Contest - 10 Things I love about Alteryx

[TaraM]

Do you love Alteryx? Can you think of 10 things you love about it? Tell us and you can win big. The Community Team is so proud of our new platform and excited for the launch of Alteryx version 10.0, that we thought we’d share the love. Here are the contest details:

Submit a comment on this post that lists 10 things you love about Alteryx. The contest will run from September 10 until October 9, 2015. Prizes? You betcha!

• There’s a Go Pro Hero 4 at stake for the best top 10 list.
• 10 t-shirts for the top 10 things across all submissions.
• A special badge (like the one to the left) for anyone who puts themselves out there by entering the contest.

Entries will be judged by a qualified panel of judges from the Alteryx executive team who will evaluate each entry based on the following judging criteria:

• 50% creativity 
• 50% votes (stars) from the Alteryx Community

 Check out the official rules here.

Show us some love and Turn on your lovelight  - Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it…

---

Here are 10 things I love about Alteryx (I also have a thing for rhymes):

10 – The name…ALTERYX…like mine, has many pronunciations.

How do you say it? It doesn’t really matter.

It can fall like a tear or rip like a tear…

Or it can do ‘all the tricks’ -

I prefer the latter.

9 – I get to build something… as poetic as this Haiku:

Click. Drag. Drop. Connect.

Intersect spatial object.

Expect. Run. Correct.

8 – I can build it anyway I want.

So there!

7 – What I build is repeatable.

I used to have to develop by checklist.

No step could ever be missed.

Now it's ~build and run~ and then run and run…

It is this way my work is more fun!

6- What I build is improvable.

5 – When I get stuck, someone always knows the answer.

Once upon a time, when you had an Alteryx question there was just  @Ned-

He’s still here, and no one has more cred,

only now, Alteryx knowledge is more widespread.

You see, the Alteryx Community has the best and brightest heads,

posting great information, thread after thread!

4 – Regex gives (.*) -any single character zero or more times- super powers!

http://xkcd.com/208/

3 – My best work is in there. 

Everytime a workflow is shared, I beam with pride

The last 11 years have been a wild ride...

From icons to docs, each and every release,

To ideas, GUI text, and regression test beasts.

Demos, training, and replicating bugs...

Hearing anyone say they love Alteryx feels like a thousand hugs!

2 - Someone once told me, you learn something new every day and THAT’s what makes life worth living.

Every time I place tools on the canvas I learn something. Every. Single. Time.

1 – Alteryx lets me do some pretty awesome things.

Like brainstorm with my team on storyboards for a promo video, create 100 or so new badges for the community, learn about astronomy to create a fun rank structure, create a homework app for my kid, or even a little online research for the best top 10 lists of all time.

What are 10 things YOU love about Alteryx? Comment below and let it shine, let it shine, let it...

[Aguisande]

Hi,

Even when I'm not elegible for the contest, I wanted to share at least 5 things:

- There is no right and wrong in Alteryx, just a thousand ways to accomplish your goal.

- Alteryx keeps my self-esteem always high: It allows me to correct my own mistakes, without anyone else noticing!

- AlterYX defeated my OCD, making me not to worry that a Y appears before an X (AlterXY should be unpronounceable).

- Alteryx made me a better professional and person, forcing me every day to improve all my skills, from statistics to databases, from design to geographical, from anxious to patient (try to make a predictive model that takes 4 hours to complete and discover you forgot to put a Browse tool to see the results, I can bet your anxiousness got beaten, so yes, Alteryx makes you a better person)

- Allows me to play PONG and Space Invaders at customer’s offices.

- Alteryx contributes to make other softwares great! (It FIXES and COMPENSATES all flaws they could have in data prep, transform, parse, etc.)
- Inside Alteryx, you got a huge bunch of people eager to help!
- Outside Alteryx, you got a hue bunch of people eager to help! (Copy & Paste gone wrong?, nahhh)
- Alteryx allows me to get the WHOLE data process visually, so identifying opportunities to improve are very simple
- Neil mentioned you can turn your work into art (will this qualify?)

