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. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

Data Blending
Alteryx Special Edition

by Michael Wessler, OCP & CISSP

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

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Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book......................................................................... 1
Foolish Assumptions.................................................................. 2
Icons Used inThis Book............................................................. 2
Beyond theBook......................................................................... 3
Where toGo fromHere.............................................................. 3

Chapter 1: The Rise of the Data Analyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Introducing Todays Data Analyst............................................ 6
Supporting theBusiness Decision Maker................................ 7
Data Analysis inthe Data Blending World............................... 8

Chapter 2: Understanding Data Blending. . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Exploring theWide WorldofData.......................................... 12
Accessing Multiple Data Sources............................................ 14
Accessing theRelevant Data................................................... 16
Defining Data Blending............................................................. 18
Differentiating Data Integration fromData Blending............ 20

Chapter 3: The Building Blocks of Effective Data

Blending. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Identifying theComponents ofData Analysis....................... 22
Moving throughData Blending............................................... 23
Data preparation and cleansing.................................... 23
Joining data..................................................................... 24
Automation and repeatability....................................... 25
Empowering theAnalyst andDecision Makers..................... 27

Chapter 4: Using Data Blending intheReal World. . . . 29

Maximizing Business Agility withBetter Tools..................... 30
Intuitive workflows......................................................... 30
Deeper business insight................................................. 31
Faster access toinformation......................................... 31
Implementing Data Blending inBusiness.............................. 32
Putting theRight Tools inthe Hands ofthe
Data Analyst........................................................................... 32
Using Alteryx Designer............................................................. 34

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iv

Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Chapter 5: Ten Things to Consider

with Data Blending. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Integrate Predictive Analytics intoYour Business............... 39
Gain Insights Rapidly................................................................ 40
Augment theTools You Now Use........................................... 40
Work behind theScenes.......................................................... 41
Consider Spatial Analysis........................................................ 41
Leverage Analytic Apps........................................................... 42
Incorporate Visualization........................................................ 43
Improve Business Analyst andITRelations.......................... 43
Drive Down IT Support Costs.................................................. 44
Feed theDownward Stream..................................................... 44

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Introduction

ata analysts support their organizations decision makers

by providing the timely information and answers to key
business questions needed to drive the business forward.
Decisions are only as good as the information they are based
on, so data analysts strive to use the best and most complete
information possible. Unfortunately, as the amount of data in
the world grows exponentially, the time available to identify
and combine all the data sources where insight may exist is
shrinking. Being successful in business depends on being agile
and knowing more than your competitor does; thus, the speed
of business is accelerating. Under this pressure and with more
work and less time to do it in, the data analyst is indeed in a
challenging position.
Fortunately, the data analyst can become faster at delivering
better information and resultsall with less effort and complexity. Giving the analyst tools to blend data from multiple
data sources ensures that all the relevant data, no matter
where it exists, is available to the analyst. Data blending
reduces the time to prepare and join data and empowers data
analysts to be self-reliant in their job.

About This Book

Data blending is important because it allows data analysts
to access data from all the relevant data sources: Big Data,
the cloud, social media, third-party data providers, in-house
databases, department data stores, and more. Historically,
the challenge of data analysts has been accessing this data
and then cleansing and preparing the data for analysis. These
stages of access, cleansing, and preparing data are complex
and time intensive. Easy-to-use software tools that reduce the
burden of this data preparation and turn data blending into an
asset greatly empower the data analyst to become more effective and open new opportunities to the business.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

The focus of this book is how data blending is used and what
it can provide the data analyst working to support business
decision makers. I identify what features to look for in data
blending tools and how to successfully deploy these tools and
data blending within your business.

Foolish Assumptions
Assumptions often cause problems, but still they have their
placeand if they werent useful, people wouldnt make
them. I sometimes have to make assumptions too, and writing this book is a prime example. Mainly, I assume that you
know something about data, perhaps have heard of Big Data
and the cloud, and also know something about data analysis.
Hopefully, you also know what data analysts are, the tools
they sometimes use, and the important work they do. As
such, this book is written primarily for data analysts and the
business folks they support.

Icons Used inThis Book

Throughout this book, you occasionally see special icons that
call attention to important information. You wont find cute
little emoticons, but youll definitely want to take note. Heres
what you can expect.

This icon points out things youll be glad I mentioned later on.
This is the stuff you want to remember when you start using the
material on your own.

I try to keep the techie stuff to a minimum, but I am a techie

person at heart and old habits die hard! These are technical
tidbits that arent essential, but they are nice to know.

This icon points out pieces of sage wisdom that I wish someone had told me when I was learning this subject.

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Introduction

Beyond theBook
Alteryx Analytics provides data analysts with an intuitive
workflow for data blending and advanced analytics that leads
to deeper business insights in hours rather than the days or
weeks required of most analytics solutions. To learn more
about Alteryx Analytics, visit www.alteryx.com.

Where toGo fromHere

Blending data doesnt have anything to do with a kitchen
blender, although I do use a cooking analogy later in this
book. But, just like cooking, having all the right ingredients
at the start is very important; no one likes to begin a project only to realize they forgot something. Furthermore, just
having all the ingredients isnt enough; if you want to be successful, you need to have a good recipe to follow as well.
In this book, I give you everything you need to become good
at data blending. Or, at least I show you how to start a data
blending project with the confidence that youll be successful
at the end.
If youre trying to learn about data blending and the role of
the data analyst for the first time, the task may seem daunting,
but with Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition,
you have help to guide you on this exciting adventure.
If you dont know much about data analysis or what a data
analyst does, Chapter1 would be a good place to start. If youre
ready to jump into data blending, Chapter2 is for you. However,
if you see a particular topic that interests you, feel free to jump
ahead to that chapter. Each chapter is written to stand on its
own, so feel free to start reading anywhere or to skip around.
Read this book in any order that suits you (although I wouldnt
recommend upside down or backward). Ipromise that youll
put the book down thinking, Wow, Ididnt know this stuff could
be so easy!

