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Guide to Recording Screencasts

For BI SMEs: Learn best practices for recording your final BI screencasts and how to deliver them to the DataCamp team.

Iason Prassides avatar
Written by Iason Prassides
Updated over a week ago

You can find information about your Blue Yeti Microphone and other important information about recording your audio files here.

This guide will cover important information, steps, and tips for recording files required for demo screencasts for BI courses. Below you can find a summary of the steps required to record a high-quality screencast. Please keep in mind we have a 550-word maximum for Scripts.

Summary

  1. Record audio first. Edit accordingly so that it reflects the final length.

  2. Screen Resolution. Set up the correct resolution for the recording screen.

  3. Listen back to the audio. Play and listen to the audio while recording a screencast.

  4. Tasks during screen recording.Copy/paste formulas or pause the audio to take longer actions in the workbook.

  5. Screen recording length. Let the screencast recording last several seconds after the audio has finished.

  6. Share files with CD via Google Drive:

    1. Audio files - .wav format

    2. Video files - MP4 format

  7. Upload BI screencast files to GitHub. Any Power BI/Tableau workbooks and dataset files should be uploaded to the GitHub repository.

Step 1 - Record your audio first on its own. Prepare all audio files for demo screencast recordings before recording any screens.

Ensure a clear voice is used and the recording is carried out in a quiet environment with no background noise. Full scripts can be downloaded from Teach Editor. Ask the CD for help if required. Ensure that you use your Yeti microphone with the correct settings. The audio file should be saved/exported in .wav format.

More information on the microphone settings, recording software, and file formats can be found here.

Important - audio files should be under 5 mins! This is a hard limit for BI courses.

Step 2 - Set up the correct resolution for the area that will be recorded.

The minimum resolution required is 1600 x 900 (ratio should be 16:9). Ensure that only the Power BI/Tableau window is showing in the recording - no Window’s taskbar or desktop background should be visible. See examples below:

Good

Bad

Step 3 - Listen to your audio while recording the screen.

Listen to the commentary and carry out the actions in the Power BI/Tableau window to ensure you are in sync with the audio. Make sure to carry out some practice runs to familiarize yourself with the process and the tasks required for each screencast.

For the actual recording of the screen, you can use your software of choice or the following options.

Windows 10: Game bar

Step 4 - Use copy/paste or pause your recording for any actions that take longer.

If there are any long formulas, you can copy and paste them into the Power BI/Tableau workbook to ensure the demo video is in sync with the audio. Otherwise, pause the audio, enter the formulas, then continue playing the audio. This will help ensure the length of the video is close to the length of the audio. If pausing the audio, leave the cursor untouched so the pause can be edited out later. ​​If you have any concerns about this step, please reach out to your Content Developer.

Step 5 - Stop the screen recording a few seconds after the audio has finished.

The screen recording will be longer than the audio. Ensure the video is a minimum of 2 seconds longer than the audio.

Step 6 - Share files

Once all audio and video files have been prepared, they can be shared with the CD of your course through Google Drive.

  • Make sure the files are labeled clearly. For example:

    • “CH1_1.wav”

    • “CH1_2.wav”

    • “CH1_2_video.mp4”

Step 7 - Upload Power BI/Tableau screencast files

Upload the Power BI/Tableau workbooks and associated dataset files to the course GitHub repository. Make sure that the folders containing the files are clearly labeled so they can be distinguished from any other dataset and workbook folders. For example:

  • Screencast Files

    • Datasets

      • “Company_raw_data.csv”

    • Workbooks

      • “CH1_L1_Screencast.pbix”

      • “CH2_L1_Screencast.pbix”

      • “CH3_L1_Screencast.twbx”

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