Alter.Nation
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Today’s ACE spotlight is @gawa! Keep reading to learn more about Ippei and what makes him a unique Alteryx super user.
Tell us a bit about your professional background.
I am a senior data engineer at Toyo Engineering Corporation, a plant engineering company in Tokyo. I first encountered Alteryx Designer in 2020 and have been an enthusiast ever since. My role at work is almost everything about Alteryx: workflow development for automating engineering processes, mentoring our users, Alteryx Server administrator, License administrator, and so on. I have a background in mechanical engineering for 10 years and am a licensed Professional Engineer in KY.
With my colleagues at Inspire
What is your favorite Alteryx tool, and why?
I would say the RegEx tool. When I use the RegEx tool, I feel like I'm cracking the code. It's so deep that there's still a lot to learn for me.
What has been your favorite Alteryx project? Can you tell us about the business problem you solved?
The most memorable project was that I integrated the specialized software applied in the plant engineering industry with Alteryx. By doing so, I could automate the design quality check process for mechanical equipment. Not only automating but also creating the visual reports with Reporting tools, I enabled our engineers to get additional insight that they could not get before using Alteryx. Surprisingly, all of this development was completed in just a few months, which once again reminded me of the power of Alteryx.
What advice do you have for new community members?
As long as you have a passion for solving something, you can make it with Alteryx.
What is your favorite way to engage as an ACE? Also, what area of the online community do you spend the most time in?
I love to participate in Weekly Challenges and submit my ideas. Actually, I'm the author of 4 challenges so far. I want to add more as an ACE!
Another favorite is Advent of Code (AoC). This is an annual event of programming competition held in December. Alteryx users can participate in this event with Alteryx Designer, although AoC is intended for solving with a programming language. I still remember well in 2022 when I first participated in AoC. At that time, I had been using Alteryx for two years, passed the Advanced certification, and felt like my skills were saturated. To be honest, I may have become overconfident that I had nothing more to learn (so embarrassing).
AoC completely smashed down my overconfidence. Each puzzle is well thought out and they can't be solved without applying the proper algorithms and logic. An Iterative Macro that doesn't progress at all, data that has grown to hundreds of gigabytes, or Alteryx Designer suddenly quitting due to an error I've never seen before...everything was a new experience for me. To help you imagine how difficult they are, I’m including my personal time record below to solve each puzzle in AoC 2024.
It took more than 3 days to solve the puzzle for Day 20, and I needed to create the nested Iterative Macros. When I was struggling with this puzzle, I was building Iterative Macros even while I was sleeping—seriously.
Day 20 solution
The great thing about AoC is that we join with fellow ACEs and Community top users from all over the world, chatting on WhatsApp. Sometimes we compete, sometimes we help each other, and we can learn a lot from each other through this event. It was a great pleasure meeting them in person at Inspire.
If you are interested in AoC, visit this blog. See you in December 2024!
What discussion topic(s) could Community members tag you in for help?
I welcome any topics about Alteryx Desktop Designer and Alteryx Server.
What is one fun thing about you that community members might not know?
When I went to dinner with colleagues at Inspire 2024 and ordered a beer, I was the only guy a restaurant server asked to show an ID. After looking at my ID, he was surprised that my time as a teenager had ended 20 years ago...