[NeilR]

1. You can make your own new tool (macro) if you want
2. After you get your workflow working, you can turn it into a work of art
3. It's sort of a programming language (batch/iterative macros)
4. It's not a programming language
5. If you're out of ideas, you can scroll across the toolbar for inspiration
6. It's fun
7. Plays well with others
8. The Download tool
9. The Boosted Model tool
10. Drag
11. (and drop)

[MarqueeCrew]

[cbridges]

1. It's Simple - I used the trial download to create a 90% working ETL process that took me 6 months to build in Access, and that an outside consulting firm couldn't deliver in a year using SQL. And the 90% was my fault, not the fault of Alteryx (garbage in, garbage out).
2. It's Also Complex - I've seen workflows that cause a small part of my brain to explode. I have absolutely no idea what the authors are doing, and their using tools I can hardly even pronounce. I just know they're working magic. Which brings me to...
3. Whoa, Whoa, It's Magic! Ya Know... - I look like a freaking wizard, and I've only been using Alteryx for a few months. But when I client sent us a file they couldn't do anything with (it was an Access database that already exceeded Access' limits, without any queries), we turned around a finished report in no time. Access could do nothing with the data. Alteryx turned it into a yxdb in about 10 minutes, and we went from there. On an ongoing basis, that report takes about 5 minutes to generate.
4. The Community - I only appear to be a wizard, but there are actual wizards in the community. And they're very generous with their knowledge.
5. Swag - I got some really cool swag yesterday, and I like how freely Brian Oblinger was doling it out.
6. They Listen - I'm fairly positive that the reason we're using Alteryx now is that we had an introductory meeting, we responded that the tool with the added demographic data was pricey considering we'd still have to buy additional data elsewhere... then, TADA! A standalone option. Alteryx listens!
7. Getting Better With Age - because Alteryx listens, they've incorporated a ton of user suggestions in the latest release, and will do so again in the next release. I love that, as a user, I really get the experience that I'm helping create the next version.
8. They're Attentive - I was trotting off to a user group with my laptop, when I discovered I couldn't install a second copy. :-( But I contacted my customer account rep, and next thing I knew, I had additional temporary licenses. Thank you!
9. It's Fast, fast, fast! - I have reports that have seen anywhere from 50% to 98% reduction in processing time from Excel to Alteryx. If Excel could even process them without crashing multiple times, which was a very common experience. I far prefer just clicking a play button to watching an hourglass, praying, and saving each and every time the hourglass stops. Now I get to be paid for results instead of being paid to watch hourglasses.
10. Everything Goes Better With Alteryx - I'm very excited to convert ALL of our data processing to Alteryx, because there's nothing that hasn't been made better, faster, and easier with Alteryx. Plus there's that fun multi-field binning tool that looks exactly like two cocktail glasses with ice, and it makes me thirsty :-P

[randyfong]

Easy, intuitive, integrated, relevant, best in class, makes sense, saves me time, awesome, user friendly, cool!

[gabor_szalai]

Alteryx...

