Dear Internet Diary,

In my first week at the Data School, I learned how to use this software called Alteryx. To describe it from an Alterook’s perspective, it’s Excel in steroids – faster, stronger and smarter. You might be wondering by now: What in the world is an Alterook? It’s a term I coined for someone new to Alteryx, or short for Alteryx rookie. As of now, there are no Google result for this word related to data or Alteryx. When this becomes a common jargon in the industry, remember it started here. I used Excel to prepare the data of the viz I submitted for my application here in the Data School. After learning the basics, I tried preparing some of the data set using Alteryx. I learned some tricks thru feedback and curiosity when I did this activity. Here are some Alteryx decluttering tips from an Alterook:

Alterook Decluttering Tip 1: Use a Wildcard in Input Data Tool

I want to use 19 similar CSV files as my input. Therefore, I dragged all of them into the canvas. That was an Alterook mistake! Now, I need to select 19 Input Data tools to connect to the next tool. It also made my canvas crowded without even starting to use any other tools. Instead of doing this, I can use a single Input Data tool to bring in multiple similar input files at the same time using the * wildcard. I followed these steps:

1. Place all input files in the same folder. It would help if there were no other files with the same file extension in the folder.
2. Drag an Input Data tool in the canvas.
3. In the Input Data tool configuration, enter {target folder}*.{target file extension} in the Connect a File or Database input box. Here’s an example for my case:

Alterook Decluttering Tip 2: Use Alteryx Tools Efficiently

I discovered that efficient placement and usage of tools will not only decrease the number of tools used, but also reduce the processing time. The effect is not noticeable for small data sets. However, when I start to deal with very large data sets, the processing time will be proportional to the data size. Knowing how each tool functions is a big factor in doing this. For example, in my data set, it has several fields and I only need the highlighted data: I followed these steps for my initial approach:

1. Select and rename required fields using a Select tool:
2. Split Field_8 by a space using a Text To Columns tool:
3. Use a second Select tool to select and rename required fields:

Here’s my efficient approach using a single Select tool: The key step here is setting the size of the field Field_8 to 1 so that it drops the succeeding characters after the first one. Hence, no need to use a Text To Columns tool. This is possible because the data I need happened to be a fixed single character and located at the beginning. This way, I reduced three tools into one. Selecting the appropriate type and size also decreased the size of the final output from 23.3KB to 11.6KB.

Alterook Decluttering Tip 3: Align and Distribute Tools Evenly

I can align my tools horizontally and evenly distribute if there are three or more of them. What I need to do is to highlight my target tools, right click on any of them, and choose Align and/or Distribute Horizontally: Similarly, I can do this vertically:

Other Alteryx Decluttering Tips:

Other methods to organise my canvas are using annotations and containers. My colleague Eric Loi discussed these methods in his blog.

Conclusion

Following these simple Alteryx decluttering tips from an Alterook makes my workflow easier to understand and reduces processing time. Additionally, it creates a canvas that’s pleasing to the eye and might be helpful when I am presenting to a client in the near future.