It's Thursday and you guessed it - time for my weekly reflection.
Monday - Getting To Grips With Alteryx
This week we got stuck in straight away, going through different tools in Alteryx, this time with a lot more individual exercise practice than when we had looked at Alteryx in Week 1.
My brain at 10am was not prepared to be set loose on Alteryx, and it took me a while to get going. The phrase 'practice makes perfect' is used for a reason, and I definitely found that working my way through a bunch of different exercises for Alteryx tools such as Formula and Transpose helped me cement my understanding. We spent all of Monday working through tools and exercises, with intermittent checking of how well England was progressing in their first World Cup match.
Tuesday - Some More Alteryx
Tuesday was fairly similar to Monday, except we went into tools such as Crosstab and Multi-Field Formula in a bit more depth.
We will be attempting the Alteryx Core exam next week, so I was starting to feel the pressure of getting to grips with these functions as soon as possible.
My impression of Alteryx, once I got over the slightly 80s looking interface, is that this software is pretty great. Alteryx has the power to transform data so much more dynamically, and quickly than other software I have used. The downside it that the more I learn the more I realize how little I know...
Wednesday - Back to Tableau Prep
After two intense days of Alteryx, it was nice to go back to Tableau Prep for a while, which is both more user friendly, and requires far less command writing and a lot more clicking pre-built tools.
We ran through a load of Preppin' Data challenges which are great for practicing your skills in Tableau Prep. You can find them here:
Jenny Martin
The main thing I'm struggling with is knowing how to get from A to B using Tableau Prep. It's one thing understanding what each tool and function does, the next step is knowing when and how to use them - this is going to be my challenge for the next few weeks.
I spent Wednesday evening doing my Alteryx micro credentials exam which I passed with no problems - just goes to show how much I've learnt in only 3 days of Alteryx!
Thursday - Alteryx Core Exam Prep
Today was focused on getting ready for the Alteryx Core exam, which we will be taking next week.
For the core exam you're given 2 hours to complete 80 questions on Alteryx Designer i.e. you'll be under time pressure. We spent the day going through what sort of questions we'd be asked, the content of the exam, then moved onto running through some practice questions.
I'm not expecting to pass the exam first try (although never say never), but I feel like I'll be able to give it a good go.
Friday - Presentations!
Tomorrow will be our third presentation day since joining the DS, and I have a feeling it'll be the hardest to date, given that our week has been focused on using Alteryx meaning our presentation topic will most likely be this. We'll see!!