1. Landed me a job. The stuff that Alteryx enabled me to do ultimately resulted in getting me my current position. My boss was looking for rapid-fire, novel solutions to challenging and complex data questions and Alteryx gave me the means to answer them. What else can you wish for?   
2. Liberated me from the (sometimes oppressive) reign of developers. I am not a software developer, but I do think tech and I'm always on the hunt for the next good data 'hack'. Before my encounter with Alteryx, the implementation of my ideas were at the mercy of developers. Not all developers like new ideas - inertia and a mild antagonism to change are traits that can be found amongst the ranks of programmers. Once I shelved the 200th never-to-be completed dev ticket in JIRA, my imaginative energies slowly dried up and resignation took its place. Alteryx gave me new horizons and literally shocked me back into action with the promise of the possible.
3. Lets me exercise my creativity. Most people feel the need to create something and I possess this urge in a very intense form. Nothing inspires in me the joy of achievement quite as much as a piece of something that sprung out of my mind. The canvas Alteryx provides gives endless possibilities: there are a million ways of solving problems and it really is up to your ingenuity to find and combine them. And when you create a good app that is useful to others, you have your daily intake of creative satisfaction.
4. Is a pragmatic enabler. Everything in Alteryx is designed to give you quick and useful end results. The supported file/database formats, the Browse tool, the Download and S3 Download tools, Predictive Tools, the outputs - they are all there to give you what you need in the modern data ecosystem.
5. Allows me to reach out to the Web. The mega-powerful Download Tool is probably my favourite as it gives me the ability to query external APIs and enrich my data in myriad possible ways. There is nothing like the Web to supercharge your analytical potency.  
6. Is a great prototyping tool. Although it's probably not the primary use case for the software, Alteryx is also extremely valuable when it comes to prototyping ideas for product design and requirements. In a data analytics company a huge chunk of the overall development effort go into creating new ways to combine, enrich and exploit metadata. Alteryx lets me try out new ideas in a practical form with minimum investment of time. Once a prototype is done, we can evaluate what is working, what is not, and reiterate the initial design super quickly. This consequently helps me writing more precise and detailed development requirements specifications - and developers love that! And here we come full circle from wanting to be independent from developers to actually helping them. It's a deal for everyone!
7. Teaches me about data every day. By exploring the Tool set in Alteryx, I actually learnt a great deal about data, its workings and how to manipulate it. You can read about cartesian joins in SQL manuals (I'm sure it's fascinating), but there is nothing quite like actually seeing it happen by mistake. By using Alteryx, I mastered REGEX, got comfortable with database joins, got the hang of interacting with web APIs and even started scripting in R. Alteryx is a course in 'data science' and a good at that.  
8. Rewards my mistakes. The software is very user-friendly, but of course it is a complex beast that takes time to get really proficient with. The mechanics of Alteryx, however, are built to encourage a trial and error approach from the start. The error logging and the supporting community is so good that you are almost looking forward to find the next error/problem to resolve. Learning Alteryx is an organic experience, and a very enjoyable one.
9. Takes care of its users. The support network behind the product is absolutely outstanding. Everyone I ever engaged with from the Alteryx staff were always helpful, swift in their response and got me the solution I needed. Technology is great, but only when decent humans stand behind it.
10. Is a cool metaphor. There is something distinctively cool in the way the UI tells you the journey of your data. The way you drag and drop, create, then finally see the data pumping through your pipeline is a brilliant narrative metaphor that makes data manipulation accessible and, wait for it, genuinely FUN. There, you have it.

[LonnieY]

10.  I loving playing Favorites.  If I only want to consider a small group of Alteryx Tools my favorites, I can do that!  Without repercussions or hard feelings!  And if a new Tool becomes my new best friend, it gets added to my Favorites.  

9.  I love undocking!  I can keep all my windows confined to a small area on my screen for working on a virtual machine or I can undock my Results and Configuration windows and spread out over multiple screens.  Because I want breathing room!  I want to see more!

8.  I love file independence!  Where else can one so easily connect disparate file types?  I'm done searching for the appropriate software to connect a csv to an xls to a .tab file because my computer only has Open Office, not MS Office and no mapping software.  

7.  I love the scalability-of-use factor.  Alteryx does have something for every user and I don't need to be an expert on every Tool and functionality to get my job done.  And I can reduce the clutter, turn off those tool groups I'll never use but still have access if I need them.

6.  I love self-service resources.  There are many places to find answers to my Alteryx questions.  Help - always referring to it.  The Alteryx Community lets me look for an answer to my question.  Then I can ask a question if needed and a whole community of power users can respond.  

5.  I love a dynamic product.  Alteryx doesn't rest on its laurels.  There's always room for improvement and the fact we're at version 10.0 reflects this philosophy.  

4.  I love sharing.  Trying to illustrate a problem or cool functionality?  Sharing Alteryx modules cut down repeating myself and miscommunicating.  Because it's ALL there in the Workflow!

