A few weeks ago, I took the both the Alteryx Foundation Micro-Credential Exam and the Alteryx Designer Core Exam. Thankfully, after one week of training with my coaches from The Data School, I passed with high marks and received my certification from both exams. As I reflect on my journey, I am excited to share my experience and provide you with valuable insights into the the format and structure of the exam. This will be part of a series that aims to demystify the Alteryx Designer Core Exam and provide a study guide to make it more accessible for others. But this article is just one resource. Take a look at parts 2 and 3 for recommended strategies and different study resources, including practice exams!
My Experience
At the start of the week, when we first heard that we had to finish a mini Alteryx certification on Thursday and the designer core exam on Friday, all of us were apprehensive because none of us in DSNY6 -I mean none of us- believed we were adequately prepared. Many of us had little to no experience with the software and it quickly became clear that there was much to know. Much of the week we spent going over the basics on how the program works and the different tools in it. Though getting a grasp on Alteryx is not difficult, it did not feel that we would be ‘exam ready’ in just a few days. Our main coach, Sam Shurmer, had such unwavering confidence in our readiness that his lack of urgency actually heightened our anxiety. However, while taking the exam, I started to understand what Sam was emphasizing from the beginning - that our advance learning program suitably guided us to a level surpassing the exam's requirements. I attribute this to our training cleverly focusing on two main things:
- If we can achieve a basic understanding of all the tools that will be on the Core exam and how they work, we will more than prepared for the mini exam and mostly ready for the Core.
- A big part of the core exam is learning how to find where things are in Alteryx. For example, you may not know about the (some not obvious feature of a tool or the general interface) but you should be at the point where you would know where to look to most likely find it, or where/how to search for that information.
When taking the exam, there were many questions that I was easily able to answer. There were some answers that I was unsure of because they had very minor differences between other answers. For those, I answered my most confident choice and then bookmarked the question to review. On that note, I had plenty of time to review my bookmarked questions to think more about it, confirm with a internet search, or even check out in Alteryx Designer itself. I actually went over my bookmarks multiple times, slowly removing questions that I was satisfied with my answer each round. Hopefully this gives many exam takers hope in the ease and the length of time that they have; there is plenty of time to breathe. There were maybe 2-3 question that I had very little idea of and was not able to easily search for the answer. Thankfully, I had enough time to go over each question multiple times as and plenty of allotted time remaining. Passing was a such a relief, even now. Pressing that submit button and seeing the confirmation made all the effort worth it. Seeing the words "PASS" in the confirmation added the extra of happiness to the whole process that I am sure will revisit when I am recertifying.
Exam Format
Two big things to start off with about the exam is that it is free and open book. Beyond that, the exam’s format is fairly simple. You have:
I. 80 Questions
Question Types
• Multiple-choice, practical application, matching, and multiple-response
• 7 practical questions (with an accompanying packaged dataset)
• 73 non-practical (without an accompanying packaged dataset)
Current Breakdown of Topics:
• General Designer Knowledge and Optimization
• Input/Output Data and Preparation
• Blend Data and Parse
• Transform Data
II. 2 Hours 30 Minutes to Finish Questions
III. Currently Need 65% to Pass (this changes, pay attention to the exam start page before actually starting it)
Some of the details such as the time allotted or how many marks you need to pass are subject to change, so make sure to confirm with the starting page of your exam before or at the time of taking it.
The exam is on demand to be taken anytime online, you receive your results instantly, and the exam can be retaken once every 7 days so you can go back to it as often as many times as you want if you need to renew your certification (certification lasts 2 years), get a better score, etc. By the way, Alteryx exams are Pass/Fail and they do not publish the actual scores outside of providing them privately to you.
About the practical questions, they require you to load the supplement data and perform the given tasks to determine the answer. The non-practical questions can come in a few forms: multiple-choice, matching, and multiple response (”Select THREE options”, “Which option(s)”, etc).
Much of the exam is to test if you have explored the different parts of the software and become familiar with the tools and general interface. That covers the different tools and their configuration panes, the canvas, the tools toolbar, the results pane, and also the help menu. You want to make sure that you understand how these tools affect the data, as you face multiple questions regarding that.
After completing your exam, you will receive a pass/fail result immediately, and a comprehensive score report will be sent to you via email. This report is designed to provide valuable insights into your performance levels in different tasks..
Remember, if you don't pass on your first attempt, there's no need to worry! You can retake the exam after a waiting period of 7 days. You can take that time to refine your skills and familiarize yourself with available resources. Once you've successfully passed the Core exam, consider exploring further certification opportunities such as becoming Advanced Certified, contributing to the Alteryx Community, or joining a user group to continue your certification journey and share your knowledge.
So now that you have a bit of a primer on how the exam will be, lets start talking about strategy in Part 2.