100 Ways to Use a Top 100 Software!

[MeganBowers]

Hey Maveryx, we’re excited to announce that we were named #1 on the list of The Top 100 Software Companies of 2023 by the Software Report.

We are honored to receive this recognition, and one thing is clear to us—this wouldn’t be possible without our fantastic Community members. Whether asking and answering discussion questions, contributing to our content, learning from each other in User Group meetings, or submitting product ideas, you improve the Alteryx experience and push us to be our best. Thank you!

In the spirit of this award, we want to start the longest blog comment chain below. Tell us in the comments how you use Alteryx, and let’s build up a list of 100(+) ways to use the software!

Here are some ways I’ve seen on Alteryx used by Community members recently, from the Blogs and Gallery:

• @Jeff_Neklason used Designer to automate email distribution lists
• @Samantha_Jayne used Location Intelligence to put geoparquet data on the map
• @JamesCharnley used Designer to create a crossword puzzle
• @rachel_k used Auto Insights to track software sales account health
• @DataNath used Designer to create a macro to enable users to conduct flexible, SQL-like joins
• @RWvanLeeuwen used Intelligence Suite and Designer to design a Spotify playlist creator app
• @Felipe_Ribeir0 used Designer and Python to create a macro to copy files between folders

These are just a few great examples, but as you know, the possibilities are limitless. I enjoyed gathering these examples and can’t wait to hear more. Your problem-solving skills and creativity are inspiring! And who knows, seeing other Maveryx’s use cases in the comments could help you solve challenges in your next projects.

So tell us—how are YOU using Alteryx?

[Felipe_Ribeir0]

Exciting news! I'm proud to be part of this community and delighted to have a contribution to the gallery mentioned here. 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[DataNath]

Thanks for the mention, Megan! Love contributing to the community and I'm always amazed and inspired by how other people are using Alteryx!

[boroalicja2]

Used Alteryx to automate creating Tabulations reports

[DanielG]

@MeganBowers -- I have used Alteryx to further my career...  😀

Does that count?

[MeganBowers]

@DanielG that definitely counts! 😊

[caltang]

I’m using Alteryx for actuarial and finance transformation - even when I’m not an actuary / finance person. Data transcends job titles - and Alteryx is that conduit.

[Qiu]

@MeganBowers 
It is so wonderful to know that so many Alteryx users are using Alteryx in so diversed way, way beyond the scope of an data analytic tools.

With the great tool, there are so many possibilites yet to be challeged.

Personally, I did something I believe it is quite amazing, at least for me, it make my works much easier.

So we have been continuesly issuing fabrication drawings as revisions, Rev1, Rev2.

The drawings are in PDF format with a naming convention as DrawingNumber+Date+RevNumber.

I was asked to combine the latest issued dtrawings into one PDF based on specific cretiria.
I use the Command Tool to generate the the list for all the drawings, then parse the file name and pick up only latest ones.
With the Python tool, I am able to move the target PDFs to one location then combine them into one single PDF.
It would cost me the whole day but I can finish it in 10 minutes with an automated workflow of Alteryx.

[gawa]

I use Alteryx to administrate Alteryx users in my company.

By using License portal API, and Web scraping on Alteryx community site, we monitor on user's availability(active/inactive), how many weekly challenges solved, and certificate acquisition status. Daily running this WF in Alteryx Server enables us to watch user's maturity level on Power BI.  

[caltang]

So cool @gawa ! Can you expand more on that workflow? I'm eager to learn if you're willing to share!

[gawa]

@caltang  Thank you for comment. I had explained about it at last AUG-Tokyo so please refer to the archive here though it is in Japanese. Due to our company policy, I had to mask some information. Sorry for inconvenience.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Tokyo-Japan-%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E/10-17-%E7%81%AB-%E7%AC%AC17...

[Samantha_Jayne]

I use Alteryx on Alteryx everyday. 😄 

Recently I am using Alteryx to help me solve #30daymapchallenges which is fun, but next month a few of us will be looking at #AoC or Advent of Code, solving these challenges with Alteryx is always interesting. We certainly learn a lot about what we can achieve when we think out of the box.

Everyday, I am helping customers understand the power of Alteryx and how it can be applied in their organisations.

Great post @MeganBowers I cannot wait to see what our customers are innovating today.

[Qiu]

@Samantha_Jayne 
Hi, Sam

I want also thinking to challenge #30daymapchallenges also but dont have a link or the input to start.
Maybe you can enlighten me? 😁
And for Advent of Code, I am sure I can not finish them all, but will try my best!

[Samantha_Jayne]

@Qiu anytime Qui, the link you need is 30 Day Map Challenge 😁

Welcome.

[rohit782192]

Alteryx has Alter my career. I use Alteryx for Data Migration

[PuffinPanic]

A fun, not so business-y, use for Alteryx: I've just created an app in Alteryx to generate 'Ice-breaker bingo' boards. You can select how many sheets you want, and how many rows & columns in your grid, then Alteryx creates randomised grids from a pre-defined list of 'find-someone-who...' requirements.

