#SANTALYTICS Part 4

[TaraM]

Thanks for playing along in our Santalytics fun. Part 4 is here - let's see what you got. Creativity will be rewarded.

Now that we've declared our model as the new Santalytics paradigm, we need to break it down for Santa! He's not a data guy, after all. Can you help make a visualization that will map out Santa's route for him? You must use Alteryx for at least some of your process.

Goal of Part 4:
Visualize Santa's trip around the globe

Have fun

See all of our solutions here:

• November 30, 2016: #SANTALYTICS Part 1: Solution and Behind the Data
• December 7, 2016: #SANTALYTICS Part 2: Solution and Behind the Data
• December 14, 2016: #SANTALYTICS Part 3: Solution and Behind the Data
• December 21, 2016: #SANTALYTICS Part 4: Solution and Series Finale

[SeanAdams]

Used the reporting tools built into Alteryx to build the route map, and to display the total distance.

I tried a few different methods to optimize this down to about 260k miles:

Spoiler

Started out with just simple model using the data sorted as it was (started out as a 5M row journey)
then tried to do a zig-zag pattern
then divided the globe into 10 degree bands (east to west) and sorted the points within that band by north-to-south
then alternated the direction of travel - first north, then south etc to reduce wasted travel.

There's lots more optimization that could be done here, but I'm OK with this