THE AGE OF THE

B A D A S S A N A LY S T
Seize the day. Explore modern approaches to
data analytics that unleash your brilliance.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 1

LET’S DIVE IN
Data Analysts: The Badasses Who Propel Change.................................... 04
FIVE COMMON DATA CHALLENGES
1) Data Prep Is Where Time Goes to Die.................................................. 07
2) Joining Data Shouldn’t Be a Marriage of Inconvenience...................... 09
3) Data You Don’t Have Doesn’t Help You.............................................. 11
4) Antiquated Approaches Aren’t Built for Advanced Capabilities........... 13
5) Still Waiting for Predictive and Prescriptive?........................................ 15
G E T B A D A S S W I T H A N A LY T I C S
A New Day for Analytics............................................................................ 18
An Easier Way to Wrangle Data................................................................ 22
Use the Right Tools to Get the Right Blend............................................... 25
A Shared, Transparent, Environment Helps You Find Data..................... 27
CONTENTS
Answer with Confidence Using Advanced Analytics................................. 29
Geospatial Analytics......................................................................... 29
Demographic Data............................................................................ 30
Firmographics and Technographics.................................................. 30
Predictive and Prescriptive Power in Your Hands..................................... 33
TRAILBLAZERS
Healthcare Analytics.................................................................................. 37
Supply Chain Analytics.............................................................................. 39
Tax and Audit Analytics............................................................................. 41
Government Analytics................................................................................ 43
Higher Education Analytics........................................................................ 45
K E Y TA K E AWAYS
Experience the Thrill of Solving................................................................ 48
SECTION 1

LET’S DIVE IN

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 3
D A T A A N A LY S T S : B A D A S S E S
WHO PROPEL CHANGE
As a data analyst, you provide one of the most needed services in business today, T H E N U M B E R O F CO M PA N I E S
triggering important decisions with the insights you provide while grappling with
impossible deadlines, high expectations, and IT bottlenecks.
A P P LY I N G B I G D A T A A N A LY T I C S 1
From healthcare to government to higher education, organizations in every sector
need data analysts. Regardless of which industry you work in, collecting data and
53%
compiling your findings into reports that will help the business is a part of the job.

Your organization counts on you to answer the questions they pose with pinpoint
accuracy. It’s vital to get the answers right, because decision-makers use those
answers to make important choices. In your pressure-cooker role, it can be
a challenge just to survive, much less thrive. Do it successfully, and you’ll achieve 17%
badass status.

2015 2017
1
Dresner Advisory Services 2017 Big Data Analytics Study, as reported in Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2017/12/24/53-of-companies-are-adopting-big-data-analytics/#2619693f39a1

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 4
SECTION 2

FIVE COMMON
DATA CHALLENGES

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 5
“ If my boss only knew how

”
long data prep really takes.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 6
1) DATA PREP IS WHERE COMMON DATA
PREP SCENARIOS

TIME GOES TO DIE You can lose significant time when contending
with inconsistent field entries across source files.
Some fields, such as state abbreviations, phone
numbers, and titles, are presented multiple ways,
Even though data prep and blend is only the first step in an analytic process, it’s vital to get right, so that when it’s time
depending on the relevant convention. It’s tedious
to generate insight, data is accurate. That’s why most analysts spend the bulk of their time wrangling data using manual
and time-consuming to reconcile field consistency
processes, leaving little time for producing reports.
for entries like “California,” “Calif.,” and “CA,”
The data you work with exists across multiple file types—SQL databases, CSV, XML, Excel (XLSX) formats, and more. or differences in phone number formats such
You need to bring together each piece of the data puzzle, but manual processes are not efficient for generating insights. as 555-555-1212, (555) 555-1212, and
Cleansing data from these formats requires a lot of copy/paste, formulas, or macros unless you happen to know Python, 555.555.1212.
R, Pandas, or Jupyter. If you do, you know that scripting languages are time-intensive and can be error-prone. If you don’t, Other examples of inconsistencies in your data
some degree of manual reconciliation is your only option, and manual data work is mind-numbingly slow, inflexible, and you’re likely to encounter:
error-prone.
• 24-hour versus 12-hour time formats
Even if you are familiar with these or other tools, prepping data that can be “dirty” in a number of ways is still slow-going
• U.S. date format versus formats
using traditional data-cleansing methods. Cleansing data isn’t limited to ensuring naming and abbreviation consistency, of
from other regions
course. You’re bound to encounter other prep and blend hurdles, like:
• Country abbreviations

