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#SANTALYTICS 2016

Help an elf get Santa around the globe!

#SANTALYTICS - That's a Wrap!

TaraM
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

santalytics_infographic.png

During the winter holidays we ran a little challenge in the community for some festive fun and we called it #SANTALYTICS. We started off with a video blog where our own @DrDan read the story and set the stage of the logistical promblem one small elf had before him. We broke down the problem into 4 parts, each with it's own twists and challenges.

 

 

Part 1 focused on data prep and cleanup, determining who was naughty and who was nice, and what type of present they goes with their classification. The participation in this challenge set the stage and we loved seeing your answers and justifications. You even pointed out some of the anomalies in our data set!

 

 

In Part 2  we asked you to determine the trade areas and distribution points for Santa across this little blue planet of ours. We made it even tougher by giving a set of rules that recipients had to be within a specific distance between one another and the distribution point itself. This was also a pretty successful challenge, albeit challenging, but we hope we got you to understand the power of our spatial capabilities.

 

 

Part 3 was all about assigning presents to recipeints based on their naughty/nice score but also accounting for the weight of the sleigh. This one threw a lot of you for a loop, but we did have a few brave souls who came up with solutions to the puzzle.

 

 

When it came to Part 4 it was up to your creativity - we asked for a visualization and we got some really cool ones. There is something so gratifying about watching santa move across a world map, right to left, following the paths we determined in Part 2.

 

 

 

The fruits of our labor are found in the infographic to the left. Yes - an infographic. Something I have always wanted to do, but never have done before.  The metrics we get out of our Lithium platform, coupled with the power of Alteryx made way for a perfect opportunity to present the data in a fun way.

 

 

All in all we had a lot of fun with creating this challenge. From writing the story line, staging the video, wrangling the data, scouring the web for datasets and API's to pull with, writing the exercises, solving them ourselves (yikes! they were harder than we thought), and iterating on what others did (we have @MattD to thank for all of that)...I hope you all had as much fun as we did. 

 

 

 

IMG_0064.JPGWhat did you think of this challenge? Please let us know in the comments below.

 

 

For those of you that participated, you have been awarded your Santalytics badges. There is also an Alteryx Community Cold Weather Kit on its way. A little care package we  hope keeps you warm the whole year through.

 

 

When you get your Cold Weather Kit, be sure to share some pictures of you enjoying it's contents on your social channels with the hashtag #Santalytics or @alteryx #ColdWeatherKit. 

 

So for now, that's a wrap on Santalytics. Many many thanks, from one small elf!

 

 

Tara McCoy
1 REPLY 1
Philip
12 - Quasar

What did I think? I really enjoyed the challenges. And I liked the multiple parts all leading to a final answer in visual form.

 

Thanks for putting it on!

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