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

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Chapter 1

The Rise of the Data

Analyst
In This Chapter
Identifying the requirements of a data analyst
Providing value to todays business decision makers
Building the case for data blending

he role of the data analyst has expanded as organizations

have gone from the primitive days of data processing on
mainframes into the fast-paced, cloud-driven world of today.
Businesses have always had people filling the role of data
analysts, but that role has grown with technologys increased
capabilities. This growth is good because it has enhanced the
capabilities of data analysts and made their contributions to a
companys success even more important.
Today, the data analyst is no longer shackled to the IT department. Modern analytics tools that can be used without writing code or sitting through tons of training classes allow data
analysts to access more data sources, join data, perform
complex calculations, and quickly answer the tough business
questions that are asked. These capabilities firmly put the
data analyst in the critical path traveled by business decision
makers who determine a companys direction.
This chapter looks at how the role of the data analyst has
evolved and what factors have influenced that growth. It also
sets the stage for continued evolution with data blending.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Introducing Todays Data Analyst

The data analysts tools are always evolving, and the data
analysts responsibilities are growing. Data processing and
analytics capabilities are ever increasing, so what was impossible only a few years ago is now commonplace. To learn more
about how the data analyst has evolved, see the Evolution of
the data analyst sidebar.
Todays data analysts are a force to be reckoned with; they know
their companies business rules, understand how to use technology, know what data they need, and are not afraid to venture out
on their own or collaborate with dedicated IT resources to get
the results required by the companies they work for. Data analysts typically support their organizations from within the business side (not the IT side) of their companies, such as:

Sales

Marketing

Operations

Product and service design

Finance and accounting

Successful data analysts provide the best information for their
companies by leveraging these skills:

Working from within a business perspective

Knowing business requirements better than anyone else

Using a logical and analytical mindset to solve problems

Accessing and analyzing data to provide a result or

answer that satisfies an outstanding business question or
solves a business problem
The value that a data analyst brings to a company is that of
answering critical business questions based on calculations,
analytics, and models performed on very specific datasets.
Technology has evolved to give the data analyst greater, but
not yet complete, ability to provide answers to straightforward questions in a timely manner, as I discuss later.

In previous decades, IT was more static and defined, which

doesnt mean that IT was easier than it is today. In many ways,
IT was more difficult in the past. Limitations in processing

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Chapter 1: The Rise of the Data Analyst

Evolution of the data analyst

In the early days of data processing, the computing environment was
conceptually simple in terms of what
options were available limited
sources of structured data in a static
environment with very few tools to
process that data. This proved to be
both a blessing and a curse:
Fewer tools and sources of data
allowed experts to dig deep into
what features were available
at the time. The relatively few
people with the education and
access to these tools became
experts in their use.
The limitation of tools and processing power hindered the
ability to get information out
of the data that was available.
Additionally, only a few qualified
people were able to perform the
complex work.

As data grew in volume, variety, and

velocity, the only way to get access
to the data organizations needed to
make decisions was to hire and train
expensive data scientists. These
individuals were skilled in data
access languages such as SQL and
Python, and the complex code they
wrote served as the barrier to ensure
they remained at the center of data
analysis.
As new workflow-based analytics
tools became available that could
deliver the same insights faster and
easier, data analysts in the lines of
business had an alternative to waiting on IT and their data scientists.
Data analysts themselves became
empowered by these new tools and
today can find the information they
need without heavy IT department
involvement.

power coupled with terse command-line interfaces dictated

that IT was not for the faint of heart. As hardware and software have improved to make some aspects of computing
easier, more computing options and industry turbulence have
added complexity in new areas. Basically, for those in IT, one
set of challenges has been replaced with a new set.

Supporting theBusiness
Decision Maker
Questions from an organizations decision makers are what
drive data analyst requirements. The business decision
makers are the executives and senior managers who determine what products and services to develop and sell, which
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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

markets to enter or avoid, and which business opportunities
or challenges exist that require their action.
To be effective, business decision makers ask their data analysts tough questions. For example, they may ask, Should
I increase marketing in the northern Indianapolis suburbs
where the average new sports car customer is in the age
range of 30 to 40 and has been employed for more than one
year? This is a difficult question to answer without the right
tools and data, but it is a question that could identify a new
business opportunity and is therefore sent to data analysts to
answer.
The needs of business decision makers center on:

Getting the right data and answers to make key decisions

in a timely manner

Gaining deeper business insight to really understand the

changing market environment

Utilizing reports and analytics that present data in a business context rather than from an IT perspective

Having the ability to share their insights with other business colleagues and run their queries again with different
input values
The demands of business decision makers are high because
fast-moving markets, fleeting opportunities, tight profit margins, and fierce competition dont allow for delays or incorrect
results. Data analysts must continue to evolve their tools and
processes to meet these increasing demands.

Data Analysis inthe Data

Blending World
To understand why data blending (discussed in detail later
in the book) is necessary, understanding the current data
analysis environment is important. Technology has evolved to
make the job of the data analyst better, but the full potential
is not yet fully realized. Using traditional approaches such as
spreadsheets, data analysts can do the following:

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Chapter 1: The Rise of the Data Analyst

Find answers to straightforward questions

Work with simple algorithms and formulas

Access readily available, prepared data from a few

sources

The evolution of hardware and software has enabled data

analysts to perform simple to low-complexity work. However,
when the business questions become more difficult, requiring
more complex computing algorithms or large amounts of data
from different sources, data analysts often seek the help of IT
experts.
In cases where the requirements exceed what data analysts
can provide by themselves, a companys IT experts partner
with data analysts to:

Identify, cleanse, and prepare relevant data from a vast

sea of frequently irrelevant data

Join data from multiple input sources and channels

Develop complex algorithms and programs to process

data based on business criteria

Perform the computational analysis

Format and display the output results in a usable format

Package and automate the preceding process so the

same question can be asked again as needed
Working together, data analysts and IT do accomplish more,
but this relationship does have some downsides:

Reliance on IT for support introduces long delays for

the data analyst because IT staff is seldom able to assist
immediately.

Maintaining the requisite large, highly skilled IT staff is

expensive.

Many analytic tools used by IT are expensive and complex,

requiring customization and training before their use.

IT staff knows technology, but their knowledge of business rules is relatively weak. This necessitates long and
complex Scope of Work (SOW) documents, and if input
from data analysts is lacking, mistakes can be made.

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10

Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Although collaboration with IT using complex tools can provide results (if theres enough time), the process of data analysis is itself a complex operation with multiple challenges, as
you can see in Figure1-1.

Figure1-1: T raditional data analysis process and challenges.

Each process takes time and is complex, requiring multiple

advanced tools. Each step is also expensive and reliant on IT
or others within the organization. Unfortunately for the data
analyst, the business environment is continuing to evolve with
increased demands, such as:

Greater focus on using complex analytical analysis

Expansion of data in terms of size, complexity, and

number of input sources

Increased requirements for ad-hoc analysis and reporting

Expectations of faster response times

Business requirements have increased the demands of the
data analyst to the point where the current slow, methodical
relationship with IT is no longer sufficient. Whats needed
are more tools that are data analyst friendly and perform the
complex steps without the dependence on IT. Fortunately,
tools that combine data blending with powerful, easy-to-use
workflows, such as those provided by Alteryx, meet the needs
to fully empower the data analyst.

