Best practice tips and application for beginner Alteryx Users

Question

Hi there! I am a beginner learning Alteryx Designer. The process has been challenging, but I can see the benefits of becoming more proficient in Alteryx.

Are there any tips that you can reply for best practices when working with the platform? With flexibility, I understand that there are certain steps or actions that will benefit my process if I implement and practice them now. On that thought, are there any examples of how Alteryx is applied in the work field of accounting. Specifically, within the public accounting space, how is Alteryx often used?

StephaneP · Answer

Hello @NancyPham109 ,

Here is 3 part article about "How to make your workflow impactful". The main idea is not to make it sexy, but easily understandable by yourself (a few weeks/month later), your colleague to avoid the disastrous "single point of failure" or anyone that need to validate your calcultation rules (Audit, managers, business partners...).

Make Your Workflow Visually Impactful Part 1: Your Preparation

Make Your Workflow Visually Impactful - Part 2: Your Workflow

Make Your Workflow Visually Impactful - Part 3: Visual Effects

Hope it helps.

clmc9601 · Answer

Hi @NancyPham109 ,

I agree with everything Luke said above! In addition, Alteryx is great for repetitive processes (hello, public accounting) that need to be reused with new information each time.

Here's an additional article from the Journal of Accountancy about Alteryx. https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2020/dec/data-preparation-for-accountants.html

Luke_C · Answer

Hi @NancyPham109

In public accounting Alteryx is used to do a lot of ETL (extract, transform, load) functions to get data ready for analysis. It's also used to assist with audit testing and tax calculations. See below link for some more details.

https://www.alteryx.com/input/blog/how-accounting-and-finance-professionals-can-use-data-to-gain-superpowers