Data Visualisation for Noobs (like me) – Getting Started with Alteryx
Alteryx – Resources to get You Started
When I first started using Alteryx, I was completely stumped, I had no idea where to start even understanding what it was that I had to do. That feeling has by no means gone away, but despite there being no definitive ‘Alteryx for Beginners’ guide, I’ve learned to manage the fear of the unknown and found a few resources that helped ease the pain.
First and foremost, there is the Alteryx community. The Alteryx User Community is still in it’s growth phase, so the wealth of knowledge on the internet does not yet compare to that of the Tableau community, but we are working on it! Register here: http://community.alteryx.com/ and you can join in on discussions, hear about events and user groups and ask all kinds of questions that others from the community will try to answer: http://community.alteryx.com/t5/forums/recentpostspage/post-type/message/page/1 This is sometimes even manned by the data schoolers, so if you’re lucky, you may get lots of replies. Can’t promise the answers will be the best, but we try!
Basics and Orientation:
- Getting started with Alteryx Designer YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfSLx4WE4q51Nsn3gi5vJuGjL1EZyawMk
- The Alteryx website has a great landing page from which you can explore http://www.alteryx.com/product-training
- More training: http://www.alteryx.com/on-demand-training
- There is also and Alteryx quick start guide, but I personally found this a little heavy as a beginner, mainly becuase it is very text heavy and I don’t like reading: http://help.alteryx.com/9.5/Getting_Started/Quick_Start_Manual.htm
- In Alteryx itself, there are some hands on tutorials, where you are walked through building some workflows, which you can get to like so:
- In addition to this, Alteryx really does it’s best to help you out along the way. The ‘help’ button has recently become one of my best friends, when I can identify a tool I think I may need (they usually have pretty intuitive names) but I’m not sure how to work them. If you face a similar problem, find this button:
This will bring up a webpage with information on what the tool is doing and how to use it. It has been especially helpful when trying to figure out date parsing, which I may blog about later, once I figure it out! Note, you do need internet for this function. - If you are in the mood for a little bit of reading, here is a PDF to ‘Data Blending for Dummies’: http://www.cscbrasil.com.br/alteryx/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Data-Blending-For-Dummies-by-Wiley-from-Alteryx.pdf
- Watching demos helps too! http://www.alteryx.com/resources?type=demo&topic=&department=&industry=&search=
- Another fantastic resource, which is currently helping me learn a lot, is the Alteryx weekly exercise, which you can again find on Alteryx Community page (http://community.alteryx.com), by searching weekly challenge.
- You can also visit the gallery (https://gallery.alteryx.com) to get inspiration from other people’s workflows and find marcos, including the advance joining tool.
Hope that helps, and if you need anything else, do get in touch with the community, they are very friendly.