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Chapter 2

Understanding Data
Blending
In This Chapter
Discussing the forms of data in the real world and how it naturally

exists

Understanding the challenges of accessing data

Retrieving all necessary data
Explaining data blending in support of business analytics
Knowing the difference between data blending and data integration

aking the right business decisions is crucial to success for any profitable company. The best decisions
are arrived at by identifying all the right data, applying the
correct analytical methodology to that data, and correctly
interpreting the results to form the decision. In business, this
is a collaborative effort of data analysts and business decision
makers working together.
Basing your decision on the right data is critical. Without the
right data, you may have incomplete results on which to make
your decisions. In a worst-case scenario where you have the
wrong data, you get incorrect results that send you down the
path of a disastrous decision. Knowing where the right data
exists and how to bring all that data from different sources
into your decision-making process is at the core of good decision making in business.
This chapter looks at what data blending is and how it is used
in decision making.

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12

Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Exploring theWide
WorldofData
In the real world, data comes in all different shapes, sizes, and
formats. Increasingly, data comes from everywhere, ranging
from corporate databases that are decades old to information
generated on smartphones during the time it takes to read
this sentence.
Data exists in several different formats:

Structured: Traditional data stored in a neat record

format with well-defined data types such as fixed field
numeric and alphanumeric characters. Structured data
is the basis for most existing and legacy databases and is
relatively easy to store and manage.

Semi-structured: Unformatted or loosely formatted

numbers or characters inside a field but with little or no
structure within the field. A social media post such as
a Twitter tweet is an example of semi-structured data.
Semi-structured data is more complex to store and process than structured data.

Unstructured: Data that is not text based, such as pictures, images, or sound files generated by devices or
posted on social media. Unstructured data is a challenge
to manage because it is large in size, difficult to catalog
and index, and problematic to store in databases.
In addition to characterizing data based on its format, a useful
way to view data is based on its nature. Data naturally falls
into these three categories:

Traditional: Data that lives in existing or legacy databases and is often in a well-structured format. Rows in
an Excel spreadsheet, records in an accounting database
table, or account information in an insurance mainframe
database are examples of traditional data. More modern
examples include information in data warehouses and
cloud applications.

Enrichment: Data that is industry specific or special purpose and used to supplement (or enrich) existing data.
For example, spatial grid coordinates identifying where
customers like to shop would enrich sales information, or

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Chapter 2: Understanding Data Blending

13

demographic information about a customers background

could help a retailer looking at traditional sales data.

Emerging: Data that is often related to Big Data (see the

sidebar, Why Big Data is so big) as well as other sources
such as social media or marketing automation data are
common examples of emerging data. This is newer, more
valuable, and often the most difficult data to identify and
leverage. This data helps sales and marketing staff follow
their brand and identify useful patterns.

Why Big Data is so big

Big Data is, well, excuse the pun,
a big thing in organizations today.
Actually, Big Data isnt a thing at all
but is rather a classification of data
that is very large, generated very
fast, and comes from a wide variety
of sources, formats, and structures.
The IT industry research group
Gartner defines Big Data as:

Big Data are high-volume, highvelocity, and/or high-variety
information assets that require
new forms of processing to
enable enhanced decision
making, insight discovery, and
process optimization.
Data categories such as enrichment
and emerging data are most likely to
include sources of Big Data, but even
some traditional data components,
particularly when dealing with cloud
technologies, could be Big Data
related. Unstructured and semistructured formats are most common
within Big Data, but structured data
can also be included in some cases.
Analysts will have to work with new
types and sources of data, with Big
Data being one such example. Here

are a few common examples of Big

Data:
Social media feeds such as
Facebook and Twitter where a
relentless stream of semi- and
unstructured data include text,
sound, and images
Point-of-sale terminal information related to credit card purchases, customer identity and
demographic information, and
inventory control data
Online sales and shopping information as well as consumer
tracking, demographics, and
website metrics
Scientific, medical, and device
(Internet of Things) data showing images, diagnostics, and
telemetry of nearly any device
imaginable
Big Data is important to business and
data analysts because it represents
much of the best, new data available
for better decision making. Any tool
that purports to support data blending needs to access Big Data quickly
and intuitively.

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14

Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Based on the business question being posed, various categories
of data (traditional, enrichment, and emerging) are funneled
into the analysis process. The output is a better, deeper understanding of the market environment to identify and capitalize
on business opportunities. Understanding the data types and
formats is important for the analyst. Knowing the characteristics of the data allows the analyst to better pick and choose
which sources have the right data to be used to build the dataset that will feed the analysis engine during processing.

Accessing Multiple
Data Sources
Bringing data together from different sources is how data
adds value to the decision-making process. In the real world,
the data you need usually wont sit neatly in a predefined
database inside a fully prepared data table just waiting for you
to access it. In most cases, data must be obtained from different sources to add the depth and wide scope necessary for
the best possible analysis and decision making.
The simple fact is that the best decisions will be made only
when all the relevant data is available for analysis. The key
data almost always comes from multiple data sources and
often comes in different formats.
Data analysts face the following challenges when attempting
to access data from different data sources:

Data outside users workstations is typically owned and

managed by the IT department. Requests for access must
involve the IT staff.

Access to the right data is a multistep process, often with

multiple parties involved with lengthy documentation.
This equates to long turnaround times for access.

Data analysts have limited tools to access more complex

data sources. While access to lower-end databases is
possible, connectivity to more powerful databases and
useful access to that data via SQL is often both manual
and complex.

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Chapter 2: Understanding Data Blending

15

IT staff can assist (once they have time), but IT staff

doesnt know the core business processes and requirements as well as the data analyst. If data access is left
solely to the IT department, the results could be slow
and incorrect.

Access to enrichment and emerging data can represent a

paradigm shift for IT, especially if the staff is experienced
only in traditional database technologies. The associated
learning curve can extend the turnaround time for data
access.

Once data is obtained, differing data formats, characteristics, and amounts of irrelevant data greatly add to the
time and complexity required to cleanse and prepare
the data for analytical processing. This data cleanup and
preparation is one of the most time-consuming and complex steps performed by data analysts.
Despite these challenges, the rewards of accessing multiple
data sources far outweigh the challenges. Given these challenges, solutions to improve the situation for data analysts
include the following:

Tools that empower the data analyst to not require IT

support at the technical level. IT involvement should be
limited to granting security access to the data.