• Unit conversions, such as pounds • True/false records that need to become yes/no records Even when you’re able to use formulas to reformat
to kilos or feet to yards (and vice versa) this information, it’s still inefficient and tiresome
• Currency conversions • Null values that send your advanced analytics into a tailspin to switch back and forth between multiple spread-
sheets and/or databases to get it done. It’s also
• Empty spaces • Records that contain unwanted characters like %, &,
easy to break your formula and hard to trace back
• Unrecognizable characters imported and other symbols or punctuation
the original source of the formula problem.
from non-English alphabets • Non-identical duplicates, like “Maria Seelos” and “M. Seelos”

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 7
“ Data comes from everywhere;
I wish it was easier to use all of it.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 8
2) JOINING DATA SHOULDN’ T BE
A MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE
To arrive at a usable answer from cleansed data, you likely have to join multiple
sources of data, such as multiple spreadsheets and databases that are formatted in
a variety of ways.

Reports often require multiple programming languages and approaches to achieve

your goal. From R to Python to SQL, from dplyr to sqldf to data.table, exploring
and applying these solutions eats up time. SQL, R, and Python approaches can
limit your flexibility when you want to use a single solution to:

• Join data that results in more than one or two outputs

• See the fall-out data that flows from all three outputs
• Group records based on two input keys from your data stream
• Produce a dataset that contains every combination of two or more tables

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 9
“ Depending on others for data is a drag.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 10
3 ) DATA YO U D O N ’ T H AVE
DOESN’ T HELP YOU

Before you can even begin to prep data, you have to track it down.

It might be locked in the IT department and take a few days to access, because IT
has many priorities in front of your request. Or, your data might be buried in a
spreadsheet that’s shuttled back and forth over email, or tucked away in a custom
database managed by a single user.

These scenarios leave you dependent on the timelines of others, while your own
project schedule stutters or stalls completely. Deadlines can be missed as a result.
In any case, working with aging data is not ideal.

When internal processes are slow, and reports take days to generate,
you’re not able to deliver your best work.
According to a recent survey, nearly two-thirds of data going through
traditional prep and blend was at least five days old by the time it reached 62% of data analysts must depend on others within their organization
to perform at least some steps in the analytics process. 2
an analytics database—and therefore, no longer able to meet the guidelines
for fast-paced analytics.3

2
“Achieving Self-Service for Enterprise Data Analysts,” --Alteryx”
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3213729/data-center/etl-is-slowing-down-real-time-data-analytics.html
11
3
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T |
“ I want to overlay more data sets, but
I can’t get there with old solutions.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 12
4) ANTIQUATED APPROACHES
A R E N ’ T B U I LT F O R
A DVA N C E D CA PA B I L I T I E S

Once data is prepped, you’ll want to enrich it, so you can extract as much value as customers and prospects, it’s important to know details like age and income.
possible. For example, while it’s good to capture a company’s name and address, It’s even better to gain deeper knowledge, including the types of technology,
it’s better to augment that information with deeper business insights like industry, food, and household products they purchase, to increase your understanding
size, and revenue. and inspire new segmentation approaches.

The same holds true for geospatial data. With this kind of data, you can pinpoint But you can’t get very far with outdated methods like spreadsheets. Often, you’ll
where your target customers are located to design better marketing campaigns, need the help of a specialist and a bit of manual coding to enrich your data—
find new retail locations or optimize your supply chain logistics. When it comes to and that takes time you don’t have.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 13
“ I wish I could do advanced
analytics on my own.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 14
5 ) ST I L L WA I T I N G More than ever, data analysts are expected to present advanced
analytics such as predictive and prescriptive models, including

FOR PREDICTIVE
creating decision trees, running A/B tests and logistic regressions,
and performing market basket analysis. Many analysts are still
focused on descriptive analytics that explain what already happened.

AND PRESCRIPTIVE? They would like to move toward more forecasting and informed
scenario-building, but aren’t sure how.

At one time, predictive and prescriptive models needed to be applied

by data scientists, but that’s no longer the case. If your advanced
analytics are still dependent on others to implement, it’s important to
know you have other options.

Now, analysts can be empowered by modern technology. Modern,

easy-to-use solutions help analysts sharpen their analytics skills
without having to learn code.

