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NYC Alterxy User Group Meeting Review (2/8/17)

DennisPeters
6 - Meteoroid

Thank you to all who attended our Alteryx NYC User Group Meeting on Wednesday Feb. 8th @KPMG in Midtown!

 

I enjoyed speaking with many of you and feel we were lucky to have 2 excellent presentations.

 

First, Suresh Vadakath, Senior Solutions Engineer @Alteryx reviewed the date tool (always a popular topic for those new to Alteryx), as well as utilizing the output tool to parse data into multiple files and send out via email.  (I have personally used this in a pinch to send custom reports to 36 district managers, huge time saver.)

 

Suresh then gave us a great overview of Alteryx's tight integration with DataRobot, an automated machine learning platform. https://www.datarobot.com/

 

Both during the presentation and during side discussions, the topic of Alteryx and machine learning was raised.

Depending on where your organization lies on the data science spectrum, Alteryx can help in multiple ways.

The first way in in which Alteryx can assist in predictive modeling is in the laborious task of data preparation and feature engineering.

It is quite common to offload this work to Alteryx and then feed the prepared data sets to Alteryx's own predictive tools (based on R) or to pass this output to models built outside or Alteryx in R or Python or even now to an automated ML platform such as DataRobot.

Using Alteryx for the preparation step has 2 major advantages. It is fast + it is shareable across more teams/personnel.

Business Analysts can do similar preparation/imputation that data scientists typically do with packages such as dplyr or pandas.

This can free up your data scientists to do more actual modeling which benefits everyone.

 

A nice overview of the usage of Alteryx with DataRobot synergy is covered in a webcast by Mark Haydoutov of S&P Global.

https://www.datarobot.com/alteryx-datarobot-webinar-recording/

The whole thing is a good watch but the 32nd minute has some of the best content.

 

Our second presentation was by Arthur Franke - Manager - Data & Analytics @KPMG and a recovering particle physicist;>

Arthur presented his awesome Data Validation Toolkit. Arthur and his team used a combination of Alteryx workflows to tackle a common problem.

Given a brand new data set, how can I learn as much about the data as possible, as quickly as possible? The Toolkits systematic approach details tons of info about the data (primary keys, data distribution, cardinality, identify outliers, investigate data quality, the ability to pivot on anything etc.)  Arthur mentioned how this tremendous time saver had features so popular that internal teams were requesting to download the features for actual work during the beta testing.  The kit comes complete with version control and color coded documentation and is 1 of the most complete data process/solutions I have seen built with Alteryx.

 

All in all, this was a fun meeting.

 

Special thanks to Katherine Palmer & KPMG for once again hosting.

 

Aaron Walters (CME Group), Katherine and I all look forward to our next meetup in April.

 

Look out for user group communications where we will be looking for your feedback on the topics you want covered plus welcome anyone who wants to present their workflows.

 

Best,

 

Dennis Peters

 

Alteryx NYC User Group

 

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/New-York-City-NY/gp-p/nyc-metro

16 REPLIES 16
asteryx
8 - Asteroid

Thanks very much for the summary!

I had to cancel at the last minute due to illness. Sorry I missed the group this time.

LaurenU
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Thank you everyone for making this last meeting very successful. 

 

We invite you to take part in an annual tradition at Inspire known as the Alteryx Grand Prix. Historically, the Grand Prix was a “racing competition” pitting Alteryx users from across the world against one another in an analytics race to solve business problems faster than the rest of the competition.

 

This year, the Grand Prix is receiving a makeover with a new format. Instead of one driver, three drivers will form one super racing team representing each local Alteryx User Group.

Each driver will represent one of three specialty topics: Favorites Categories, Spatial, and Predictive. Once our team is identified they will go head-to-head in the Qualifying Round against other User Group teams. The top three teams will advance to the final round. In the final round each person will contribute by completing a portion of a project. Each team will present their project for final judging by Alteryx users on Community and announced at Inspire Las Vegas. Be prepared for some hairpin turns, burn outs, and (maybe) crashes!

 

If you are interested in accepting this challenge, please respond to this thread and say "Count me in!"

 

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ALTERYX GRAND PRIX

RACE SCHEDULE

Feb 1st - Mar 31st 2017: User Groups build teams

Week of April 3rd:  Teams participate in a 30 minute Qualifying Round via WebEx

April-May 29th: Final teams work on project to present in person at Inspire on June 5th

 

2017 REGULATIONS

  • For Inspire 2017, Americas User Groups can compete in Las Vegas
  • Members who represent diversity of User Group
  • At least two different companies represented
  • No more than 1 Alteryx Partner
  • Alteryx ACEs are not allowed to compete
  • At least one team member must attend Inspire 2017 in Las Vegas

 

So, do you have what it takes to be the winning User Group team?

mfridson
5 - Atom
Count me in!
rsaboo
5 - Atom

Count me in!

BrianHawkins
5 - Atom

count me in!

rahuls
9 - Comet

Count me in !

Usman
5 - Atom

Count me in.

AnandVadul
5 - Atom

Count me in!

LaurenU
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Grand Prix Update:

 

Hi Everyone!

 

Thank you to @mfridson@rsaboo@BrianHawkins@rahuls@Usman@AnandVadul, and @seven for stepping up to the challenge!

 

We only can submit in 3 names for our Grand Prix team, we'll have to narrow down our selection. Due to the awesomeness of our community, we will continue accepting Grand Prix submissions until Friday, March 10th, 2017.

 

After March 10th, we'll be emailing those interested with more information and determine who will represent the NYC User Group in the Grand Prix. 

 

Thanks!

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