Alteryx Docs last checked: 2020/01/13

Alteryx Experience

Contents

About

This document serves as a summary of our experience with Alteryx Server and Alteryx Designer. The document will be updated as we use Alteryx.

During our investigation we found Alteryx Designer to be useful for ad-hoc tasks and we suggest acquiring more licenses. Alteryx Server, on the other hand, cannot stream data and creating a production-ready pipeline would be almost as challenging as coding one.

Alteryx is a great tool to quickly create a custom table that will work for an ad-hoc request, but might not be the best tool to use for production purposes.

General

Pros

  • Alteryx workflows are visual icons connected with arrows indicating order, making it easy to follow the execution process.

  • Keeping track of a table's transformation is made easy with a table preview after each step. (Marked in green squares)

    Browse Tool

Cons

  • Both Alteryx Server and Alteryx Designer is not cheap. → Pricing
  • Only works on Windows → System Requirements
  • Not everything is easy, you still need some DBA knowledge and experience. For example, doing joins on tables, using 'where' clauses to get specific parts of the data, etc.
  • No streaming capabilities (real-time is not possible).

Setting up Alteryx

  1. Both Server and Designer have a Windows installer wizard available for download and installation.
  2. Once the server wizard completes, you can manage the server and its settings via a server config application called 'Alteryx System Settings'.
  3. After applying the server settings for the first time, you can access the Alteryx Gallery web-app via the browser.
  4. Admins on the web-app can manage users and their privileges on this platform, like:
    • Giving users the ability to view, upload and schedule workflows.
    • Controlling which workflows the users can access.

Additional Server Functionality

  • Run workflows on a scheduled basis and track the runs of those workflows.
  • Share workflows with other members of your team and organisation.
  • Manage your workflow versions using Alteryx Server's built in version control.

Ad-hoc or Once-off

  • Saves time by removing complexity.

  • Shows progress on each step as you run the workflow.

    progress_png

  • Visuals make the workflow easy to comprehend and follow.

Data Engineering

Creating a production-ready pipeline:

  • Time: Using Alteryx to create a pipeline is significantly faster than creating the same pipeline using code.
  • Flexibility: Alteryx works well when it fully supports your use case, but when you have rigid requirements it can take a lot of time finding a work around to make it work as required.
  • GCP support: Very limited unless you pay 3rd parties or integrate the tools yourself through bash or coding.
  • 3rd Party APIs in Tools: Alteryx is slow to upgrade their versions of open source software. You are not able to change them to the version you want to use.