BY 2021 of analytics processes will no longer simply discover what

66% happened and why; instead, they will also prescribe what
should be done. 4

4
Ventana Research Assertions, as cited in Microstrategy Blog:
https://www.microstrategy.com/us/resources/blog/bi-trends/12-data-and-analytics-predictions-through-2025

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 15
SECTION 3

GET BADASS
W I T H A N A LY T I C S

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 16
“ ”
I feel free.

C L I C K H E R E TO WATC H T H E P OWE R
OF OUR PL ATFORM IN 2 MINUTES

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 17
A NEW When analysts want to unleash their badass analytic brilliance, they do it with
Alteryx. Using our platform, you can breeze through data prep to generate better

DAY F O R
reports in half the time—with the freedom to do so much more.

DRAG, DROP, DONE

A N A LY T I C S Alteryx Platform uses a visual, drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to create
workflows, locate and join data from multiple, disparate, data sources—including
Excel, data warehouses, social media, cloud, big data, and more. These visual
workflows make it much easier for anyone, not just data scientists, to quickly
understand logical paths that will get to the goal result, even for advanced capabilities
like predictive and prescriptive analytics. You can clean your data within the same
workflow, saving you hours, and often days or weeks, of frustration. When you’re
done with your analysis, you can easily show anyone the steps you took to get to the
answer, without having to describe the magic of your solution from memory alone.

A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : S O C I A L D A T A I N S E C O N D S

“ Without Alteryx, it would take countless hours to manually work with

the social data in 90-day increments and manipulate the data within

”
Excel to mimic what the Alteryx workflow export does in seconds.
JENNIFER JENSEN
Sr. Analyst, McGarry Bowen

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 18
C H O O S E YO U R L AY E R S ,
CHOOSE YOUR CHARTS

Add layers of information to your analytics, drawing from

third-party sources like Experian, DigitalGlobe, and TomTom.
A variety of chart options makes it simple to create and combine
multiple charts into pixel-perfect reports. Or, bring those
interactive charts together in a dashboard where stakeholders
can drill down in the charts to view what’s important to them—
all in a single analytics environment.

A N A LY Z E D A T A I N A N Y I N D U S T R Y

Alteryx flexes to the specialized needs of any data analyst,

across industries. This is because Alteryx works as an entire
platform, not a single-point product. The ability to connect with
multiple tools and data sources, both internal and external,
further extends your capabilities to work across multiple
industries with Alteryx.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 19
W I T H C O D E - F R E E A N D C O D E - F R I E N D LY ,
IT ’ S YOUR CHOICE

Data analysts and users who understand the challenge ahead of them—but would
rather use clicks than code to solve it—are covered with our code-free platform.
Open-source developers will love our graphical user interface, and it’s intuitive
enough for any analyst to quickly master.

For data scientists and others who do want to apply their coding skills, Alteryx is
code-friendly, making it easy to collaborate with non-coding stakeholders in one
transparent solution.

With the Alteryx Platform, you can leverage code that’s been designed specifically
for your organization and advance your data analytic skills quickly, while
empowering the line of business to use pre-built, repeatable, workflows
and templates.

C O D E - F R E E A N D C O D E - F R I E N D LY E X A M P L E S

With our platform, coders and non-coders can:

• Introduce R code into a workflow, so data scientists can

collaborate with non-coding stakeholders
• Build a marketing attribution model using Markov chains
to create a personal answer engine
• Predict lead conversions or sales using omni-channel marketing
data to translate raw data into real value
There are myriad other benefits of using the Alteryx Platform, all driving the same
overarching principle: Alteryx frees up your time, so you can turbocharge your
insight delivery and race past the competition.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 20
“ I didn’t realize data cleansing

”
could actually be pain-free.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 21
A N E A S I E R WAY TO
WRANGLE DATA
A lot of analysts spend the bulk of their time cleansing data. If this is you,
Alteryx offers a welcome change. We flip the script so you can spend the
majority of your time analyzing data instead of preparing it. No more
struggling with manual copy/paste tasks and endless frustrations when
standardizing data. You can create an automated process that pulls data
from multiple sources like spreadsheets, proprietary services, and legacy
databases. Get data from any source and in any structure, whether it’s
on-premises, in the cloud, or scraped from the web. Now that’s the kind
of badass power you need.