Tools that have predefined access to multiple data

sources, including traditional, enrichment, and emerging
sources. Analysts should spend their time analyzing data,
not struggling to access data.

Access to the new paradigm of data such as Big Data,

cloud data, and third-party data brokers. Access should
be streamlined, intuitive, and easily implemented without
IT involvement.

Data cleansing and preparation tools that must be powerful yet intuitive and easily usable by the data analyst.
Because these steps have historically been complex and
time consuming, special emphasis should be placed to
use tools that reduce the complexity while speeding up
the process for the analyst.
The more that data analysts are empowered and become selfreliant to find, access, prepare, and ultimately analyze and
process the relevant data, the more effective the data analysts

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16

Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

will be in their role. Tools that allow analysts to perform these
tasks easily will encourage the analysts to seek out new, relevant data because the process isnt arduous, further improving the outcome for the business.

Getting a second opinion is always a wise practice with medical

decisions, so why not get your data from multiple sources when
making key business decisions? Many intricate relationships
within data can be identified only after datasets from different
sources are combined and analyzed. Only through data blending can this kind of analysis occur.

Accessing theRelevant Data

The nature of Big Data and IT is more data, bigger data, and
faster incoming data. Furthermore, once data is created, it
is rarely deleted. For a variety of reasons, companies tend
to store data for years (or even decades) even if it probably
wont be used. These factors create myriad sources that could
potentially hold the data required by the analyst.
Despite the wide range of potential data sources, analysts
likely know where the relevant data exists. Odds are, analysts
know the business processes very well and understand where
data comes to the business from, where and how (at a nontechnical level) data is processed, and where that data goes
once processing is complete.
At a minimum, analysts know what traditional data is needed
for business processing to occur. If the analysts are business
savvy and experienced, they have also used enrichment
data to add value to business processes and analytics. In a
best case, analysts are also now using emerging data to gain
greater awareness of product performance and customer perception to really add more intelligent business planning.
The great struggle is, how do analysts access all the relevant
data to build a usable dataset to support the necessary analytical processing? Analysts know what data to use, but not
necessarily how to get to it. Fortunately, tools such as Alteryx
have the capability to access these relevant, traditional
enrichment and emerging data sources:

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Chapter 2: Understanding Data Blending

Oracle, IBM, and Teradata databases

Microsoft Access, SQL Server, SharePoint, and Excel

products

Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, SAS, and Google

Analytics software and services

MongoDB and Hadoop products

Salesforce.com and Marketo cloud-based services

Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and other social media

services

17

Thats MY data!
Organizations can become very
territorial and protective of their
dataoften for good reason. The
most sensitive details of a company,
its customers and employees, and its
sales information are within its data,
typically in databases managed by
the IT department. Legal, professional, and ethical requirements to
safeguard specific data elements
are very strong and must be adhered
to. Understandably, access to data
by anyone, especially those outside
the immediate group of data owners
and users, is scrutinized and often
challenging to obtain. No company
wants to make the news by having
its customers data stolen as has
recently happened with several bigname companies. The damage to
those companies reputations and
their legal liabilities are staggering.
Unfortunately, in some companies
(and even worse in many government agencies), access to the data
even for reasons that benefit the
business can be difficult to obtain.
Database administrators (DBAs) and

data owners justifiably take data

security very seriously and sometimes go overboard protecting their
data. Ive witnessed large IT projects
fail mainly due to data owners blocking access to key data from outside
systems, which is truly unfortunate.
As a data analyst, what are you to do
when faced with such adversity? First,
resist any temptation to use a backdoor method to access data youre
not authorized for; those in IT call
that data theft and hacking, and it will
get you fired. Worse yet, if the data
is sensitive, you can face legal ramifications. The proper response is to
follow the procedures to request data
access and limit it to the least privilege and amount of data you require,
which will greatly appease the security team. Inform the data owners
why you are requesting access and
what initiative it supports. If you still
face opposition, let your management
chain know and unleash your project
sponsor or key business decision
maker on the opposing data owner,
which often yields positive results.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

The intuitive, easy-to-use interface of Alteryx allows direct
access to traditional, highly structured databases and data
sources within a company, ranging from larger databases to
smaller micro applications hosted on power users machines.
Of even greater value is the data analysts ability to use Alteryx
to access all relevant data, from Big Data, enrichment data, and
emerging data without dependency on IT, lengthy delays, or
unnecessary complexity.

If the previous list of data sources seems bewildering, and you

perhaps had to look up a few of the names, dont worry. The
explosion of Big Data, cloud computing, and social media has
brought many new players to the IT field and has caused longstanding pillars of the technology world, such as IBM, Oracle,
and Microsoft, to evolve to meet business opportunities. To
learn more about Alteryx and its technologies, check out
www.alteryx.com/try.

Defining Data Blending

Once the right data sources are identified, and the access to
those data sources is established, the next step is merging, sorting, joining, and otherwise combining all the useful data into
a functional dataset while discarding the vast, loud noise of
unnecessary data. This process is referred to as data blending.
Data blending is defined by Alteryx as the process used by
data analysts to combine data from multiple sources to reveal
deeper intelligence that drives better decision making. What
does that statement mean? Heres a breakdown:

Data blending is a process (not just a one-time event),

and the process can be repeated as necessary to add or
remove more data sources.

Data analysts in line-of-business departments are empowered by platforms such as Alteryx to perform data blending and dont have to rely on their IT departments.

Data comes from multiple sources to include one or many

sources, but usually many. The sources can be from anywhere to include traditional, enrichment, or emerging
data types.

The intent is to reveal deeper intelligence, which means

that greater knowledge is obtained from multiple sources
than could be obtained from one source.

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Chapter 2: Understanding Data Blending

19

The ultimate purpose is to drive better decision making by

senior leaders whose job is to guide the business toward
promising opportunities to maximize organizational benefit.
Data blending is essentially using data from multiple sources
so that you have the best mix of relevant data for your analytical toolsets. In Figure2-1, you see how the analyst combines
data into a unified, analytical decision-making process.

Figure2-1: M
 ultiple data approaches of data blending.

As Figure2-1 shows, data blending allows different data

sources, which by themselves can be difficult to use, to
be combined into a single view that easily generates deep
insights into new business opportunities.