3.  I love Documentation.  I can document what's happening with as much or little detail as necessary.  Have you ever looked at a PowerPoint presentation from a year ago with bullet points and a short description?  Yah...4 to 7 words don't quite capture the meaning, especially if it's complex.  The Comment tool is so flexible.

2.  I love Colors.   I can assign visual value to containers and flag sections needing attention.

1.  I LOVE Container Tools.   Drumroll, please!  In my world, one can NEVER use too many containers in a workflow!  They open and close easily, are portable, expand as needed, turn off when too noisy, have room for labels and never need dusting.  I couldn't function without my containers and segmented tasks.

Yes.  I LOVE Alteryx!

[g_neeft]

1. Awesome

2. Awesome

3. Awesome

4. Awesome

5. Awesome

6. Awesome

7. Awesome

8. Awesome

9. Awesome

10. Awesome

[MarqueeCrew]

I've already entered my 10 reasons, but wanted to share an eleventh:  ALTERYX has 7 letters.  

My new license plate is on it's way!!!

[Atabarezz]

A is for Artistic, full of creativity
L is for Likeable, instantly pleasing
T is for Terrific, so awesome
E is for Exuberant, a bubbly presence
R is for Refreshing, stimulating company
Y is for Yearning, a drive to succeed
X is for Xtraordinary, your brilliance shines like the sun

T is for Thoughtful, considerate towards all

E is for Engaging, winning others over
N is for Neat, carefully organized

And that makes 10...

[ssjl]

1) Automation processes are easier for others to follow and understand.
2) I master new processes and can spot optimizations faster because I have to break things down more than before to better align with the Alteryx tools.
3) Aggregation of data into a single output makes me want to bake cookies for the world.
4) I can solve my own problems without waiting on IT or a DBA to spin something up.
5) Calgary databases. 'nuff said.
6) More tools than I'll ever use so there is always something more to learn.
7) Live chat support (Hi Tony, Jordan, Blythe, et al.!)
8) Sometimes I am the bottleneck and Alteryx has made someone else's life easier, not just mine.
9) R integration for easier use of our customized R stuff
10) The ability to flag tools as favorites. A small thing, but so helpful.

[Ken_Black]

My 10 favorite thinigs about Alteryx, in no particular order:

1. Ned Harding - A true visionary, a brilliant programmer, an optimization master. He writes a great blog and is always willing to help me: http://inspiringingenuity.net/
2. Dean Stoecker - The coolest CEO in North America. I challenge anyone to show me any other CEO that is going to call someone like me and say - "Hey, I'm in town tomorrow. Want to have breakfast?": https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dean-stoecker/a/10/298
3. Libby Duane-Adams - Intelligent, engaging, honest, and so motivated to change the world. She is my my sister, my confidant, and a great friend all rolled-up into one: http://www.alteryx.com/leadership/olivia-duane-adams
4. Jimmy Garrett - Jimmy has more Alteryx talent in one finger than I have in my whole brain. Watching him demonstrate Alteryx is like watching a virtuoso violinist. I am working on a daily basis to be like Jimmy: http://www.alteryx.com/jimmy-garrett
5. Jeff Hooker - Jeff delivers everything I ever need, whenever I need it. He has gone to battle for me on many occasions. He listens, understands, supports, encourages and continues to help me in my Alteryx mission. He is a man that every company would love to have working for them: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-hooker/2/aa9/a59
6. Lisa Aguilar - Lisa lead me through my first and only interview I've ever given. She made me feel comfortable, was encouraging and was so good at her job that I thought she was a pro. After it was over, I was shocked to find out she never really did the job before, just like I never did an interview before. She is a natural and is a great gal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaarichardson
7. Brian Oblinger - Brian is relatively new to Alteryx and he is a game changer. This guy is perfectly designed for his job. He is going to help launch Alteryx into the stratosphere. By working with Julie, Tara and other staffers, this group is re-designing the Alteryx community to make it one of the best technical communities in existence: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianoblinger
8. All the Other Staffers - From Damian, to Anthony, to Nikki, to Mark, to Erin, to Richard, to George, to Scott. All of these people make Alteryx what it is. They are all personable, helpful, humble, and are willing to do whatever is necessary to help the customer. This staff is the best. Hands down. There is no comparison to any other company I have ever seen. Who else is going to take your three-year old kid, treat him with respect and care, and go make him a customized badge in the middle of an national conference? If you don't believe me, see the picture below. 
9. The Product - Over 30 years of hard-core scientific programming has conditioned me to the trials and tribulations of writing sophisticated computer programs. With literally millions of lines of computer codes written, I have the experience to understand absolute brilliance when I see it. Alteryx is simply the best computer program I have ever experienced. There is nothing that even remotely compares, and I have used a lot of programs. 
10. The Possiblities - Sometimes Alteryx keeps me awake at night. Sometimes Alteryx drives my wife crazy. She threatens to leave me because I fade off into the zone of possiblity in Alteryx or I stay connected to my computer too long. She says my passion for her has been transfered to passion for a computer program (which is non-sense, by the way!) I daydream of workflows and applications that I want to solve. I have about 30 years left to explore the deepest recesses of my business and scientific mind. I now know that Alteryx will allow me to do anything I can imagine. If you don't believe me, start reading my blog. Here is the link: https://3danim8.wordpress.com/.

