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Learning Alteryx
Learning Alteryx

Learning Alteryx: A beginner's guide to using Alteryx for self-service analytics and business intelligence

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Learning Alteryx

Workflow Optimization

Alteryx processes hundreds of billions of rows. The workflow design is vital to ensuring that the workflow runs efficiently, allowing for optimum processing. This chapter focuses on the foundational workflow optimization concepts and applying runtime selections to speed execution. A multitude of essential selections can be made to enhance your workflow. You will learn how to apply resource optimization to process data faster. Furthermore, you'll discover how your workflow is performing by using performance profiling.

The topics we'll examine include:

  • Resource optimization and speed processing
  • Performance profiling
  • Connecting to data
  • Alteryx file types

The ability to optimize workflow will set the platform for a powerful data preparation and data blending venture that we will cover in the next chapter.

...

Resource optimization and speed processing

Resource optimization is important to allocate and eliminate resources that may prevent your workflows running at optimal speed. The Select, Filter, and Auto Field tools can be utilized to process records downstream in your workflows at a faster rate. Let's go through what factors may contribute to resource optimization and speed processing.

Resource optimization

Alteryx balances the memory, CPU use, and disk I/O to optimize its resources and run at peak levels. There are options we will review that can control resource utilization. This will help identify areas in your workflow where applying various settings could be very useful in processing data faster. The system, user,...

Performance Profiling

Performance Profiling is an investigation technique focusing on which tools take the longest time to process. The tools and their runtimes are displayed in a descending order, found in your output log. Review the output log to identify where processing is degraded in your workflow and then improve your workflow to make it more efficient. Although the output takes resources and inhibits processing, it is not enabled by default. It should be enabled only when necessary, to determine what tool is taking the longest to process and also the difference between running the same workflow on two different computers. 

The Performance Profiling can be found under Workflow Configuration | Runtime | Enable Performance Profiling:

Connecting to data

The first step to bring data into Alteryx is connecting to it. There are four connection options we will review that will prepare you to connect to a variety of files and databases. These include the following tools, Input Data, Text Input, Map Input, and Connect In-DB as shown in the following image:

Input Data

The Input Data tool can be found under the In/Out tool palette. Connect to a file or database to bring data into your workflow. Let's look at how we can connect to a file by configuring the tool:

  1. Open Alteryx. You should see a blank canvas with the tool palettes at the top and the workflow configuration on the left.
  2. Drag the Input Data tool from the In/Out tool palette onto the canvas.
  3. In...

Alteryx file types

Alteryx connects to a variety of files and databases. This includes flat files, such as text files and Excel; relational databases, such as Oracle and SQL Server; and cloud-based data sources, such as Google Big Query. The following image shows the file types that Alteryx connects to:

The following image shows the databases that Alteryx connects to:

Summary

Optimizing your workflow is a key component of building your workflow. There will be workflows with not so many tools utilized, and some with an infinite number of tools to analyze your data. In both cases, opportunities will arise where resource optimization will come in handy by adjusting the system, user, or workflow level memory to either increase or decrease the amount of memory used. We learned about processing data faster by using the Select tool to limit the number of fields and the Filter tool to limit the number of rows. We also looked at using the Auto Field tool to automatically assign the lowest possible size and type to your data. Keep in mind that any data that is irrelevant to your analysis will inhibit speed processing. If everything we saw is applied and performance is still not at the optimal level, then enable Performance Profiling to determine...

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Key benefits

  • Experience the power of codeless analytics using Alteryx, a leading Business Intelligence tool
  • Uncover hidden trends and valuable insights from your data across different sources and make accurate predictions
  • Includes real-world examples to put your understanding of the features in Alteryx to practical use

Description

Alteryx, as a leading data blending and advanced data analytics platform, has taken self-service data analytics to the next level. Companies worldwide often find themselves struggling to prepare and blend massive datasets that are time-consuming for analysts. Alteryx solves these problems with a repeatable workflow designed to quickly clean, prepare, blend, and join your data in a seamless manner. This book will set you on a self-service data analytics journey that will help you create efficient workflows using Alteryx, without any coding involved. It will empower you and your organization to take well-informed decisions with the help of deeper business insights from the data.Starting with the fundamentals of using Alteryx such as data preparation and blending, you will delve into the more advanced concepts such as performing predictive analytics. You will also learn how to use Alteryx’s features to share the insights gained with the relevant decision makers. To ensure consistency, we will be using data from the Healthcare domain throughout this book. The knowledge you gain from this book will guide you to solve real-life problems related to Business Intelligence confidently. Whether you are a novice with Alteryx or an experienced data analyst keen to explore Alteryx’s self-service analytics features, this book will be the perfect companion for you.

Who is this book for?

This book is for aspiring data professionals who want to learn and implement self-service analytics from scratch, without any coding. Those who have some experience with Alteryx and want to gain more proficiency will also find this book to be useful. A basic understanding of the data science concepts is all you need to get started with this book.

What you will learn

  • • Create efficient workflows with Alteryx to answer complex business questions
  • • Learn how to speed up the cleansing, data preparing, and shaping process
  • • Blend and join data into a single dataset for self-service analysis
  • • Write advanced expressions in Alteryx leading to an optimal workflow for efficient processing of huge data
  • • Develop high-quality, data-driven reports to improve consistency in reporting and analysis
  • • Explore the flexibility of macros by automating analytic processes
  • • Apply predictive analytics from spatial, demographic, and behavioral analysis and quickly publish, schedule
  • • Share your workflows and insights with relevant stakeholders
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Dec 26, 2017
Length: 228 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788392655
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Alteryx
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Publication date : Dec 26, 2017
Length: 228 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788392655
Vendor :
Alteryx
Category :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

10 Chapters
Getting Started with Alteryx Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Workflow Optimization Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data Preparation and Blending Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Writing Fast and Accurate Expressions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Transforming Data Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Data Parsing Techniques Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Data-Driven Custom Reports Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Macros in Workflows Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Sharing Your Insights Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Best Practices Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3
(8 Ratings)
5 star 25%
4 star 37.5%
3 star 0%
2 star 12.5%
1 star 25%
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Top Reviews

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x5r" Aug 20, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I have very much recommended this book to two companies who have new team members working to understand, use and then become certified in Alteryx. This is a hands on, practical text for understanding how to use it hands on. You can understand exactly how to use Alteryx with the illustrated steps in the book. I would say great for entry level and mid level users, spend time with this text and Alteryx is yours!Renato (the author) has run the User Group here in Tampa and draws a very large crowd for those events where he shares his passion for Alteryx. I would expect a more advanced book is next!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Mark & Rosele Edralin Feb 22, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I started to learn from Renato in Udemy on his course.Now that he has published his own textbook I want to congratulate him for the job well done.I like how the entire text are written.With all the diagrams that aid the explanations, it's so easy to read and follow.If you are starting to learn the Alteryx this book would be very helpful.Thank you Renato for coming up with this amazing book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Aug 03, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
For anyone looking to learn the basics of Alteryx, this is a wonderful tool. After working through this book, it didn’t take much additional effort to earn the core certification for this application.Unfortunately there were a few places I got hung up on, which I believe are due to updates in the software since this book’s publication. This is no fault of the author, but it does lead to frustration.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Sandip Bhattacharya Sep 05, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
When I downloaded the code file, I found Chapter 7 is totally missing. Its hard to proceed without the data
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mm May 29, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
This is truly a beginner's level book. Quite thin (211 pages) for what Alteryx can do. It will get you started with Alteryx, but won't do much beyond that.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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