Data blending is a complex technological process, but the data

analyst should be shielded from the details by the toolset.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Differentiating Data Integration

fromData Blending
Data integration is a common term in IT, so a great question
would be, How is data integration different from data blending? The answer lies in the primary use of that data and how
long the data is stored.
Data integration is a process in which multiple data sources
are combined (or integrated) to create a single unified version of the data in databases, data warehouses, or data marts.
These data stores are permanent entities with cleansed, normalized data and are managed by IT database administrators
(DBAs). Access to these new databases is controlled by DBAs
and business intelligence (BI) experts. Over time, these databases grow, are used to support applications, and themselves
become data sources for other systems and workflows.
Data blending is a process conducted by a business or data
analyst (not a DBA or BI expert) to build a dataset for use in
analytic processing to answer a specific business question.
The data for the dataset is created from one or more data
sources. The blending occurs as the dataset is built from multiple data sources to capture only the relevant data. Analytical
processing occurs on that purpose-built dataset to derive an
answer for the question being posed.
The key differentiators are as follows:

Integration results in a permanent database with the intent

of storing a single copy of data and is managed by DBAs
and BI experts.

Blending results in a dataset with the purpose of supporting analysis for a specific business question and is
created by business and data analysts.
Both data integration and data blending have a valid place in
business, but given the increasing need for delivering better
information and resultsfaster and with less effort and complexitymore and more organizations are turning to data analysts who use Alteryx to deliver these deeper business insights
in hours, not weeks, as other analytics processes often require.

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Chapter 3

The Building Blocks of

Effective Data Blending
In This Chapter
Looking at the workings of data analysis
Detailing the phases in the data blending process
Enhancing the capabilities of data analysts and business decision

makers

nce data analysts have identified and accessed the

desired data sources, then their real work begins. The
art and science of transforming myriad data into a usable,
very specific dataset for use in analytical processing is next.
This data blending process is where the data analysts really
shine and show their value. However, this process has historically been a difficult and tiresome endeavor.
Fortunately, now that the data blending process is understood, new toolsets exist that greatly simplify and accelerate
this difficult process. Tools that support data blending are
empowering both the analyst and business decision maker,
resulting in increased business agility.
This chapter looks at what the most critical steps are in data
blending and how data blending tools help the analyst and
ultimately the business.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Identifying theComponents
ofData Analysis
Analysts follow a structured methodology when performing
their analysis. Using modern toolsets, the process of data
blending is composed of three fundamental phases:

Access data: Identify and obtain access to the data.

Prepare and cleanse data: Reformat data into a usable

format and correct or remove invalid data.

Join data: Combine data for further analysis.

After performing these three phases of data blending, analysts
often continue their analysis using an additional two phases
for advanced analytics:

Apply advanced analytics: Execute predictive and spatial

analytic processes against the dataset to obtain results.

Output results: Deliver insight in a readable, often graphical

report or output data to feed another process.
Figure3-1 shows the components and phases of data blending and advanced analytics. You can see that the data analyst
performs a process-oriented methodology to connect to data
sources, cleanse the data, blend the data into a usable dataset, apply analytics against the dataset, and finally prepare
the results for interpretation and presentation.

Figure3-1: The five phases of data blending and advanced analytics.

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Chapter 3: The Building Blocks of Effective Data Blending

23

Moving throughData Blending

In cooking, often the most difficult and time-consuming part is
the preparation. Ingredients are gathered, cleaned, and sliced
and diced while pots and pans are assembled and ovens and
stovetops heat up. Experienced chefs know that the actual
cooking is a relatively quick component in comparison to the
total preparation process. Good chefs also know that if key
parts of the preparation are missed (such as forgetting to add
a main ingredient), the overall dish will suffer.
The same concept of preparation holds true for the data analyst; the cruxes of data blending are the data preparation/
cleansing and the data joining; these are also the areas where
analysts have typically spent most of their time.
Fortunately, just as in cooking where appliances such as electric blenders speed up the food preparation process, data
analysts have automated tools such as Alteryx that greatly
accelerate and improve the data processes. The next section
discusses how Alteryx makes the preparation steps for the
analyst much easier and faster.

Data preparation and cleansing

Data analysts are estimated to spend 60 to 80 percent of their
time in the preparation and cleansing phase, and when you
consider all the detailed work required, you can see why preparation and cleansing is time intensive.
During this phase, the analyst dives deep into the large
amount of data provided by the data sources, determines
exactly what data is and isnt required, and reviews the data
for quality and completeness. The analyst commonly restructures and reformats the incoming data. Almost always, a large
amount of extraneous data must be filtered out so that only
relevant data remains; this is a particularly important part.
Additionally, the analyst must determine how much of the
available data to usein some cases, the full amount of data
isnt required and only a statistical sampling size is needed.
These key stages are noted here:

Restructure, reformat, and recondition data

Identify and correct missing or incorrect data

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Remove or cull out vast amounts of extraneous data

Determine full or partial dataset size

Alteryx tools assist the data analyst with these stages by:

Providing drag-and-drop tools in the form of icons to

manipulate and alter the data formats

Using transformations to summarize and aggregate the

data

Addressing the issues with missing or incomplete data

Automatically setting and assigning field types on data

Creating and applying formulas to support if/then/else

conditions against the data

Filtering records that are specific to the data analysis

Adding spatial attributes to the analysis as needed

The data cleansing and preparation phase is critical because
the analyst must determine what data to use and then clean
up the data so that only quality, relevant data is utilized.

Joining data
Joining data is the phase where the prepared data from various
data sources is combined together to build the working dataset that will be the subject of the advanced analytics phase.
At this point, the data is already prepared so that it is free
from errors, is in usable formats, and is relevant for the specific analysis being performed; but the data is still in separate
buckets from each data source. The analyst must join that
data together to create a dataset so that analysis can begin.
Historically, the data scientist or data analyst used the following processes to join data into a workable dataset:

Developed manual processes, formulas, and lookups to

join spreadsheets

Wrote SQL queries to link and join data based on specific

conditions and characteristics

Leveraged complex, purpose-built data integration tools

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Chapter 3: The Building Blocks of Effective Data Blending

Implemented simple, custom scripts and processes for

small and well-defined data sources

Pulled in special, outside tools and processes that

included spatial context

25

These processes were functional, but they were seldom easy

and took a long time to use. Fortunately, Alteryx improved the
joining phase with tools to allow the analyst to:

Join data of any data type

Join data at the row level

Join data based on multiple fields

Implement fuzzy logic matching or nonidentical data

Incorporate spatial context without specialized tools

Fuzzy logic matching is matching two datasets based on
nonmatching data. Rather than using an exact match, fuzzy
logic matches are based on approximate (or fuzzy) values.
An example of fuzzy logic matching is creating a customer
dataset based on lists composed of sales information and
addresses where the names on the lists may not be exact.
Fuzzy logic matching identifies close enough values where
a listing of John, Jon, Jonny, or Johnathan at one address is
likely the same person and would process any of those names
as a match.
Alteryx allows the data analyst to join data easily and intuitively as part of an overall workflow for data blending and
advanced analytics (see Figure3-2). Its intuitive, graphical
interface contains powerful tools that obscure the complexity
from the analyst. You can see in Figure3-3 how Alteryx supports data blending via an intuitive workflow process.