[AndyMoncla]

1 - Works well with my ADD.  Working in Alteryx always prompts new questions.  The good news is that even when I go off on a new tangent I can always follow the connectors back to my original question and task.

2 - Chained Apps - As I move into the Big Data world and I have to crunch terabytes of data through spatial functions, the ability to break it up using chained apps is awesome.  For the younger generation, check out Frank Sinatra's "High Hopes" on YouTube.  Oops there goes another terabyte...(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDQQtwIwBGoVChMIu...

3 - Multi-Row Tool - I once reconstructed years of The North Face's retail POS history from Tlogs.  The Tlogs contained the sku-level transaction history and all the data was in one column.

4 – Utility – I first thought to compare Alteryx to a Swiss Army Knife, but that’s unfair to Alteryx. Unlike the Swiss Army Knife, Alteryx is exactly the right set of tools – not something that will work in a pinch.

5 – Flexibility – The ability to tap into a data warehouse, pull POS and customer data, analyze both, including Mosaic, build a sales forecasting tool, serve it up in an app so that anyone can simply enter an address and get a complete real estate report with one tool is INCREDIBLE!

6 - Jaw Drops - It is fun to watch a newbie’s hopeful disbelief that Alteryx is real.  I myself, more than 10 years ago, accused the Alteryx rep of preloading results...that was just the Allocate tool.

7 – The Grinch-like grin when the disbelief morphs into an action plan

8 – Dean’s vision, Libby’s wisdom and Ned’s Death Star-like brain. I swear he can shut down less important organs when he powers up his brain.

9 – Getting to work with my son. I now understand the “Wonderful World” lyric “They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.”

10 – You had me at Alteryx 1.0

[JustinJ]

1. Blending multiple datasources together

2. Adding predictive tools without needing to know a coding language

3. Spatial tools

4. Ease of Use

5. Ability to conquer the most difficult questions

6. There's a macro for that

7. The GUI interface

8. The people that work here

9. The Ah Ha moment when someone realizes the potential of Alteryx for the first time

10. The community of course!

[chris_love]

Here's my top 10 reasons - I decided to do something slightly different. Enjoy.

[JustinJ]

Clearly I did not spend enough time on this to take the win @chris_love. Great job on the video!

