How to motivate juniors (finance/accounting background) to learn Alteryx?

[Hammad_Rashid]

Hi All,

How to motivate juniors (finance/accounting background) to learn Alteryx?

One of the feedbacks from my juniors:

1. Alteryx license is too expensive

2. They easily understand all the tools in isolation, but when they see real life data, they are always stuck after 1-2 steps

3. Macros are just too difficult to understand

4. Why can't we do ETL work in PowerBI

These are general questions raised by non-tech background.

Any tips to motivate them ? We all know the power of Alteryx but how to respond to folks who would prefer Excel and at max, PowerQuery/PowerPivot.

Thanks!

[NMangera · Accepted solution]

I'd respond with the following:

1. If time = money, then repeatedly carrying out processes that can be automated costs a fortune. Periodic reporting is ripe for time efficiency savings. Consider monthly reporting as an example, where tables are extracted from multiple source systems, formatted for consistency and then shared with senior leadership. Build the workflow once, and the most you'll have to do going forward is 'run' the workflow. Saving yourself hours of repetitive tasks while reducing the possibility of manual errors  

2. With real-life data, start with the end goal in mind. What do I want the output to look like, and then work backwards. What do I have, and what steps are required to achieve the end result? I find writing it down with a pen and paper helpful.

3. After the initial learning curve with macros you will never look back again. I like to think of them as an army of robots working for me.

[Hammad_Rashid]

@NMangera Really insightful! 

[simonaubert_bd · Accepted solution]

1/License price is indeed really high (and wait for the server :p  ) but this is not supposed to be a fact of matter for juniors since they don't manage a budget. And if they still care : ROI.
2/Alteryx is probably the only software on tyhe market where I take to risk to do a from-scratch demo without any preparation. Usually, it means a whooaaa effect.
3/Do not make your juniors develop macro at first; do it for them

4/I don't know, but none of customers use powerBi. ;)

Do not hesitate to promote ideas in the community that would solde your junior frustrations ;) (and better : make them vote=> at least they will use the community, learn thing and see they can influence the roadmap. this is typically what I do with my padawans)

Best regards,

Simon