Ok, ok, now up to this point we’ve covered two of the top three most challenging topics for new exam takers. Until now, the previous two topics were fairly close together in terms of the percentage of students who chose incorrect answers on the exam. The final topic is by far and away the leader, with more than 80% of first time exam takers missing questions that cover this topic. What is it? Read on, my friends. As a quick recap, the third topic is the Find/Replace tool. While this tool contains the same functionality as what you would see in the find/replace function in Excel, ma ..read more

Last fall, I made a pivotal decision to grow Data Prep U from a one-person shop to a team. Alexandra Mannerings joined me as the Director of Data Strategy in August of 2019, and since then our company has continued to take off. Even with both of us continuously coaching others to analytic and data success, we continued to see our own needs to bring in more expertise. I am incredibly proud to announce that we have added another rockstar teammate. As of last Monday, Brenda Fosmire, MSCIT, CHDA, has joined Data Prep U as our Principal Consultant. She will focus on directly serving our cust ..read more

When it comes to Alteryx Certification, most of my conversations with others reveal one common theme: Most folks who use the Alteryx Designer have a lot of experience in one or two areas, but the certification exams cover so much more. In this and the next two posts, we will uncover the top three most missed questions, and de-mystify them. To begin, if you haven’t yet downloaded our free Alteryx Core Certification Exam study guide, why not? We released this guide just last week with the goal of providing a high-value resource that will help you navigate through each of the tools cove ..read more

In case you missed it! Our previous post covered the 3rd most missed topic in the Alteryx Designer Core Certification exam. The post went through multiple options for the Find/Replace tool, which is essentially just as it sounds, but with a few caveats. It allows you to search for a specific term or phrase in your data stream, then replace (or append a new field to) your data based on a 2nd data stream. In this post, we look at the 2nd most missed topic, which may surprise you! Ok, first let’s set the stage a bit. The difference in missed percentage points between number 3 and numb ..read more

Hello Data Prep U team!  First off, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who attended our second session, The Beginner Excel User’s Guide to Alteryx.  We had over 250 live attendees and well over 600 sign-ups.  For those of you who were not able to make it, I will update the below section as soon as the recordings are made available: Alteryx Lunch & Learn Past Sessions Alteryx Designer 101 Our next session this Wednesday, September 26th will focus on the SQL user, where we will learn to #Alteryx those SQL scripts, functions, joins, & procedures!   This session is not a continuation of a previo ..read more

Hello Data Prep U team!  As always, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who attended our fourth session, The Advanced Excel User’s Guide to Alteryx.  This Lunch & Learn series continues to be a huge success, and I cannot thank you enough! One important update from Data Prep U…due to popular demand, we have created a single landing page with all previous recordings! Please save or favorite this link for current and future lunch & learn trainings! Ok, on to our next session.  Tomorrow, we will focus on fuzzy matching!  This is a big one, as I often speak to customers who have a need to match 1 ..read more

Attention Alteryxers!  Once again,  Data Prep U will be hosting a free, 6 part Lunch & Learn series beginning this Wednesday, September 12th!  Brought to you by Alteryx, our first  Alteryx Designer 101 session will focus on the basics.  Introducing you to the Alteryx Designer, you will learn how to navigate, drag, drop, & configure tools, all within 30 minutes of live instruction.  If you have not yet signed up, what are you waiting for?!  The sign-up page can be found here: Data Prep U Lunch & Learn: Alteryx Your Analytics For those of you who have already signed up, you can find ..read more

Hello Data Prep U team!  First off, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who attended our first session, Alteryx Designer 101.  We had over 350 live attendees and well over 600 sign-ups.  For those of you who were not able to make it, the recording can be found here. Our next session this Wednesday, September 19th will focus on the beginner Excel user, where we will learn to #Alteryx those tedious Excel functions!   You may also notice that this session is actually a continuation of our first session, so if you have already downloaded the previous materials you are all set!  If not, you can get a full ..read more

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been.  Once Inspire wrapped up, I went straight into another week of travel for a current gig I’m working on (yes, I still have a day job).  Overall the conference was pretty incredible, with a mix of high-profile keynotes, fireside chats, and a product roadmap that is exciting, to say the least. Speaking of which…I’m sure some of you may be interested in what’s to come.  Short wrap up, in no particular order: Complete Designer UI overhaul.  Have you noticed that the tools have progressively gotten more “flat” over the past few years?  Expect a bi ..read more