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Alter.Nation

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

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In Case You Missed It

*Community news & announcements.

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Alteryx Academy | New Interactive Lessons 
Looking to expand your use of the Spatial tool palette in Designer? Check out the most recent course of Interactive Lessons, Spatial Analytics, in Academy. Whether you're just getting started with spatial objects or looking to do more advanced analyses, there's something for everyone!

 

Alteryx Analytics Excellence Awards | May 11th Deadline

There's still time to submit your Alteryx Use Cases to qualify for the 2018 Alteryx Analytics Excellence Awards presented at Inspire in Anaheim. Our goal is to capture as many use cases and workflows as possible to serve as examples and inspire our global community to expand the way they use the Alteryx platform.

 

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Whether you're just getting started or more advanced, if you're using Alteryx to address a business need, in your personal life, to give back to your community or just for fun; we want to hear from you! Read the announcement for further details and instructions.

 

Alteryx Build - TEAM BUILDING

For those who signed up to attend our inaugural day-long hackathon, at Inspire Anaheim 2018,  we created a new team building exchange for participants to find & share project ideas and begin forming teams. Visit Alteryx Build - Team Building today to collaborate & share with fellow attendees!

 

Alteryx BUILD takes place all day the Monday of Inspire. It is free to attend and you may add this as a selection when registering for Inspire 2018. Find more details, project examples and ask questions here


Never. Stop. Learning.

*Alteryx Academy. All the training resources you need.

 

Weekly Challenge

Nothing says “Alteryx” more than solving the same problem in over twenty different ways! Need proof? Check out the solutions to Challenge #112: Organizing Survey Data. We're loving the creativity and variety of solutions our users have implemented to solve this problem!

 

We are thrilled to present another Challenge from our “Think like a CSE” series, brought to you by our fearless team of Customer Support Engineers. Each month, the Customer Support team will ask Community members to “think like a CSE” to try to resolve a case that was inspired by real-life issues encountered by Alteryx users like you! This month we present the case of the incorrect JSON formatting. Do you have what it takes to solve the case of the mysteriously appearing delimiter in a JSON output file? -- Challenge #114: Think Like a CSE...Remove the extra delimiter from the JSON Output

 

Are there other Alteryx skills you’d like to put into practice? No problem. We’ve got you covered. You can browse all of the available challenges by difficulty and subject, right here.


Upcoming Live Training

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May 8th | Alteryx Core Certification Preparation

Wanting to learn all about our certification program and what you need to know for test day? Join this session to learn how to prepare for the exam, strategize around answering questions, get a sneak peak at the certification platform prior to test day.

May 15th | Advanced Spatial Analytics

Feel comfortable creating trade areas and doing spatial matches? Take your spatial work to the next level by learning how to construct and deconstruct spatial objects, create complex spatial matching logic, and realize the extensibility of the Spatial Tool Palette!

May 22nd | Understanding Data Types

Depending on the source data can come into Alteryx in different formats. Numbers can be integers, bytes, doubles. Dates can be strings. This session covers how data comes into Alteryx, how to easily change the data types (including automatically!) and best practices for working with data.

 

If you missed a live session or would like to revisit a prior one, all recordings are available on the Alteryx Academy Live Training page.

 

June 4th & June 7th | Live Training at Inspire 2018

Join us in person at Inspire Anaheim, for two dedicated days of intensive and highly sought-after platform training. This year's training offerings include expanded topics and a greater number of session rooms to accommodate everyone's needs. There are full day courses (6 hours) and Elective Courses (2 hours). Mix and match to customize your perfect training experience. Learn more about Inspire Training offerings here.

 

Some Inspire training sessions have already sold out. Not to worry, @JoeM has your back. Check out his latest update on the Buzz:  List of Inspire Trainings that are Almost Sold Out 


Featured Solutions

*Accepted Solutions that caught our eye…

 

FlatFileLayout.PNGSOLVED - Importing Fixed Width txt Files

@tom_montpool provided an excellent solution to @deepaksadija85's call for help importing a 4GB txt file.  After determining they were likely working with a fixed width file, Tom was able to provide guidance along with detailed instructions. He even included a screenshot to supplement his explanation, and a link to additional resources via Online Help. 

