If your business is trying to make better, faster, data-based decisions, it’s likely you’re considering an investment in Alteryx data blending software. According to the company’s website, Alteryx claims it can help you, “Find, prep, blend, and analyze all your data in a repeatable workflow, and deliver deeper business insights in hours, not weeks.” So is it true?
Generally, yes.
Alteryx is extremely helpful for businesses that store data in a variety of databases and formats. (And let’s face it, that’s most businesses.) Because every data source is different, the ETL (extract, transform, load) process can be difficult. Your data must be blended in a way that is reliable and ensures transparency in data prep for visualization. Fortunately, transparency is one of Alteryx’s biggest advantages.
In Alteryx, processes are laid out visually. Users are required to label and describe each step and add comments. Compare an Alteryx workflow to reading lines of SQL or python code, and it’s apparent which one is easier to understand. Alteryx is also easier to learn. If your IT department is busy, a business analyst might have to wait days or weeks to get code written, unless he or she knows how to write custom code and connect to the various databases. By the time the data is prepped by IT, the business might not even need the answer anymore.
Another advantage to Alteryx’s visual approach to data blending is the ease with which another user can understand and update workflows. Because each step is shown visually and described, workflows are easier to maintain when passwords, data sources, or business intelligence goals change.
What’s the disadvantage of Alteryx?
The biggest hurdles businesses face when trying to implement Alteryx are price and resistance from the IT department. It is a worthwhile investment, but it is not cheap. Because of the expense, many businesses often want to rely on open source alternatives to Alteryx, such as Python and Conda packages. While using Conda can simplify writing Python, the learning curve is steep, standardization can be difficult, and updates (as previously mentioned) are challenging. An investment in Alteryx can reduce data analytics consulting fees and a reliance on IT to write code. IT simply needs to maintain the Alteryx server to retains the ability to ensure data security and control access – which is something they’re probably already thinking about if you’re using (or considering) a cloud data warehouse.
If your businesspeople feel like their hands are tied behind their backs due to many places to access data and no true place to bring it all together to analyze it, Alteryx might be the right solution for you. An added benefit is it helps makes data wrangling easier to learn and understand and can empower decision makers to find smarter answers from blended data, faster.
The short answer is: yes, Alteryx really is worth the hype.