Here are descriptions of three popular Alteryx tools for data prep on
the platform:

Data Cleansing Tool

Fixes common data quality issues using a variety of parameters
Filter Tool
Queries records and splits the data into two outputs:
True (where the data meets the specified criteria) and False
(where it does not)
Imputation Tool
Updates specific values in a numeric data field with another
selected value. Useful for replacing NULL values

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 22
A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : U . S . D E P A R T M E N T
O F CO M M E R C E / U . S . PAT E N T A N D
TRADEMARK OFFICE

“ We are using Alteryx as an ETL tool, extracting data, scheduled

nightly, from the legacy transactional system and loading it into an
optimized data model designed specifically to support analytical
efforts. Thanks to Alteryx, we are well on our way to being the
premier self-service analytics platform in the federal government,

”
managed by the people who know the data best.

JAMES NOSAL
Program Analyst, U.S. Dept. of Commerce/U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 23
“ These join tools are like

”
shortcuts around traffic.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 24
USE THE RIGHT
TOOLS TO GET
THE RIGHT BLEND

Take advantage of powerful join tools that let you combine all your data, no matter Join Tool
the structure or location. If you prefer to work in Python and R, you can—but you won’t Combines two inputs based on a commonality between the two tables (similar
need to. And, our platform lets you iterate as needed—just add a new data source or to an SQL join, while offering the option of creating three outputs resulting
change your model, run it in Alteryx, and review the outcome—no need from the join)
to reshape your data for each update. Make Group Tool
Instead of manually combining your data, use some of the automated, repeatable Takes data relationships and assembles the data into groups based
tools from Alteryx. We’ve listed a few examples below: on those relationships
Append Fields Tool

Appends the fields of one small input to every record of another, larger, input.
The result is a Cartesian join, in which all records from both inputs
A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : F R O M 2 0 T O 2 are compared

“ I am impressed that it took only two minutes to join. I tried

”
this on a different analytics tool and it took 20 minutes!
ALTERYX COMMUNITY MEMBER

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 25
“ It’s pretty awesome to track

”
my data sources in one place.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 26
A S H A R E D, T R A N S PA R E N T
ENVIRONMENT HELPS
YOU FIND DATA
With a shared platform, it’s easy to locate, and even rate, data sources,
so you won’t have to spend time looking for information. Accessing
a common location to find and collaborate on data improves the
overall quality of information throughout the organization—and saves
you time.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 27
“ ”
Hard questions? Bring ‘em.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 28
ANSWER WITH CONFIDENCE
U S I N G A D V A N C E D A N A LY T I C S
The power of advanced analytics, traditionally the domain of coders and data
scientists, is in your hands with Alteryx. Now, you can use logistic regression to
determine which customers are most likely to respond to your next marketing
campaign. Or, predict how a price change will impact your bottom line with
A/B analysis. And that’s just a start.

Alteryx is giving analysts back their day and helping them unleash their
analytic brilliance in a way never before possible.

G E O S P A T I A L A N A LY T I C S

Use Alteryx to enrich data with spatial analytics. Add metrics like travel time
and physical proximity to reveal potential opportunities. Alteryx geocodes large
volumes of data quickly, including demographic, geographic, and household
information—again, no coding required.

Location intelligence is invaluable in many scenarios. For example, multiregional

companies can better prepare for power outages during weather disruptions
with geospatial data that indicates the most vulnerable sites. They can then
determine where to position service assets, such as repair crews. Another example
is a logistics company that needs to map efficient transportation for a fleet of
vehicles. Using geospatial, you can identify the best travel routes. Using past data
of actual travel time can help forecast where and when to plan for congestion
and other delays.

Geospatial is fast becoming an invaluable component of data enrichment—

and Alteryx makes it easy to implement.
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 29
DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

The better you understand who you’re communicating with, the better your chances of landing
your message. Demographic data is crucial for communicating with a specific audience segment.
And, unlike processes that require you to overlay that information by extracting it from
spreadsheets, Alteryx makes it easy to append the data in a single platform.

Understand more about your customers and prospects beyond their neighborhoods and names.
Whether for sales and marketing, product design or even packaging considerations, visibility into
household income, age, marital status, and even hobbies, adds the laser-focused information
you’ll want to have when segmenting audiences.

FIRMOGRAPHICS AND TECHNOGRAPHICS

FIRMOGRAPHICS

At first glance, “firmographics” seems simple: how many offices does the company have?
How many employees? But there’s more to it.

