ACE Spotlight Series: Nicola Woodhouse

[MeganBowers]

Today’s ACE spotlight is @PuffinPanic! Keep reading to learn more about Nicola and what makes her a unique Alteryx super user.

Tell us a bit about your professional background.

I completed an MSc in computer science and started working in the IT industry in the late 1990s, but I didn't work there for very long before taking a career break while my children were young. Rather than returning to IT as the children grew, I became a teaching assistant in a primary school where, for 10 years, I worked with children between the ages of 3 and 11. For the last 6 years of this, I took responsibility for data management within the Nursery class (ages 3 & 4), which allowed me to work my way back towards an IT career.

As my children grew and no longer needed my constant support, I started looking for a job in the data industry, and in June 2019, I joined a company to work with their NHS Supply Chain contract team as a data administrator. This role evolved into being their Data and Reporting Manager in December 2019 managing a small team and led to achieving my Chartered Manager status in 2022.

Between 2019 and 2023 my work revolved around supporting the Category teams, developing and automating their data handling. I started using Alteryx early in 2020 to resolve some data issues relating to a large tender and quickly realized that Alteryx could be used to develop reporting and automate manual processes to improve team performance.

In 2023, NHS Supply Chain insourced most of its externally managed contracts, and since then, I have been working on automation of data handling for a much larger team, as well as creating and running our internal Alteryx user group and delivering training and support to our Alteryx users.

What is your favorite Alteryx tool, and why?

This might be a bit strange, but the Email tool from the reporting palette is my favorite. It was a huge revelation to me when I discovered that I could run a report and have the output automatically sent to the user(s) who needed it without having to manually go through the process of emailing it.

I've also used it (combined with the other reporting tools) to bulk send emails to suppliers and customers containing only data relevant to them—after a LOT of testing to make sure I wouldn't send sensitive data to the wrong people.

Regex would be a close second because I love the versatility that the tool provides for manipulating data.

What has been your favorite Alteryx project? Can you tell us about the business problem you solved?

One of the high points early in my use of Alteryx was the development of a product match tool for one of our category teams. We had a central function within the wider NHS Supply Chain that provided this service to most teams, but the complexity of this particular category meant that matching products purchased by customers to those on our catalog was left to the category manager to complete manually - a slow and tedious process.

I felt an enormous sense of achievement when I was able to reduce a 6 week lead time on product match results to approximately 15 minutes from start to end.

This project was entered into the customer excellence awards for Inspire in Amsterdam, and while it was not a finalist, it resulted in an invitation to join the Alteryx Innovators, which opened an amazing community to me.

What advice do you have for new community members?

Use the community to its fullest extent. My introduction to Alteryx consisted of “download this software, it's easy to use (you just drag and drop the tools), and the community's great.” And to be fair, the person who said this to me was right on all points.

The online learning is easy to access and offers a great starting point. It guided me all the way through to achieving my Designer Advanced qualification.

I always search (even now!) in the community for a solution to any issue I'm having, and 95% of the time, the answer is already there. But if you can't find a response, don't hesitate to post - someone will likely have the answer for you very soon, as the community is so responsive.

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 co-lead the Crafteryx group, which was an offshoot of a conversation that started in the Innovators community. We were on an Innovators meeting, and Charity started knitting because it helps her concentrate if her hands are busy. And then Sarah, Aiah, and I immediately jumped into the chat to say, what are you knitting? Tell us more! It kind of snowballed from there.

Within 6 months, we made a whole jacket for Libby at Inspire 2023. We wanted Crafteryx to be about making a different group of people who might be at Inspire feel welcome. It is about helping other people fit in and building another aspect to the Community, and it's just kind of grown from that.

Anybody who enjoys crafting and Alteryx is welcome in the group!

Crafteryx at Inspire 2024

I also lead our internal user group at NHS Supply Chain.

What discussion topic(s) could Community members tag you in for help?

Reporting, Parse and Transform. I'm currently working on a project which is allowing me to learn more about the Computer Vision tools, so maybe these in the future.

What is one fun thing about you that community members might not know? 

I sing in 3 different choirs. If you know how uplifting singing by yourself is, you can take it to the next level by joining a choir.