With my training coming to an end this upcoming week, I have realized that I am yet to do a blog surrounding Alteryx. So, today I would like to share with you my 3 favourite tools. Starting with my third favourite…
Text to columns
This is a tool that takes text or numbers that is bunched together in the one column and separates these text or numbers into several columns so that the data can be viewed correctly. My favourite way of using this tool is to break down a date listed in a single column as e.g., 2019-01-01, and separate this into three columns: Day, Month, Year. Selecting the delimiter, in this case the “-” will separate the data into a single column at each -. This makes it easier for us to use these dates in any analysis.
Transpose/Crosstab
This is a tool used to transform data, as quite often the data you have will be set in quite a complex way, and this tool simplifies it. Staying on the date example, a lot of datasets will have their data sorted by year somehow, and the ideal way to view a year is to have a column called “Year” with the corresponding years going down on the page. However, a lot of the time when datasets are handed over each year is a separate column, which is quite inefficient and can make the table much wider than it needs to be.
The transpose tool allows the user to take these column values put them into rows on a single column. This example shows how the sales and GM for each quarter of each year are separate columns, the transpose tool puts these columns into the same row for easier viewing, and with the help of the text to columns tool, we now have a single row for year. Much better!
Filter
Where do I start with this tool…the filter tool is an absolute lifesaver with it’s ability to focus in on particular data that is of importance for your task. In this example here, I combined public holiday data for Australia but only wanted to focus on the public holidays for NSW and ACT. A contains filter on the jurisdiction column, selecting either “nsw” or “act” gets this done with ease.
These are my three favourite Alteryx tools!