Inspire Session Sneak Peak | THE BLOB!

[NicoleJohnson]

Indescribable! Indestructible! ... and great for outputting to formatted Excel templates?

One of my favorite things about Inspire is getting to stumble across new tools and use cases at the various Inspire presentations and trainings, or even just in random conversations with ACEs and attendees. But I'm always looking to level up a bit, so at this year's Inspire conference, I'm going bold - I'm going to actually PRESENT on a tool that I only just recently discovered some magical uses for!! After all, the best way to really learn the ins & outs of something is to try teaching it to someone else, right? 😁 

So come May in Denver at Inspire 2022, I will be giving a talk about a couple tools that sound far scarier than they actually are... THE BLOB TOOLS.

Unlike the amorphous blob that takes over a city in the iconic 1958 film, the Blob tools can actually be a helpful friend to those who are tired of boring, plain tables output to Excel. My session will cover the basics of setting up a workflow that uses a nicely formatted Excel template, creates a copy of it with a dynamic name using these magical non-jello Blob tools, and then outputs data from your workflow to specific ranges in that newly created output file, allowing for extreme flexibility in the format of your final workflow results! 

I will freely admit - when I saw there was a tool with "Blob" in the title, this particular use case was not the first thing to come to mind. (Steve McQueen? Yes. Running in abject fear from sentient jello? Yes. Custom formatted Excel templates? Not so much.) But I am hoping with this presentation to help you all discover the power of this excellent output trick far earlier in your own Alteryx careers... so as I work out the kinks in my presentation and get ready for the stage in Denver, I'm curious if I'm in good company out here in the Alteryx world of "People who think the Blob tools sound funny, but also think they could be potentially interesting"...

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!!

• Have you used the Blob tools before? Which one(s), and why?
• Have you, too, struggled with the fear of boring Excel outputs? 
• Any particular questions/comments/curiosities you'd like to throw out there before Inspire about the Blob (either the movie or the Alteryx super-tool?)

Can't wait to see you in Denver in just a few more weeks!! 💙

Cheers!

NJ

[jacob_kahn]

@NicoleJohnson !!!!! Go go go!!!!! Can’t wait! See you in Denver!!!

[EW]

This sounds really cool!  I had no idea Blob tools did that, sounds really helpful.  Is this going to be a training, or breakout session?  I can't find it so far on the schedule.  

[patrick_digan]

Such an awesome topic! I'm thankful to have leaned it from @JosephSerpis : https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works/Excel-Templates-with-Blob-Tools/ba-p/469904

[JLM13]

@NicoleJohnson  Great presentation at the conference! I can't wait to give this a try. How can I access the material you presented?