Alter.Nation
Community news, customer stories, and more!
Happy Friday!
This edition of Community Highlights covers the past two months of Alteryx Community activity -- A lot has happened in that time so take a seat, get comfy, and enjoy the latest from Alter.Nation.
*Community news & announcements.
We're celebrating the Alteryx Developer Community's 1-year anniversary early with a new contest! Share your HTML tools before the big day -- Nov 28th -- for a chance to win a Nintendo Super NES Classic Edition! Visit the HTML Challenge on Dev Space to learn more.
The Finance Alteryx User Group is now live on Community! This group is for anyone that works with the finance department at their organization. The first meeting is scheduled to take place on November 29th.
Never. Stop. Learning.
*Alteryx Academy. All the training resources you need.
Weekly Challenge
In honor of the Community's third anniversary, we presented a challenge to take a look at where we've been and where we're going! Based on the number of monthly posts for the past three years, predict when the Community will surpass an important milestone: When Will Community Hit 1,000,000 Posts?
There are 1000 lockers in a high school with 1000 students. The problem begins with the first student opening all 1000 lockers; the second student closes lockers 2,4,6,8,10 and so on to locker 1000; the third student changes the state (opens lockers closed, closes lockers open) on lockers 3,6,9,12,15 and so on; the fourth student changes the state of lockers 4,8,12,16 and so on. This goes on until every student has had a turn. When all students have finished, which locker doors are open?
And finally, we wanted to highlight the problem we posted during @NicoleJohnson's Inspire Europe Live Weekly Challenge session It's never to late to join in on the fun!
The Case: Mr. Boddy was recently on a trip to London when he unfortunately met with his untimely demise... But whodunnit?? In the spirit of the game Clue (a murder mystery game originally called Cluedo, created by Anthony E Pratt from Birmingham, England in 1949), follow the clues to figure out who committed this dastardly deed, where the crime was committed, and which weapon was used: Challenge #136: Cleudo!
Are there other Alteryx skills you’d like to put into practice? No problem. We’ve got you covered. You can browse all of the available challenges by difficulty and subject, right here.
Upcoming Live Training
Welcome to the third training of Core Certification series! Our first ever series! Across 4 sessions, we hope to get you the foundation knowledge to make your first go on the Core exam!
You’ll Learn How to:
In this third sessions, we will wrap our last 'Designer' oriented knowledge dump with Analyzing Data, documentation and a few tricks!
November 13th | Introduction to Alteryx For Excel Users
Coming to Alteryx from other tools and unfamiliar with the idea of a visual workflow? This session shows how visual workflows cut out the repetitive steps you've done over and over in other tools. Pulling out cheat sheets for those things you do once a week or month? In Alteryx you'll build it once and quickly run it whenever needed.
You’ll Learn How to:
- How to easily link together the tasks you need to process your data
- Build workflows once and then execute whenever needed
If you missed a live session, or are curious to see what's available on-demand, check out the Live Training Index & Welcome.
Certification
A few weeks ago we were excited to announce our newest Alteryx Designer Expert Certified users who passed the Expert exam at Inspire Europe in early October. Read the announcement to find out which of your peers joined this elite crowd of Alteryx experts!
Nuts & Bolts
*Alteryx in Practice. Noteworthy Articles, Blog Posts + other pearls of wisdom.
Optimization is used for a wide variety of applications across many different industries. In @SydneyF's latest Tool Mastery | Optimization article you'll learn all about the benefits of this very special prescriptive tool.
One of the perennial challenges of creating high-quality maps is working with data sets where the spatial data is too spread out to make a useful map. The general solution for this challenge is to create a Map Book. In @StephenR's latest contribution to the Knowledge Base, you'll learn how to Create a Map Book with Spatial Clustering.
Read our Blogs
Most recently, @DrDan imparts some intuition behind the problems associated with predictor collinearity (also known as multicollinearity), and provides some rules of thumb about when, and when not, to be concerned: How Concerned Should You be About Predictor Collinearity? It Depends...
word2vec is a popular group of models that produce word embeddings by training shallow neural networks. In @SydneyF's latest Data Science blog post, we apply a word2vec model to the Alteryx Community texts to develop Alteryx-specific word embeddings: Word2vec for the Alteryx Community
If you attended Inspire Europe this year, you're likely familiar with the research of Ben Goldacre. Whether you are a fan of Mr. Goldacre's research or not, you're not going to want to miss another @SydneyF original -- where she reproduces some of his teams analysis in Alteryx and Python and shares both formats for you to further explore the data on your own: Corroboration is Key: Reproducing Goldacre Research in Alteryx and Python
On Engine Works @apolly treats us to not one but TWO step by step Visualytics guides for the new Interactive Chart tool
and the new Insights tool. @NeilR discusses how the new Python tool opens new doors for creating custom Alteryx tools (A New Kind of Macro).
