2/20 New York City Alteryx User Group Meeting

[LaurenU]

2/20 NYC Alteryx User Group Meeting - RSVP TODAY!

Join the New York City Alteryx User Group! Attend to start networking with peers, exchange ideas, and improve skill sets that will help maximize your potential with Alteryx.

Our hosts will need a guest list, please make sure to register! Thank you for your understanding!

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DATE AND TIME

Tue, February 20, 2018

5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EST

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LOCATION

KPMG - The Heritage Center

345 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10154

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AGENDA

5:30pm-5:45pm: Welcome and Introductions

5:45pm-6:15pm: User Group Challenge - Let's review your results from the workflow shared before the meeting

6:15pm-6:45pm: Alteryx Academy and Certification - Review Community Responses. Have feedback? Share!

6:45pm-7:00pm: Closing - Updates on Alteryx Product and User Group Feedback

REGISTER TODAY

[LaurenU]

Hello,

Friendly reminder: In preparation for some fun next week, we invite you to test your Alteryx knowledge and bring your solution for the Community Weekly Challenge #6. Uh..oh...HOMEWORK?!?!?! 

We swear this will be useful! During the User Group Challenge portion we want to review your solutions and have an open discussion. Plus for you Community badge seekers, this is an easy way to start collecting! 

Got friends? Feel free to pass along the invite link! User Group meetings are way more fun with a crowd!

[LaurenU]

Hi All,

It has come to our attention that the address was incorrect, please see below for the corrected address!

KPMG - The Heritage Center

345 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10154

Thank you for your understanding! And see you at 5:30pm!

[smoskowitz]

I had a great time at the user conference. I thought the topics were great and well thought out. Thank you to KPMG for hosting.

[Kdpalmer]

Seth - Hi!

So glad you enjoyed the group last month.  I would love to get your thoughts on how to structure some upcoming events and how we can better target more advanced users.  Do you have a problem you're working on or an area you would like to leverage the group's feedback to address?

KP

[smoskowitz]

Thank you for reaching out!

Below are some topics that I think would be great for advanced users:

1. Batch Macros
2. Iterative Macros
3. Regex

Each of the above  -- in my opinion -- are the type of topics that can take a high beginner/low intermediate to the next level. They are certainly topics that I struggle with as I have not yet wrapped my head around them.

As far as a problem I am working on...my issues come in batches (no pun intended) and I am in a lull right now - but if something comes up I will put it out there.

Structure -- Session 1

Here is my thought. We get someone who is comfortable with the below knowledge based article:

Note: While the article is good, I have seen easier ways to do this

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/Read-in-Multiple-Excel-Files-with-Multiple-T...

I don't think that this is to hard of a first batch macro, but could return a high value due to the fact that everyone probably could use help with aggregating spreadsheet. I had help from someone in creating the macro, but it immediately saved 80 hours of work aggregating 400 spreadsheets. I'm sure everyone struggles with this.

Structure -- Session 2/3

I think session 2 and 3 can go hand in hand. For the most part, it could be a real life walk through of a session @JoeM gave doing a walkthrough on regex. Here is what I would do slightly different. One session could be all about building iterative macros to pull in any number of web page numbers. What I mean is that pages might have information you are looking for on several pages, so we would need to pull in all the pages of page1 and then go to page 2 and 3...etc. We would need to figure out what the last page is and that potentially is the lead in to the next session.

Regex

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Live-Training/Live-Training-Introduction-to-RegEx/m-p/66489#M116

Probably one of the most powerfully underutilized tools. Regex allows you to parse out contained information using a mini-programming language. People can get a head start by going through the free training at: https://www.regexone.com/.

If you put together Iterative macros and regex, I think you now have next level, highly valuable Alteryx skills.

To this day, I struggle with all three as I don't use them everyday (but trying to). If you like, we can get on the phone and talk about it as I wouldn't mind helping the user group at a higher level.

Thanks,

Seth

P.S. -- I reference JoeM in the message (he is the head of Alteryx training) as I am hoping he might be able to provide some insight and advice om how to approach a live learning session. I can always reach out to him personally, if for some reason he misses this message.

[JoeM]

@smoskowitz

Excellent insight - I agree with you on many fronts the these proposed topic offer a lot of 'bang for your buck'.

If you were to ask me, I would not talk about macros without stopping first at stopping macros - especially if your taking the macro journey with a large group. 'Macro', the word itself, needlessly inflicts fear into the heart of analysts everywhere; starting a macros could reduce to nothing than nothing other than a scary word.

I'm not sure how long your sessions are, but setting up a simple iterative macro in a classroom setting can take an hour. Maybe iterative macros and regex are separated onto different days would be more beneficial to the group. In my experience, throwing these two topics can be a bit much for first timers. I'd put my vote down to splitting them up into two parts but keep the continuity of a 'series'.

Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to discuss more.

[Kdpalmer]

Hi Seth, Hi Joe -- This is really good feedback.  I am inclined to say we can even break it into 3 sessions1)Intro to Macros and batch Macros 2) RegEx 3) Advanced Macros, Advanced RegEx - thoughts?

In the meantime, I will set up a call - Seth feel free to forward to Jo

[smoskowitz]

Katherine --

I agree with breaking this up into three sessions. I think I might break it up more like this.

1) Macros & Batch Macros

2) Iterative Macros

3) Intro to Regex

Here is why I think it might work best this way. Macros in general is a short topic, but batch macros is certainly more thought provoking -- I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Iterative macros is some ways is a little easier to understand, and doing a quick topic on using them shouldn't be that hard. However, the value of iterative macro  (in my experience) comes when you add in Regex capabilities (i.e. pulling data off the web).

Now if you want to think ahead after these three -- then the fourth session would now start learning API's. The value proposition of the 4 sessions is something like this:

1) Using Batch macros to aggregate information -- like Excel templates.

2) Iterative macros (with Intro to regex) to page through web pages and collect data

3) A little heavier regex class to now parse the downloaded data.

4) Another way to get day are through API endpoints -- how to we use these.

Now, I am going to say again -- I am in no way an expert at any of these -- and am still trying to wrap me head around these topics, but from what I have seen, these provide high value to people who learn and are comfortable with these skills. 

I am not sure how user groups work around the world, but I know we should discuss with @JoeM from Alteryx. I also have seen API write-up's given by @TashaA (also from Alteryx) on the boards and hope both of them can provide insight.

Maybe if we play our card right, we can suggest a live training from them at the appropriate time. :D

What do you all think?

Seth

[neeleshapatil1]

Hi all

I would like to know if anyone can highlight their thoughts on the process/points to be considered for estimating time efforts for Alteryx work. Specifically like reshaping the data in cross-tab excels to single comprehensive database and automating excel macros through Alteryx.

Thank you !!