Preparing for the Alteryx Designer Core Certification!

by Brandon Fitz-Gerald

DS20 have recently been taking their Alteryx Designer Core Certifications so I wanted to share the tips and tricks I’ve learned that helped me massively in my preparations.

Alteryx Exam Prep Guide|

It might sound obvious to say, but Alteryx’s own exam prep guide was an invaluable resource to me when I started to prepare for the certification.

  • It provides a breakdown of what kind of exam questions you will be faced with (73 Multiple Choice Questions and 7 practical application questions)
  • What tools do you have to feel comfortable using? This list not only lets you know what tools you need to know how to use, but also any additional information you might need to know about those tools.
  • A few practice questions!

Use the Text Input tool during the certification|

My colleague Luke has a great blog post on how useful he found the Text Input tool here. For a full overview on just how effective this tool can be to help, check out his blog, but I’ll give you the situation where I personally found it most useful.

  • With multiple choice questions in the certification that ask you what the outcome on a tool would be on a certain section if data, using the text input tool to mimic that data was invaluable.

Know the data you’re using as well as possible|

Some questions in the certification will ask you about how particularly tools will work. Input a dataset that you know well to explore this tools with. (I used the Tableau Superstore data, as that’s what we’ve worked with the most throughout training).

Using a dataset you feel comfortable with is important as you’ll be able to sense-check any results from tools you get. It’s important to note that some questions in the certification will provide you with a dateset to download, so you won’t be using datasets you’re comfortable with all the time.

Other important things to know?|

Some questions in the certification will rely on you knowing about Data Types, Alteryx Shortcuts and Alteryx File Types. Having a look at these beforehand will help out massively in the certification, and it’ll give you little tips you didn’t even know were possible. My top two time saving tips I learned in the exam are:

  • By right clicking on a browse tool, you can convert it to an output data tool!
  • If you copy the data shown in your results window, you can paste this data into your worksheet and it’ll input the data through a text input tool!

Google is your friend|

You’re allowed to google things during your certification! If you’re completely stuck on a question don’t feel bad about going to google to help you out!

Don’t do this for all questions though, there won’t be time to google the answers for all questions.

Stay calm|

This is probably the most generic piece of advice you can give somebody going into a certification, but it’s true. If you’re taking the certification, then you know how to use Alteryx. Keep calm, read each question carefully and have fun!

I hope you found some of these tips helpful! And good luck!