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Alter.Nation

Community news, customer stories, and more!
WillM
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

This month, as always, @KylieF and I have some awesome new content and updates to share with you. And the theme for this edition (as you’ll notice through our incredible usage of GIFs) is concerts and events.  Maybe it’s because it’s starting to not be freezing, or maybe it’s because people are getting vaccinated, or maybe it’s even because of some of the news we have to share with you below.  Whatever the case may be, we are ready for events and gatherings to come back (and I’m sure all of you are as well). We figured why not lean into that feeling and at least have a little bit of virtual camaraderie in the blog. 

 

With all that being said and done, let’s welcome to the stage... your February Community Highlights and Release Notes! (trumpets flare, lights go up) 

 

Need to Know

 

This release was primarily focused on quality-of-life updates as we furthered our development of current large updates including SSO and the home page redesign. If you are interested in seeing all the QoL updates we completed they will be included in our Version History. 

However, in the coming weeks we will be releasing our new Events system in the form of Academy - Live Training! You’ll be able to look over all upcoming and past events, RSVP directly from the community and communicate with our instructors via the comments within the Community.  

This will be the first iteration of our Events system, so be sure to keep an eye out in the future for more as we continue to build out new features and boards using the system. 

 

via GIPHY

Community News

 

Now that we've wrapped up all the new things coming at you from the community this month, I want to talk about some stuff that you might have missed in the community at large in February Not everything is in Designer Discussions, you know? 

  

First up, we have a great series that started at the beginning of last month - Reasons to Automate.  This series takes a look at perspectives from all across our organization on why automation makes things easier and more efficient for their teams.  We're talking people from Community to Finance to Engineering and everything in between.  This is a fantastic series to take a look at, and it's going to continue through the end of March.  There are also some really good questions posed to the community at large in each video, so be sure to check out the blog as well as the videos in the General Forum! 

 

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For even more video content to soak up with your brain sponge, be sure to check out our two new fireside chats that happened in the Industry Forum. We have both a wrap up and a beginning that occurred.  First, there was the release of our final segment of the series with @KarenHays and @JetLali - SSGA: Empowering and Engaging your Team. In this segment, they chat about the future of digital transformation within organizations. We also had another new release - Whole Foods and Signet Jewelers: Drive Business Decisions Amid COVID. In this chat, join @cplewis90, @ggruccio, and @akeller1 as they talk through topics focused on the retail industry. This should be a good one, as retail definitely had to pivot and change the way decisions were made due to the pandemic, and the first video's focus is on opening strategies after lockdowns were lifted. 

 

I also want to point out a great quality of life improvement mentioned in a thread started by @glenperes in General Discussions. This may be widely known to many, but I bet there a quite a few community members who have the same issue with the Designer splash screen covering your windows while you wait for it to get going. Check out his thread to find a way around it here! 

 

 

 

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Read and Listen

 

Many of February’s blog posts showcased exciting elements of our 2021.1 release. We’ve got full details on accessibility improvements in 2021.1, and we also learned how to use the new automated feature engineering tools in the Alteryx Intelligence Suite.  

Data structure had a moment in the spotlight with posts about data normalization and about creating Excel files with differently formatted sheets. And for those diving into model building, we heard about using EvalML for autoML, plus metrics to evaluate classification models. 

Finally, we also heard about two ways Alteryx can simplify working with healthcare data. But whichever industry you’re in, get inspired by reading about the “snowball effect” of learning and career growth experienced by one Alteryx ACE — and then get involved with our Innovator and Rewards programs. 

 

Speaking of exciting releases... 

 

 

 

We released the first two episodes of our brand-new podcast, Data Science Mixer! Episode 1 featured Stanford’s Margot Gerritsen, co-founder of Women in Data Science. Margot talked about her colorful career in data science, and the two biggest myths she’s working to disprove about women in the field. For this episode’s “Cocktail Conversation, we invite you to comment on the show notes with your favorite way to learn about data science!  

In episode 2, @SusanCS sat down with Alex Engler, Brookings Institution research fellow and data scientist. They had a fascinating chat about the present and future state of public policy regarding AI, and how policy, ethics and innovation interact. For this episode’s Cocktail Conversation, comment on the show notes to share your tips on what has kept you going in your pursuit of data science knowledge!  

 

You can subscribe to the show directly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app. Be sure to subscribe here on Community as well, because you’ll want to comment to join in on each episode’s “Cocktail Conversation.”  

 

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Parting Thoughts

 

This edition has been brought to you by wanting to go to events other people again.  Luckily, our community gives a virtual facsimile of that, and I'm so thankful for that.  All of you are like fellow concertgoers - we don't all know each other, but we're all here for some of the same reasons and I think that's pretty awesome. So until we can go pack our bodies into a sweaty venue for a show, let's keep the conversations going here in the Alteryx Community!

 

 

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Will Machin
Community Manager

Will runs community engagement programs for the Alteryx Community and wants to ensure that all members get the resources, activity, and information they need. He is always open to hear feedback and ideas and loves connecting with everyone in the community to strengthen relationships and build strong ties.

Will runs community engagement programs for the Alteryx Community and wants to ensure that all members get the resources, activity, and information they need. He is always open to hear feedback and ideas and loves connecting with everyone in the community to strengthen relationships and build strong ties.

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