Final answer:
The analyst deals with gathering/collecting data, providing structure, building data pipeline, and using APIs in the data collection and preparation phase.
Step-by-step explanation:
The phase in which the analyst deals with gathering/collecting data from a variety of sources, providing structure to data accessible via relational databases (SQL), building a data pipeline (ETL), and using APIs to download data from an external source is the data collection and preparation phase in data analysis.
During this phase, the analyst collects data from various sources such as databases, APIs, and surveys. They then structure the data using SQL or other tools, build data pipelines to process and transform the data, and use APIs to download data from external sources. This phase is crucial in preparing the data for analysis.