I'm planning to use it as an ice-breaker for the first Alteryx users workshop in my company - we've just insourced about 10 companies into a single one, so we don't really know each other.

[AkimasaKajitani]

My recent help for my colleagus is follows.
To know the end users activities, we are getting the end users situation from MA(Pardot) every day by Designer. So when our marketing team sent emails to the customers, we can know the effect of those emails.

Another work, I created a workflow to get how many Alteryx user groups there are and how many people are in them by using web scraping from Marveryx community.

[Samantha_Jayne]

@AkimasaKajitani I love webscraping with Alteryx 😍

[SudhansuPatra]

Congratulations !! Great going 😊👋

[lwolfie]

So many to choose from, but the most common are the different reconciliations! The most loved workflow around the company is the File Management macro in the gallery though.

[Christian_Kainzmeier]

Great! I´m using Alteryx to transform my professional live from unstructured intelligent document processing specialist into a more broader view and focus on structured, big data processing. Love it!

[mceleavey]

I used Alteryx to help me with a problem I was having trying to get a refund from a company who refused to return my calls.

I found the email addresses of their board of directors, then used Alteryx to create emails and send them through an email service which created a new from email each time so they couldn't spam me.

I then sent everyone on the board an email every ten minutes until the problem resolved itself.

Long story short, I'm now in prison.

M.

[MeganBowers]

@mceleavey the Email tool was meant for good, not evil 😂 

[SeanAdams]

We've seen Alteryx used in a very wide variety of ways - many of these I've done my self too:

• Primary use:  The 90th percentile of usage of Atleryx is ETL - Data Prep and Blend.    This is the main magic of Atleryx and has to continue to be the main focus of investment & development of the platform.    I can use Alteryx to connect to any data; anywhere; with anyone.     And htis includes data that is on cloud/ on prem / on network share in Excel etc - all without having to worry about tech infra; questions of cloud  non-cloud etc.     The fact that we can train people without a tech background to be able to work with THEIR own data in minutes is the real power of Alteryx.    
• As a general automation platform:   Where teams have to connect to a DB, then take a particular action on an API
• As a Python container: We have a python process that we need to run daily, but non-tech folk don't have a python server to productionize these things - no problem, just pop it into an Alteryx canvas and schedule it
• Test an API: if you have test cases in Excel - you can test an API using Alteryx as a test runner
• As a report generator: Yes - Alteryx does much more than Reporting  - but let's not forget that it does Reporting pretty well (and Reporting is not something that Tableau does currently) so this is an important niche
• As a DAta Quality tool: Many teams use Alteryx to look for bad quality data and then alert people on it
• As a control & audit tool: Rather than manual controls where a user has to check X and Y - just build the control / rule into Alteryx and automate it.    And then Audit is just doing this for the entire population.
• As a Download tool: We have data availble in a DB - but users don't want to have to learn SQL - no problem, we cna put an analytical app on it.

This is just a scattering - I'm sure there's a ton more out there.

[alexnajm]

I have used Alteryx a great deal to further my career, but my favorite project was mapping out all hotels worldwide and using a Spatial Match to get their time zone and be able to convert metrics from UTC to local time. I love anything Spatial!

[Nezrin]

Apart from the cool aspects of data prepping, it is very rewarding to see teams eliminate manual processes and use scheduled Alteryx workflows instead.

[MikeLR]

I've used Alteryx in so many different ways over the past few years. Some of my favourites have been:

• Data Migration projects, where Alteryx allowed me to reduce days of manual customer load file validation to a few seconds.
• Payment reconciliation for a retail store's ecommerce site
• Automatically generating months' worth of event bookings for an Odoo ERP system
• Customer Sentiment analysis
• Combining UK Census data, House price data, Electoral Results and Output Area Classifications to produce a database of all UK postcodes and key geodemographic data
• Numerous spatial macros such as distance to nearest, distance to second nearest, to help plan marketing of residential courses to schools

[KGT]

Reviving an older thread.

One of the things I'm using Alteryx for on the side is backing up workflows on our network drive.

We currently have access to a network drive that is not "company standard" so that we can store Alteryx files and work. We do not have access to Alteryx Server either as it's in a different business unit and not shared cost currently. The .bak files do not write for some reason and rather than have files with v25 attached, team members only create new versions every now and again.

This concerns me and so every now and again I run a workflow that gets a list of all the yxmd files on the network drive and backs up any that have been edited since the last backup, These backups all get written into a zip file and a list of what is in each zip file is written out as well. That way if someone needs to go back to a version from 2 weeks ago, I can find it.

This is a work-around as IT doesn't want to help with backup that we can access and Altery Server is not currently available. One day I'll clean up the zip files, but that's not an issue quite yet.