Automation and repeatability

Once the data analyst has built the workflow, the same analysis
often needs to be performed daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly,
yearly, or on an ad-hoc basis. So, having the capability to rerun
the same analysis without repeating the entire process is a
highly desirable option for the organization.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Figure 3-2: A
 ccess, prepare, and join data in an Alteryx workflow.

Figure3-3: A
 lteryx workflow allows data blending steps to be automated.

Alternatively, the same basic analysis may need to be

repeated but with some minor tweaks to account for new
business conditions and what-if analysis. For example, the
analyst may need to apply a set of predictive calculations for
each city in which the company is considering opening a new
franchise.
Alteryx supports automation and repeatability within its
workflow processes via:

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Chapter 3: The Building Blocks of Effective Data Blending

27

Creating macros from analytic steps that are often

repeated so they can be added to future workflows

Allowing choices to be made by the analyst during an

analytic process to support customization

Scheduling existing processes to be run automatically

with new data and data sources

Saving processes into applications (analytic apps) that

can be shared within the company or community for
reuse via Alteryx Server or the Alteryx Analytics Gallery
Figure3-4 shows how the Alteryx automated workflow process supports the creation and reuse of analytic apps, graphical visualization tools to assist decision makers, and custom
reports that can be repeated on a regular basis.

Figure3-4: W
 orkflow automation and resulting outputs.

Empowering theAnalyst
andDecision Makers
The greatest benefit of data blending is the capability to put
accurate, actionable data in the hands of the analysts and
decision makers in a timely manner. Diving deeper into the
benefits, you can see that data blending:
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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Puts the most critical data in front of analysts and decision makers at the right times

Simplifies the tools used by analysts so that highly

trained and expensive technical people are not needed
every step of the way

Integrates all data types from across all different sources

in a rapid, straightforward manner

Opens up the access to large amounts of data with minimal complexity to promote a more complete level of
analysis with better data and results
Alteryx empowers line-of-business analysts with an intuitive
workflow that can easily access, prepare, cleanse, and join all
sources of data and deliver critical insight in the fastest time
possible.

Enhancing decision making with

p redictive analytics
Predictive analytics is the process
of using complex computational
algorithms on a dataset to develop
a model of likely behavior in the
future. Predictive models and statistics provide a mathematical
likelihood of an outcome based on
the data in response to a business
question.
The business value of predictive
analytics is nearly unlimited. Ask a
business leader if a crystal ball that
could tell the future would be useful,
and the answer would be Yes! The
same concept applies to predictive
analytics. Possible business scenarios include the following:
What is the likelihood of insurance fraud in this group of insurance claims?

What percentage of customers turns to a competitor if you

increase the cost of a new product by 5 percent in a specific
geographic location?
What is the probability of single
males in a specific suburban
area between the ages of 25 and
30 of purchasing a new sports
car in the next year if the car
costs less than $35,000?
Predictive analytics gives forwardthinking business leaders powerful
insight into how to best plan for the
future and take advantage of opportunities. Savvy data analysts will
blend data that supports predictive
analytics and use predictive macros
against the dataset to identify these
opportunities for the business.

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Chapter 4

Using Data Blending

intheReal World
In This Chapter
Understanding how data blending tools help the analyst
Knowing in what business situations data blending makes sense
Observing data blending tools in action
Examining Alteryxs real-world data blending tool

y understanding what data blending is and how it works,

you can identify its use in real business situations. You
know that data blending makes the analysts job easier, but
how does that translate into business value in the real world?
To understand this, you need to see how data blending is
deployed within businesses.
Examining the situations of where and how data blending is
deployed in business helps to highlight its value. Identifying
the characteristics of successful data blending tools allows
you to accurately realize their benefit and select the right tool
when the time comes to equip your analysts.
This chapter looks at how data blending is implemented in
the real world and how it will enable your analysts to have a
greater business impact.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Maximizing Business Agility

withBetter Tools
What is the purpose of better, faster tools in the workplace?
Sure, they make peoples jobs easier, but what is the underlying
business reason for doing so? The answer is that by enabling
employees to be more effective, your business becomes faster,
smarter, and better able to take advantage of changing market
conditions and new opportunities.
Success is closely tied to agility and the ability to read changing conditions faster than your competitors. Tools that your
business uses should support the tenets of increased agility
and greater market intelligence. By the same token, tools
and processes that are slow, antiquated, or otherwise dont
support business agility or market intelligence should be
replaced.
In the realm of the data analyst, what are the key characteristics of tools that support business agility and market
intelligence? The tools of the data analyst should support
intuitive workflows, deeper business insight, and faster
access to information.

Intuitive workflows
Data analysts are both creative and logical people; their tools
should work in harmony with their thought processes. Using
intuitive workflows that flow with the natural processes of the
data analyst ensures that analysts work and creativity are not
disrupted. Essentially, you want tools that work with your analysts, not against them.
Workflows provide the benefit of documenting what is occurring during the data preparation; this functionality makes the
job of the data analyst easier and more efficient. Unlike cumbersome spreadsheets that often lead to confusion and dont
support retracing the steps through a process, analytic tools
such as Alteryx give analysts the ability to easily understand
processes using graphical workflows (see Figure4-1).

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Chapter 4: Using Data Blending in the Real World

31

Figure4-1: A
 lteryxs intuitive workflow for data blending and advanced
analytics.

Deeper business insight

Answers to difficult business questions are out there, buried
somewhere in the data; the challenge lies in whether the
analyst can dig deep enough into the data to find those
answers. Tools that bring the power of advanced analytical
functions to the analyst and that can interrogate data from
multiple sources are likely to find the answers sought by the
analyst. Simple tools with limited capability will not suffice;
tools that perform complex tasks in a simplified manner are
what you need.