[chris_love]

Or you're not as sad as me @JustinJ 

[jdunkerley79]

10 reasons I love Alteryx: 

1. Inspired by the awesome team at the Infomation Lab to love playing with data when they introduced me to Alteryx

2. Inspired to learn in my spare time as so much fun to play with Alteryx

3. Inspired by the fantastic community to blog and learn even more 

4. Inspried by the amazing speed I can get things done 

5. Inspired by meeting Libby Duane-Adams (thanks to Tom @ Info Lab) and how much they care for their customers

6. Inspired by explaining insanely complicated ideas graphically to business users and them getting it in seconds

7. Inspired by chatting with and getting help from the brilliant Ned Harding

8. Inspried by learning a tiny slither of Chris Love's knowledge

9. Inspired by showing the rest of my dev team the product and seeing how they were all inspired

10. Inspried by only knowing a tiny fraction of what Alteryx can do and still being able to achieve amazing results

Bring on Inspire 2016 London :)

[JulieH]

Thank you all for participating in our first contest! With every entry submitted, we were blown away by your creativity, love for what you do as well as Alteryx. There's some truly inspiring stuff here, so much that we'll need a little more time to select our winners! Check back in Monday Oct 12th at 5pm MT when we'll announce our grand prize winner and 10 best reasons across all entries. Thanks for your patience, and have a great week end everyone!

[TaraM]

And the winner is…

Before I go there, I just want to thank everyone who participated in the 10 Things I Love about Alteryx contest. Whether you read the entries, promoted the contest, gave stars to the members who bared their soul to the community, or if you were one of those brave souls who professed their love for Alteryx…Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!! I think we can claim success on our first ever Alteryx Community contest!

We had 15 entries and they were all fabulous. Some focused on the product while others called out the people that make Alteryx what it is. We took all of that into consideration and included Alteryx staff in the judging. In no particular order, here are the TOP TEN THINGS:

These 10 things will be made available in t-shirt form for everyone who entered our contest. 

@Aguisande, @NeilR, @MarqueeCrew, @cbridges, @randyfong, @gabor_szalai, @LonnieY, @g_neeft, @Atabarezz, @ssjl, @Ken_Black, @AndyMoncla, @JustinJ, @chris_love, @jdunkerley79

Please message me with your t-shirt size.

To select our Top Grand Prize Winner we awarded two scores – the first score was calculated based on the amount of stars they received on their post; the second score was the tally of awarded points to their first, second and third place votes from our judges. In the end it was @gabor_szalai who won our hearts and the Go Pro Hero 4.

Thanks again to everyone who supported this contest and for everyone that loves us – we love you too! And to Gabor, who even loves our errors, we’re just smitten!

[chris_love]

Well done @gabor_szalai you are a very deserving winner! I loved your entry and it was my favourite too.

[Aguisande]

Congrats Gabor !!

Agree 100% with Chris (and the judges!!), very well deserved !

[MarqueeCrew]

Congrats again Gabor

[gabor_szalai]

Wow! That's some news to read on my morning commute! Thanks guys, I'm very happy! That T-shirt has some really cool lines and will be proud to wear it!;-)

[g_neeft]

Hi!!

My size is L.
Do you need my adress to?

Greetz

Gert-Jan Neeft

[AndyMoncla]

Congratulations @gabor_szalai!

[Ken_Black]

What a joy it was this morning to read and appreciate Gabor's entry. I tried my best not to read the existing submissions before I wrote mine, so it was really fun to read Gabor's to understand why he was chosen as the winner. I absolutely agree with the selection. He summarizes how fun it is to use Alteryx because of its power, utility, potential, and the total command it gives us to solve problems. Very thoughtful entry.  Congratulations are in order.

Ken

[Ken_Black]

That contest was so good, I decided to write a blog post about it: https://3danim8.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/my-top-10-favorite-things-about-alteryx/. 

Some things we do need to go out to a wider audience. This is one of them.  Great job everyone.

[TaraM]

Great blog post, @Ken_Black! Thanks for playing :)

[TaraM]

The shirts are being printed and I will send them out as soon as they are delivered to me. Make sure you send me a personal message with your size and shipping address if you haven't done so already. We'll have men's and women's sizes available.

[Atabarezz]

A warm message from the community...

Thanks guys...

[JulieH]

Looking good @Atabarezz  We're glad the shirt made it to destination - and thank you for sharing!

[cbridges]

[MarqueeCrew]

[chris_love]

Thanks to the Community team for following up my missing t-shirt and ensuring one finally reached me. More fruit headwear too after yesterdays pineapple.