy David
Author (display by)
Author Image
Date (copy extra small)
April 8, 2026
Image
Content (image full width)
Meet Joy David, Manager of Business Analytics for Boundless Learning. In a role that allows her to make full use of her background in statistics, she uses data, collaboration, and a passion for problem-solving to drive impact across the organization.
Throughout her 30-year career, which includes 17 years with Boundless Learning, Joy has helped integrate new technologies and improve our usage and implementation of existing platforms. Today, she works cross-functionally to help us make data-informed decisions and provide better support to empower learners across the globe.
“It’s always an adventure,” she says.
See how a love of math and a fascination with analytics have inspired her three-decade journey and helped her impact countless lives with Boundless Learning.
Key takeaways:
- Joy’s role bridges business needs with analytics, building reports and enabling data-driven decisions.
- Strategies are developed by understanding how stakeholders use data for decision-making.
- Dashboards have quantified intervention impact and reduced student melt.
- Key tools include BigQuery, Dataplex, and Tableau, with strong focus on data quality.
- The Partner Dashboard gives shared visibility to inform joint strategy with institutions.
- Long-term goals include integrating AI into everyday analytics workflows for better insights.
Title (title large)
Can you share your professional background and what led you to pursue a role in business analytics at Boundless Learning?
Content
I majored in math in college, and the course that resonated the most with me was statistics, so I went to graduate school for statistics and earned my master’s degree. Analytics, as we know it today, was truly in its infancy when I was in college, but I appreciated how statistics used math for decision-making. I’ve been working in analytics roles since 1996, but my longest tenure by far has been with Embanet/POLS/Boundless Learning.
Title (title large)
What are your primary responsibilities as the Manager of Business Analytics, and how do you contribute to the organization’s overall success?
Content
I act as the liaison between the business’s data, analytics, and reporting needs and the DA/DS team (Data Analytics/Data Science); I have built the data and the visualizations behind many of our Tableau reports; and I act as a Tableau administrator. I'm lucky to have wickedly smart colleagues to partner with on everything we are building, testing, documenting, socializing, researching, and managing from an analytics perspective.
Title (title large)
How do you develop and implement data strategies that align with Boundless Learning’s goals and mission?
Content
I work with stakeholders to understand how they seek to use data in their strategizing and decision-making. The business analyst team has made that process run much more smoothly with their stellar talents in gathering requirements and making sure all are aligned on the details that determine a project’s success.
Title (title large)
Can you provide an example of how your team’s analytics work has driven a significant decision or change within the organization?
Content
We built a Maryville Interventions dashboard using Tableau Pulse that provides a clear view of how key metrics are performing post-intervention vs. the same time period last year, which was pre-intervention. Seeing how their hard work put a real dent in melt was evidence of their impact.
Title (title large)
What tools, platforms, or technologies do you rely on most for data analysis?
Content
Google BigQuery, Dataplex, and Tableau Cloud are the main tools in my arsenal.
Title (title large)
How do you work with other departments to ensure data insights are effectively communicated and actionable?
Content
What people want in reporting evolves, so remaining open to feedback and enhancing reporting is key to supporting tools that will provide value. Also, we spend a lot of time checking data and comparing it against Salesforce to make sure reporting reflects what is in our source of truth. That really is the most important part of this work. I prioritize being as responsive as possible when people have feedback on reporting; their input is invaluable.
Title (title large)
What are the biggest challenges you face in managing and analyzing data, and how do you overcome them?
Content
The biggest challenge is understanding the vast amount of code that has been written to create and maintain multiple data pipelines, and how to investigate when an issue comes up. The issue can be in Tableau, in the reporting code, in part of one of the data pipelines, in the data warehouse, or in Salesforce. It’s always an adventure.
Title (title large)
How do you see data analytics shaping the future of EdTech, and what role does Boundless Learning play in that transformation?
Content
We are lucky to have data from the inquiry through the graduation cycle, and the learnings within that are vast. The business prioritizes making data-driven decisions, and DA/DS is very excited to support that mission. The Partner Dashboard that launched at the end of 2025 was the first report that can be used across partners. It allows Boundless Learning and our partners to see the same data together and inform strategy and decisions. I hope we can enhance this report over time as partners get acclimated to having this tool available to them.
Title (title large)
How do you foster growth and innovation within your analytics team to stay ahead of industry trends?
Content
Improving our knowledge of GCP, Tableau, and AI functionality within both has been a main priority within DA/DS. We have biweekly share-and-learn sessions where we take turns presenting cool things we find, and usually it involves how this can help our way of working.
Title (title large)
What are your long-term goals for the business analytics function at Boundless Learning, and how do you plan to achieve them?
Content
Making AI as much a part of our work as SQL or Tableau is something I strive for. We have seen how AI can examine our tables and identify outliers or missing fields and alert us when something looks unusual. Tableau Pulse is our first foray into having AI within a dashboard. It’s another tool in our DA/DS toolbox, and Tableau Next is on the docket for 2026.
Path
{xf::fragments/authors/joy-david}