Faster access toinformation

In the military intelligence community, actionable data has a
short shelf life before it becomes irrelevant; the same concept
applies in business. Tools that allow the data analyst to identify market trends and new business opportunities before the
competition identifies them have real value for the business.
On the other hand, if a tool is so complex, large, or cumbersome that any answers it provides are yesterdays news, that
tool (and its information) has little value.
The secrets to business success really arent secrets, but companies often lose sight of whats necessary to be successful.
The same pitfall holds true for data analysts and their tools;

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

analysts tools must support business agility and market intelligence in a timely manner with the depth necessary to have
value.

Implementing Data Blending

inBusiness
Nearly all business departments can benefit from some degree
of data blending, but some areas will see greater benefits
than others. Generally, situations where the ability to search
through larger amounts of data from different data sources
to identity trends, patterns, and relationships will be the best
environments to use data blending.
Here are some areas where data blending is commonly used:

Sales and Marketing

Finance Operations

Site and Merchandising Operations

The key to knowing where to deploy data blending is in understanding where competitive advantage can be gained by accessing large amounts of data from different data sources. If, for
their analysis, analysts need to access and incorporate a mix
of data from traditional sources within the company, cloud and
social media sources, Big Data, and external third-party data
sources, odds are that data blending is the right solution.

Putting theRight Tools inthe

Hands ofthe Data Analyst
When selecting tools for the data analyst, you should develop
a set of key criteria. Desired capabilities and features based
on business requirements create the evaluation yardstick
against which tools will be judged. You want to establish a set
of evaluation criteria to:

Ensure that all the essential capabilities are present in

any tool selected and that no required capabilities are
omitted

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Chapter 4: Using Data Blending in the Real World

33

Separate nice-to-have features from core requirements

to reduce the risk of over-purchasing unnecessary
components

Reduce the likelihood of being swayed solely on a sales

presentation or marketing materials

Build a supportable justification for selecting a specific

product that can withstand the scrutiny of management
and contracting oversight
As you determine your set of core requirements that must
be supported by a data analysis tool, make sure that the tool
includes these capabilities:

Easy-to-use User Interface (UI), intuitive design, and robust

support and help documentation. The tool must be readily
usable by the analysts; otherwise, it will be discarded or
not fully implemented.

Able to access all the relevant data regardless of its

location or type: databases, local files, third-party data
sources, Big Data, social media, and legacy systems.

Data preparation, data cleansing, and data joining

functions within the tool to build usable datasets with
accurate, appropriately sized data; 60 to 80 percent of
analysts time is spent on the data preparation and joining steps, so tools to reduce that workload are important.

Predefined tools for predictive analytics functions and

spatial capabilities. Data analysts do not have time and
training to write code to create these complex tools from
scratch, so leveraging prebuilt functions is a must. The
vendor should provide regular updates to these tools
and functions to increase capabilities.

Workflow processing and drag-and-drop capabilities to

perform the tasks within the tool intuitively. Data analysts work in a creative and logical manner, so workflows
that support those thought processes will increase the
analysts productivity.
Selecting the toolset to be used by data analysts is an important task, but it doesnt have to be overly difficult. Identify
and document the core business-specific features required by
the analysts and use the preceding list of capabilities to guide
your product evaluation and selection process.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

If the opportunity exists, be sure to take advantage of the software trial periods that many companies, including Alteryx,
offer prospective customers.

Using Alteryx Designer

Alteryx Designer is the Alteryx flagship tool for data blending
and advanced analytics. The Alteryx Designer tool is built for
the needs of todays data analyst. The key capabilities of Alteryx
Designer are categorized as:

Data blending: Accessing and blending data from all the

relevant sources. Easy-to-use workflows assist the analyst in data preparation and cleansing to reduce the time
spent in preparation phases.

Predictive analytics: Leveraging more than 40+ prebuilt

analytical tools coupled with the capability to create
custom predictive tools based on open-source R, a powerful predictive analytics language widely used throughout the world. Analysts are able to perform predictive
analytics without the requirement to be a highly trained
data scientist or programmer.

Spatial analytics: Blending location data with advanced

spatial analytics give the analyst insight into locationspecific functions to better understand customers and
answer business questions. Analysts use intuitive workflows to uncover geographic relationships and information that otherwise would be lost in a sea of data.

Sharing insights: Displaying in an understandable,

insightful format the analytical data results so that
business decision makers see relationships and discover new opportunities. Analysts can easily and
quickly send results into friendly output formats and
tools such as automated custom reports, graphical
displays, Microsoft Excel, XML, PDFs, Tableau and
QlikView visualization files, and more.
The features supported by Alteryx Designer are rich and engineered to support the analyst every step of the way during
the data analysis process.

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Chapter 4: Using Data Blending in the Real World

35

Alteryx Designer provides easy-to-use workflows that enable

the analyst to be self-sufficient and to accomplish more work
in less time. Figure4-2 shows you the Alteryx Designer capability to use a workflow to blend data.
What you see in Figure4-2 is the Alteryx Designer workflow to
blend data from Salesforce and Marketo into a dataset. In this
case, the analyst is gathering data from a cloud CRM provider
(Salesforce) and a marketing automation system (Marketo) in
support of a sales and marketing campaign.

Figure4-2: E asily blend Marketo data and Salesforce.com data using an

Alteryx Designer workflow.

Once the analytical processing is completed, many different output presentation formations are available to the data
analyst. As shown in Figure4-3, Alteryx can also create the
native file formats used by Tableau and QlikView, which are
especially effective with senior business decision makers to
perform data discovery.
In Figure4-3, you see output in the form of a Tableau workbook displaying sales results by categories for stores in a city.
The visualization aspect allows a clear understanding of sales
data per store based on customer segment. Additionally, a
spatial aspect is present with data relating to the customers
distance from their stores, zip codes, and territory assignment data.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Figure4-3: O
 utput directly to a visualization tool. Alteryx supports direct
output to Tableau and QlikView.

Alteryx Designer empowers the data analyst to be self-reliant

to easily and rapidly perform data analysis against all the
relevant data. Using intuitive workflows, prebuilt macros, and
analytical tools, the analyst answers meaningful business
questions and puts the results into many formats, including
easy-to-understand visualization tools.

