Hi everyone!
It was a change of venue this month for the Q3 meet up as we headed to the TransUnion offices in Leeds for an evening focused on APIs.
Remo Biagioni - Head of BI TransUnion
First up, @remo_biagioni shared how he uses Alteryx to connect and pull down contract details from Saleforce using the API and combine this with CRM and Master data to track over 1000 contracts. Remo managed to automate the daily and weekly report creation and email process for 164 different reports touching almost 200 people.
David Thorpe - Alteryx
@DavidThorpe took us through a live demo showing how Alteryx can connect to an events website to find details for upcoming events that were of interest. We saw how it was first necessary to find documentation on how to use the API and that, in this case, registration was the the first step before an API key was provided.
Using a URL and the API key in a Text Input tool and then concatenating these in a Formula tool, Dave connected this up to the Download tool. This controls the what and the how data is extracted by the tool when selecting the appropriate setting for it. Finally, after checking for the '200 OK' message and the data being collected, Dave share a little best practice and cached the workflow from the Download tool to prevent more API calls. Finally the data was parsed out nicely using the XML parse tool.
Jordan Barker - Alteryx
Following on from Dave's excellent demo, Jordan shared a use case from the NHS where a manual process of downloading multiple files from multiple web pages was taking up 3 days of work, but through some Alteryx wizardry, Jordan managed to create a workflow that automated the process and reduced the time taken down to just 5 minutes! We saw how this was done and picked up some great tips, like how to identify the section of HTML code that prefixed links to the files to be downloaded.
A big thank you again to all presenters and to everyone who attended!
Next Session
The next session is being planned for January and we'll share the date out once we have confirmed the venue. Details will be released on Eventbrite nearer to the time.
Call For Speakers!
We're calling out again for new speakers to join us for the next session. You can present a business case, demo a workflow, a tool, some top tips or even discuss a problem with the group. Let's utilise the collective experience inside the room! If you would like to present, please get in touch!
See you at the next event!
Rich