Questions like, what are their yearly sales versus profitability? For packaged products, do they
use discrete manufacturing or process manufacturing? How big is their customer set? Are they
B2C or B2B? Do they lease or buy their equipment? Where are they in their corporate lifecycle?

Firmographic segmentation, like other enriched data, helps you target your audience. If a company
has a bad year, for example, it’s less likely they’ll be interested in updating their office décor across
multiple locations. This type of detail can help prioritize sales efforts and uncover whether some
leads are more likely to pay off.

As with individual customers, when it comes to organizations, the more details you know,
the better your communication.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 30
TECHNOGRAPHICS

Technographics tells you what types of hardware and software

companies buy and use to run their businesses. Technographic data can
help you match opportunities to prospects who may be using outdated
solutions or to identify companies that are heavily invested in a competing
product—so you can be more precise when marketing to them.

In addition to listing each company’s tech stack, technographics also tells

you how they acquire technology, including how often they’ve upgraded,
or performed a rip-and-replace of, older systems.

Enriching data with firmographics and technographics using the

Alteryx Platform is easy. You can amend your data with drag-and-drop
functionality, including automated reports, at any time. In a competitive
market, data sets are the “secret sauce” that gives you the edge. Leverage
firmographics and technographics with other data for a truly rounded
view of your audience.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 31
“ It’s one thing to see the future.
Now I can do something about it.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 32
PREDICTIVE AND
PRESCRIPTIVE POWER
IN YOUR HANDS
P R E D I C T I V E A N A LY T I C S

Descriptive analytics can illuminate what’s already happened. Predictive analytics describes
what’s likely to happen in the future. Alteryx offers R and Python integration, while more than
40 pre-built tools and macros give data analysts and other users the ability to predict likely
scenarios, impacting decision-making and outcomes—without the need to know a single line of
code. In addition, Alteryx offers macros for data investigation, predictive modeling, grouping,
and time series analysis.

A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : F R O M A M O N T H T O F O U R H O U R S

“ We use Alteryx Designer for ETL and predictive modeling. Before Alteryx, this

”
project took a month’s time. Today, it takes approximately three to four hours.

ALTAN ATABARUT
Analytics Consultant, Ulusal Factoring, TR

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 33
P R E S C R I P T I V E A N A LY T I C S

While predictive analytics helps you understand what

is likely to happen, prescriptive analytics helps you
consider options for what to do based on that outcome.
Traditionally, this has required complex, error-prone,
spreadsheet models and/or manual coding.

Alteryx gives you simulation and optimization

capabilities in a drag-and-drop interface that’s easy to
use, while also providing transparency and consistency
for future modeling. Our prescriptive analytics utilizes
a range of mathematical models, offers support for
multiple solvers, and includes built-in Monte Carlo
simulation capabilities.

Using these types of advanced analytics, it’s never been

easier to make sound, prescriptive, decisions based on
your data.

BREAK THE BARRIERS TO FASTER

INSIGHTS. DOWNLOAD A FREE TRIAL
OF ALTERYX DESIGNER TODAY.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 34
SECTION 4

TRAILBLAZERS

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 35
“ I can transform analytics in
any industry with Alteryx.
”
T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 36
TRAILBLAZERS:
H E A LT H C A R E
A N A LY T I C S
As in other industries, healthcare is undergoing a data analytics
transformation, with analytics relevant to multiple components of
the healthcare landscape.

Beyond privacy and HIPAA considerations, data analytics benefits the

healthcare industry with the ability to compare multiple types of data at
once, including revenue, costs, and patient experience—making it easier
to search relevant metadata and automate reporting. Healthcare
organizations can use analytics to improve patient-specific outcomes,
reduce costs, and maintain regulatory compliance.

Alteryx is ideal for the high security demanded when working with
healthcare data. Data is never stored in our platform—it stays behind your
firewall, maintaining compliance and privacy standards on its journey.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 37
A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : V E R A D A T A H E L P S
RAISE FUNDS FOR THE NATIONAL
CHILDREN’S CANCER SOCIETY

VeraData, a decision science company, provides analytic services

to the National Children’s Cancer Society (NCCS), among
other clients. The NCCS was faced with a trend of increased
donor acquisition costs, as well as a diminishing set of potential
donors—a difficult situation for an organization devoted to
helping children with cancer.

VeraData built a donor acquisition model to reduce costs and

acquire donors, which required an extensive amount of external
information to widen the universe of individuals likely to support
the NCCS.