 

"To import this type of file, choose 'Flat ASCII file' instead of 'Comma-Delimited' as your File Format in the Input Data tool. This will bring up a "ruler" that will allow you to manually set the field definitions using the values in your schema file.

 

If you have a large number of fields to specify, you can create a .'flat' file that Alteryx can use to read in the data. There's a help topic on this here: FlatFile.

 

The easier way to figure out how the .flat file is created is to take a small dataset that you know well and use the Output Data tool to export to the Flat ASCII file format. This automatically makes both a 'data' and a 'schema' file."

 

-tom_montpool

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Check out the thread and Tom's solution here.

 

SOLVED - Inspire Training Spreadsheet

If you ever thought to yourself that it would be nice to have ALL Inspire 2018 Training offerings packaged up in a nice clean spreadsheet, you aren't alone. @bb213 posted this request on the Inspire Buzz just last week, and it wasn't long before @MarqueeCrew came to the rescue. 

 

There isn't an Excel version out there.  That didn't stop me from creating one for you.  Was it for the solve?  I think not (but it did cross my mind).  It was to help you get across the finish line and to get you something that could lead to your attendance.

-MarqueeCrew

 

Preview & download the solution earning file right here: Inspire Training Sessions


 Nuts & Bolts

*Alteryx in Practice. Noteworthy Articles, Blog Posts + other pearls of wisdom.

 

In April, MarqueeCrew shared with us his best practices for working with Date/DateTime types in Alteryx!

We also added documentation on how to install Alteryx Server with failover clustering to add redundancy to server environments and reduce the likelihood of outages!

Discover the basics of adding your own custom SQL statements to database connections in Alteryx with this guide from @DiganP.


Read our Blogs

 

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Looking for a unique perspective of the Alteryx user? You may just find what you’re looking for on Engine Works!

 

TOTAL AUTOMATION BADASSERY

@JeffA, Alteryx Automation Engineer, shares his experience "opening up programming to a wider community."

 

Included, is a short presentation on what his team has done to make this happen in the world of automation, along with a quick demo. Read all about his journey here: Total Automation Badassery.

 

JSON BUILD TOOL

Do you interact with REST APIs? Do you format your data as JSON using multiple Alteryx Designer tools?

 If so, you may just find what your looking for in @StephenW's recent blog article, JSON BUILD TOOL.

 

New to the HTML GUI SDK?

 

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Check out @Ozzie's Engine Works blog, where he walks through the development of a simple HTML macro from creating the correct folder structure to packaging it up and sharing it with others. Some experience with JavaScript, HTML, and Macros is recommended before reading: Building an HTML Macro

 


Community Tips

*Tips to help you make the most of your time on the Community.

 

If you've ever been curious to see how the Community has evolved over time, you can do so by visiting the Alteryx Community Version History page. Our team works hard to optimize and improve your experience here, and do our best to document new features and offerings on a monthly basis. Add it to your Bookmarks... and make sure to check back often!

 

For major releases, we typically include corresponding blog posts on Community News, where you can find more detailed information on everything included in the release. Subscribe to the improvements label to stay on top of all major feature updates and Community enhancements.

 


We hope you enjoyed this edition of Community Highlights!  If you have ideas for what you'd like to see in upcoming highlights, please comment below.

Leah Knowles
Senior Manager, Community Management & Programs

Leah is responsible for building and growing engagement programs that enable community members to make the most of the Alteryx product suite. She is passionate about building customer communities to collaborate and solve real world business problems, and believes that connecting with people and building relationships leads to better work. Follow her on twitter @LeahMKnowles

Leah is responsible for building and growing engagement programs that enable community members to make the most of the Alteryx product suite. She is passionate about building customer communities to collaborate and solve real world business problems, and believes that connecting with people and building relationships leads to better work. Follow her on twitter @LeahMKnowles