Pipeline Academy

Synopsis

The Pipeline Academy is a course of 22 lessons that teaches the whole pipeline lifecycle by leading you through the real screens. Over the course you build one practice pipeline: you write it, test it with real data, shape the data, commit and merge it, protect it with tests, and stage it before it goes live.

The Academy is one of the courses in the Guided tours panel, beside the Getting started tours described in Onboarding.

Opening the Academy

Three ways lead to the Academy. The first two open the Guided tours panel on the Pipeline Academy tab:

• My Pipelines: Pipeline Academy, beside Create new pipeline (see Management). Every user sees it, and it needs no permission.
• Pipeline Editor: the icon at the foot of the rail, with a Pipeline Academy tooltip (see Editing). It opens the course over the page and changes nothing in the editor.
• Help menu: select the ? in the header, then Guided tours, then the Pipeline Academy tab.

The Course Tab

The tab opens with a short description of the course and a progress line, n of 22 lessons completed. The lessons follow in six chapters, Chapter 1 to Chapter 6. Each lesson shows:

• its title and a one-line description
• a time estimate, About N min
• one button: Start, Resume for the lesson in progress, or Replay once it is completed

The recommended next lesson carries the only primary button.

Chapters and Lessons

The lessons are meant to be taken in order, because later lessons build on the practice pipeline and the Library items created by earlier ones.

Chapter	Lessons
Write your first pipeline	Create your practice pipeline · Find your way around the editor · Let autocomplete write it · Write straight into a typed table · Catch a wrong name before it runs
Test it with real data	Keep test data in the Library · Run a line through the debugger · Test as a director would run it · Predict the effect on your volume
Shape the data	Tag events from a lookup table · Hide sensitive data · Send a copy to another target · Act on recommendations
Commit, review and merge	Commit your changes · Review and merge
Protect it with tests	Add a unit test · Commit again, with tests · Require passing tests · Go back to an earlier version
Stage before you ship	Create a staging version · Sync staging to main · Try it on a staging director

Taking a Lesson

A lesson runs like a Getting started tour. A card explains each step, and a spotlight and an arrow mark the control to use. The lesson moves on when you do what the step asks; steps that only explain move on with Next. The card's controls, and minimizing and resuming a lesson, work as they do for any guided tour.

The Academy adds two card controls:

• Insert into editor, on a step that writes pipeline YAML
• Copy to clipboard, on a step that needs example data pasted, such as sample events or lookup-table rows

Who Can Take Which Lesson

Each lesson checks one permission before it offers Start, and a lesson your role lacks that permission for shows no Start button. A later step can need more than that entry permission. For example, Create a staging version opens with pipeline-edit permission, but creating the staging version itself requires PIPELINE_CREATE (see Management).

• Merging. Three lessons merge a commit: Review and merge, Commit again, with tests, and Go back to an earlier version. Only a role that can merge pipeline commits can finish them. Admin and Owner can; a Contributor can start these lessons but cannot complete the merge (see Roles).
• Edition. Two lessons use the Library: Keep test data in the Library and Tag events from a lookup table. On the Free plan they show Available in Standard and Enterprise in place of Start.

What the Lessons Change

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The lessons run in your own organization, not in a sandbox, and create and change real items.

• The first lesson creates a pipeline named academy_practice.
• Later lessons create a Library sample named Academy firewall and a lookup table named academy_assets.
• Later lessons also commit, merge, and restore changes to the practice pipeline, and create its staging version.
• No lesson applies the practice pipeline to a route, device, or target.
• Try it on a staging director stops inside the director wizard and creates nothing.
• Require passing tests shows the organization-wide rule Require unit tests to pass before merging and leaves turning it on to you, because the rule applies to every merge in the organization. See Unit Tests.

Progress

Completed lessons are saved per user, so they follow you to another browser. A lesson in progress survives a page reload but not closing the tab.

Lesson text is available in all six interface languages.