Don't miss It's a No Brainer: An Introduction to Neural Networks - another instant @SydneyF Data Science classic. And @DiganP saves us energy (and money) by Using Alteryx Tools for the Occupancy Detection Problem.
On Alter.Nation, @MaddieJ sat down with Alteryx co-founder and Chief Customer Officer, Olivia Duane Adams, for a chat about the Women of Analytics initiative here at Alteryx: Women of Analytics Spotlight | Libby Duane Adams
Culture & Events
*Immerse yourself in data and analytics culture.
Four new episodes of the Alter Everything Podcast are now available for your listening pleasure!
In the most recent episode, 19: The answer is typically "yes", we're joined by Tasha Alfano for a chat about software engineering, developer tools, and we'll find out what's in that gigantic binder she carries around the office...
In episode 18: The after after after party we interviewed several attendees at the Inspire Europe conference. These rockstar users (@JordanB, @Samanthaj_hughes, @Claje, @Caleb, @SydneyF, @tessaenns, @kat) stopped by the Community Podcast booth throughout the event to chat about how Alteryx has Inspired them to Alter Everything.
If you're a Tesla fan, you are not going to want to miss episode 17: Free the data and your mind will follow. Ben Sullins, Founder of Teslanomics - a community of Tesla enthusiasts, joins us for a chat about data science and why soft skills are the future of your career.
In episode 16: Fail fast and fail often, @TuvyL hosts Chris Love, James Dunkerley, and Joe Lipski for a chat about ACEhood, Inspire London, and where they get their inspiration.
Visit the Alter Everything Podcast home on Community or subscribe on your app of choice: Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud & more!
Learn Local. Alteryx User Group News
In an effort to compile and share all the great learnings from local Alteryx User Group meetings across the Globe, we put together an exciting new resource designed with users in mind.
Whether you missed a meeting, are looking for the materials, or are just curious to see what exactly happens at those mysteries meetings in your town -- We got you covered! Visit the Alteryx User Group Meeting Round Up | Content Index to learn more.
User Group Spotlight
The Montreal Alteryx User Group had an awesome Q3 meeting at the Keyrus office on September 12th.
The group experienced a presentation on automation by @williamchan from Air Canada and Alteryx best practices by @ScottyCarr from KPMG. You can find the full recap here: Montreal Q3 AUG Meeting Recap. The group is extremely excited to coordinate their Q4 meeting in November. To receive updates from the Montreal User Group, join their page.
Don't know when the next user group meeting is in your town? Check out our events calendar!
Community Tips
*Tips to help you make the most of your community experience.
Certification & Community
If you’re looking for ways to prepare for an upcoming certification exam, you’re in luck! The Community is chock full of resources to help you achieve Alteryx Certified User status.
Let's focus on the Core Exam as a first step. Here are just a few resources I would recommend to kick-off your journey.
Core Certification Training Series
Our first ever certification series! Across 4 sessions, you'll receive the foundation knowledge to make your first go on the Core exam!
The first two training sessions are now available on-demand:
Core Certification Prep - Part I
In the first session, we will be covering inputs, outputs and datatypes - the foundation to get going with any workflow!
Core Certification Prep - Part II
In the second session, you'll leave inputs, outputs, and datatypes behind -- so that you can focus your attention on all things prep and blend!
Coming up later this month make sure to mark your calendars & join the latter part of the Core Exam prep series live!
Exam Preparation Guide
The prep guide includes exam details, the tools and topics covered on the exam, a self-assessment, a curriculum to help you study and prepare, and a practice exam. Download the Core Certification Exam Guide here.
On page 4, you'll find valuable tips on the format of the exam -- Most notable, there are 7 practical questions that are worth 3 points each. Make sure to allocate enough time to focus on those high earning questions. Tip: You can jump ahead during the exam and complete the 3-point questions first, if that's how you prefer to work.
Use the self assessment, on page 7, to evaluate not only your familiarity with each individual tool, but also your ability to differentiate the functionality of similar tools. For example, if you're studying up on the Transform tools -- make sure you can verbalize why you would use cross tab over transpose. Once you know the key differences, check that Novice box, and move on to the next Tool category.
Work the curriculum (starting on page 9)
Use the results from your self assessment to guide your study efforts. Even if you think you know everything to pass the core exam -- at the very least, go through and complete all the recommended interactive lessons. I'd also highly advise leveraging the weekly challenges to prepare for the practical questions.
If you don't have the guide handy, go through the Getting Started and Alteryx For Excel Users courses.
Remember, the exam isn't just a test, it's also part of the learning journey. The core certification is designed to be low pressure so you can focus on learning, not just passing. If you don't pass on your first attempt, identify areas of difficulty and study up before taking the exam again.
Tune in to the Highlights Blog next month where we'll feature Community Tips catered to those looking to pass the Advanced exam.
In the meantime, visit the Alteryx Certification page to learn more about our Product Certification offerings.
Thanks for tuning in to this month's edition of Community Highlights! If you have ideas for what you'd like to see in an upcoming highlights, please comment below.
