The first day at the Data School Down Under – Week 1 started with Alteryx – now I had done my research on Alteryx, however, learning the tool from the master itself is a different ball game. It was a roller coaster first week from being overwhelmed to getting butterflies in my stomach.
I had to take few pauses, a bit of self-study and realized it couldn’t be that tough.
I thought it would be a good idea to write a blog on something essential yet crucial step for every newbie starting to learn Alteryx.
Cleaning the data set is one of the first prep steps to all data exercises – and if done correctly will save you a lot of time and effort in the later stages.
Below are the few simple steps to get the file ready for visualization and get rid of any anomalies.
The aim here is to clean the errors from the input file shown below (Image 1) and get to an error-free clean file (Image 2) ready to get cracking for visualization.
Step 1: Insert the Microsoft Excel Worksheet (.xlsx) into Alteryx using ’Input Data’ tool 
Step 2: Insert multiple sheets to Alteryx using ‘Dynamic Input’ tool
Step 3: Connected another file to the existing file using ‘Union’ tool
Step 4: With the help of the ‘Filter’ tool, get rid of null values 
Step 5: Next tool which I found to be useful was the ‘Formula’ tool.
This tool helps in multi-tasking – shown below:
5.1: With the help of Fn: Trim(String, y), get rid of any Leading/Trailing/All Whitespace in the file
5.2: Also, change names in each column using Fn: Replace(String, Target, Replacement)
Step 6: Again, using ‘Filter’ tool, remove columns which are not required.
After all these steps, Finally, I got my squishy clean file – ready to be used to visualise in the tableau or any other visualisation tool.
Below is the full path of the Alteryx workflow.
In the coming weeks, I will upload other blogs related to both Alteryx and Tableau, hope you enjoy reading my first blog.
As I see this, this is just the starters till we reach the dessert I am sure it’s going to get more fun and learning experience.