Using Alteryx as a key component of their tool set, VeraData

was able to combine decades of client-side and external data
to output a blended master analytic database that accounted
for full promotional and transactional history, with all the
corresponding, individual-level, composite data. The client
experienced a 24 percent reduction in cost to acquire a donor
and was able to reactivate a much larger volume of potential
donors, including donors who had lapsed up to 15 years prior.
Their mission would not have been possible without the speed
and precision offered by Alteryx.

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 38
TRAILBLAZERS:
S U P P LY C H A I N A N A LY T I C S
Accurately assessing and acting on supply chain data starts with visibility. Starting with the
procurement of raw materials, it’s now possible to use analytics along the entire length of your supply
chain. From production to distribution, analyze relevant data to ensure partners and customers are
satisfied. For example, determining where there will be price volatility, or issues satisfying demand,
can greatly reduce supply chain disruption.

Another important goal of supply chain analytics is to improve forecasting and efficiency, to be more
responsive to customer needs. Predictive analytics can help anticipate consumer demand, which you
can use to identify opportunities to save costs, adjust inventory, and accelerate delivery throughout
the supply chain.

Alteryx is perfect to conduct supply chain analytics, allowing you to easily connect to SAP, SQL,
production servers, and ERP systems.

A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : A M W A Y M O N I T O R S S U P P LY C H A I N D A I LY

“ Alteryx is the engine that is driving our team to new levels. We are automating all of our scorecards
from a data perspective. We are able to provide daily insights on the health of our supply chain

”
versus monthly reporting.
ADAM RANT
Business Systems Analyst, Amway

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A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : S H E L L F U L LY
AUTOMATES WORKFLOWS

Shell is a world-renowned, global group of energy and

petrochemical companies. Since Shell started using Alteryx,
internal demand for the Alteryx toolset has grown significantly.
Alteryx is now the most popular solution available in the
workbench, with 88 percent of Shell lab users across multiple
business units regularly making use of it. Among other
purposes, Shell uses Alteryx for their downstream lubricants
supply chain, including developing a suite of tools that won
a Supply Chain Excellence award.

Playing a vital role in providing critical information on

inventory, margin, forecast accuracy and blending options,
Alteryx has taken previously manual processes built in
Excel and R, and transformed them into fully automated,
end-to-end, workflows for Shell—making quality data available
much faster than previously possible.

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TRAILBLAZERS:
T A X A N D A U D I T A N A LY T I C S
With more than 11,000 U.S. tax jurisdictions, tax compliance and audit
readiness are key considerations for every company. Alteryx helps you ensure
sales and use tax compliance, while assisting with tax audit prep. You can also
use Alteryx to research the taxability of items like consumables and purchases.

Tax data can be leveraged for multiple purposes, including:

• Risk management, to identify potential tax issues before an audit

• Error reduction, to highlight anomalies and focus attention on
potential high-dollar errors
• Administrative cost reduction, to streamline and automate monthly
compliance processes
• Tax strategy improvement, to evaluate tax planning scenarios
Audits can be transformed with analytics as well. You’re not constrained to
only a sample group; you can apply analytics to an entire population, and
schedule financial audits to run at specific intervals. As advanced analytics
supply a higher quality of audit evidence and increased business insights,
auditors can more easily identify business and tax risks.

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A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : S L A L O M A N D
TRINITY INDUSTRIES COMPRESS
5 MONTHS TO 5 MINUTES

Trinity Industries manages hundreds of thousands of rail cars from

a fixed asset tax reporting perspective. Their systems weren’t configured
to allow them to effectively manage each asset and, as a result, they
were forced to use Excel to create reports—not only for company
leadership but also for the IRS. The process took more than five
months to complete.

Alteryx built several workflows to help Trinity consume reporting data

from their accounting system, perform “fuzzy” matching on their asset
numbers, and present the data in an appropriate manner, as needed by
each stakeholder. Alteryx turned a five-month process into a five-minute
process, freeing data analysts to spend time analyzing, rather than
slogging through row-level data and vlookup statements.

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TRAILBLAZERS:
G O V E R N M E N T A N A LY T I C S
State and Federal government agencies tend to house multiple sources for the same
types of data, often duplicating efforts across departments. It can be difficult to
determine, with reliable accuracy, specific forecasting factors.

Using a self-service platform solution like Alteryx allows State and Federal government
agencies to work from one version of the truth and bypass the need to manually
compare similar data sets or information sources. The Alteryx platform accommodates
planning, budgeting, and management in one place, allowing leaders to quickly evaluate
performance against budget, so they can build better government outcomes.

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A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : F I F T H J U D I C I A L
D I S T R I C T O F P E N N SY LVA N I A R U L E S
I N F A V O R O F A LT E R Y X

The Fifth Judicial District of Pennsylvania acts as a data hub to all other
departments and organizations within government, sharing data that’s
critical in providing services to the people of Allegheny County. The
data must be accurate and current, so judges, police officers, workers in
the Children, Youth and Family department, and probation officers have
reliable information on the bench and in the field.

The 5th District became aware of an urgent need to cleanse and

standardize their data, some of which was only available to them in
XML format. Notes John Matyasovsky Jr., Database Manager and
Systems Analyst for the 5th District, “We needed to consume, parse,
and load these data elements into multiple different systems.”

Matyasovsky continues: “We downloaded the free trial of Alteryx, and

before the trial expired, we were able to create and deploy an XML
parsing process that would have traditionally taken months to complete.
Not only was it completed in record time, it was completed by someone
who is not a traditional data guru.” Through reallocation of resources,
Alteryx has freed up one full-time employee, development times have
been halved, and data sharing has increased tremendously
between organizations.

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TRAILBLAZERS:
H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N A LY T I C S
When it comes to higher education, analytics creates personalized approaches to
advising and helps estimate how well some students will progress through courses
and majors—adding value to the student experience, increasing retention, and
boosting results for faculty.

Strong data can also improve decision-making at the campus level, including
promoting diversity and inclusion. In 2016, Georgia State University used big data
analytics to increase graduation rates by over 20 percent and close equity gaps for
low-income students and students of color.5

5
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/10/30/499200614/how-one-university-used-big-data-to-boost-graduation-rates

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A LT E R Y X I N A C T I O N : H O N G K O N G P O LY U
S I G N I F I C A N T LY S H O R T E N S T H E I R P A T H
T O R E S U LT S

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) includes approximately 29,000

students and 5,500 academics and professional staff from Hong Kong and
around the world. Anson Wun, Senior Institutional Research Analyst, is part of
a team in the Institutional Research and Planning Office (IRPO). Among other
initiatives, his team reviews research performance, including income from both
public and private sectors, and citations in influential journals.

“We had to deal with 100 different sizable files every month,” Anson says,
“and we just reached a point that we couldn’t handle the load.” He estimates
that 90 percent of the data files he received from internal departments, as well
as external sources, were Excel-based.

Anson started the search for a robust, self-service analytics solution that could
easily process this data and would offer simple drag-and-drop functionality,
plus on-demand online training and support resources. Additionally, he needed
the ability to share work and collaborate with colleagues. He found Alteryx.

“With Alteryx I can now look at more metrics, such as number of publications
in top journals, citations impact, or mutual benefits of collaborations.” Anson
continues: “We were able to do cross-validation with the assessment results, as
well as providing additional insights to departments. I can’t imagine being able
to achieve this without a powerful tool like Alteryx.”

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SECTION 5

K E Y TA K E AWAYS

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EXPERIENCE THE THRILL
O F S O LVI N G
T H E O L D WAY T H E B A DA S S WAY

Lots of time sunk in data prep and blend Prep and blend in minutes, not days

Joining data is complex and slow Automation and repeatability shrink

data join time
Data is siloed in spreadsheets
and local databases Data is easily tracked in one environment

Must rely on others for geospatial Geospatial, demographic, and more

and other data sets at your fingertips

Predictive and prescriptive analytics Advanced and predictive analytics

require coding achievable without code

T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 48
 TIME TO
A B O U T A LT E R Y X
Revolutionizing business through data science
RELEASE YOUR
INNER BADASS
and analytics, Alteryx offers an end-to-end
analytics platform that empowers data analysts
and scientists alike to break data barriers,
deliver insights, and experience the thrill of
getting to the answer faster. Organizations all Don’t let outdated tools hold you back. Data analysts are inspired and driven, determined to follow the
over the world rely on Alteryx daily to deliver clues and connect the dots until the clearest narrative is revealed.
actionable insights.

+1 888 836 4274

www.alteryx.com

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T H E A G E O F T H E B A D A S S A N A LY S T | 49