More precise than Excel

Microsoft Excel is a great tool, but the
wise data analyst knows when to put
Excel away and use a tool more suited
to the task at hand. Platforms such as
Alteryx match the simplicity of Excel
but exceed its capabilities via:
Drag-and-drop interface to
easily and quickly create analytic workflows
Rapid access to data from all
data sources, including complex
data sources from the cloud, Big
Data, and social media

Graphical tools that cleanse,

prepare, and blend data from
multiple sources without requiring IT involvement
Leveraged automation, prebuilt
macros, and spatial capabilities
More than 200,000 data analysts
currently use Alteryx to outperform
the basic data blending capabilities
of Excel and use the same intuitive
workflow for subsequent data analysis and reporting.

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Chapter 4: Using Data Blending in the Real World

37

Case study: Data blending in business

DatabaseUSA is a leading provider
of sales leads, business and personal
mailing lists, email lists, and other
related products. DatabaseUSA customers are the sales and marketing
departments of large companies that
need accurate, reliable sales and
marketing data. In the customer data
business, data accuracy and reliability is everything, and DatabaseUSA
has built its reputation on data quality and depth.
The challenge faced by DatabaseUSA
was building the high-quality, deep
data their customers needed when
faced with so much extraneous data.
Somehow, DatabaseUSA had to sort
through the data of 238 million people,
14 million businesses, and 164,000
households to build quality datasets
for its customers. Reducing the time,
effort, and cost to build the datasets
were additional requirements.
Existing DatabaseUSA data blending
methods were centered on custom
scripting languages on their internal
hosted databases. Using highly skilled
IT data specialists, DatabaseUSA was
able to blend data, but the process
was slow, complex, and intensive.
With millions of rows of raw data
being added monthly, the IT staff
was struggling to keep up with the
increased workload of bringing in so
much data, cleansing and checking it
for quality, and blending it into usable
datasets. DatabaseUSA opted to

keep its internally hosted databases

(housing its data) but set out to find a
tool to better perform the data blending and ETL functions it required.
Already an Alteryx user, DatabaseUSA
began to leverage the capabilities
within Alteryx to:
Input and update data while
removing duplicate data
Blend in data from all its data
sources
Clean and prepare data and test
the data for accuracy
Standardize data format, values,
and fields
In particular, DatabaseUSA liked
how Alteryx could standardize different data types and remove duplicate
data prior to loading into the companys internal databases. The data
integration capabilities of Alteryx
ensured that only correct data in
standard formats was being loaded.
Additionally, because of data privacy and security concerns, Alteryx
was deployed to the DatabaseUSA
secure hosted server environment.
Alteryx helped DatabaseUSA achieve
its requirement of loading clean,
accurate, and standardized data
into its databases on a regular basis
amid many possible large external
datasources. Manual, low-level data
programming was replaced by Alterxy
fuzzy logic matching algorithms
(continued)

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

(continued)

resulting in less workload but faster,

more repeatable processes; database
builds are now completed in a week
instead of a month. Finally, reduced
dependency on expensive custom
IT support is driving down support
costs while lowering the risk of IT
dependency.

DatabaseUSA had a data blending

problem with too much varied data
and not enough time and resources to
process it. Alteryx was able to blend
that data using Designer features to
solve DatabaseUSAs problem while
reducing costs and improving data
quality and processing speed.

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Chapter 5

Ten Things to Consider with

Data Blending
In This Chapter
Combining analytics with data blending for better decision making
Unlocking the power of data faster using macros and prebuilt analytic

apps

Deploying spatial and analytical applications to gain real business value

nderstanding the fundamentals of both a technology

and a toolset is key to sustained success. But, once you
have a working knowledge of the fundamentals, understanding the tips, tricks, and special features of the toolset acts as a
success accelerator to allow you to further maximize benefits
and accomplish your goals.
This chapter takes a look at some specific ways to optimize
data blending, combined with additional analytical tools
and techniques. The chapter also extends the discussion of
Alteryx Designer (see Chapter4) to examine how Alteryx
helps data analysts and what it takes to get started using it.

Integrate Predictive Analytics

intoYour Business
Predictive analytics enables companies to apply statistical
analysis functions against datasets to develop probabilities of
a future event or change. In effect, predictive analytics allows
companies to forecast the future. Used properly, predictive
analytics identifies new opportunities for companies and helps
reduce existing expenses.
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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

In addition to the robust tools for data blending, Alteryx
contains prebuilt predictive analytics macros and functions.
Building the right datasets with relevant data blended in benefits predictive analytics by generating more accurate predictive models. Data blending also reduces the time spent in the
data preparation stage in the predictive analytics cycle.
Data analysts should be encouraged to unleash their creativity to experiment with the predictive analytical functions in
their daily jobs to help unleash this powerful capability for
the business. Beyond the raw technical capabilities of a toolset, analysts must adapt their mindset to look to predictive
analytics as part of their job.

Gain Insights Rapidly

A challenge with many technologies is the lengthy time it
takes to start using a new product or technology once it is
brought into the IT shop. Depending on the complexity of the
technology and the existing knowledge and workload of the
IT staff, it can take weeks or months before a new technology
is in use. Furthermore, before a technology really starts providing true business value and making a positive return on
investment (ROI), it can take many months or even years.
Many Alteryx clients are pleasantly surprised to find out just
how fast they can start using Alteryx Designer to gain insights
into their business. Easy-to-understand and easy-to-use graphical workflows and prebuilt macros allow clients to perform
data blending and advanced analytics to gain business insight
more quickly. In many cases, Alteryx customers report that
they have found positive business insights within the first
week after installation. Having a positive initial experience
with a product greatly enhances the likelihood that a company and its users will embrace it.

Augment theTools You Now Use

Why reinvent the wheel? is a clich that has merit, especially
in IT and technology-related fields. For decades, programmers have touted code reuse as a benefit of many programming languages and code repositoriesand for good reason.
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Chapter 5: Ten Things to Consider with Data Blending

41

Incorporating into your code a tested and proven program

function that someone else has written isnt lazy; its a wise
use of time, on your part and your companys.
The same concept of code reuse applies to data analysts. When
it makes sense, continue to use tools such as Microsoft Excel
but use Alteryx to augment the processes that require more
powerful tools. Alteryx is very good at all three phases of data
blending data access, data preparation, and data joining
as well as advanced analytics, areas in which Excel is not as
strong. So, using a tool such as Alteryx to augment Excel makes
good sense.

Work behind theScenes

Alteryx tools are designed with prebuilt macros and functions
to make the analysts job easier and more productive, but an
entry point for developers to write more complex code exists.
Developers can leverage the Alteryx Application Programming
Interfaces (APIs) and Alteryx Software Development Kit (SDK)
to write their own custom tools within Alteryx workflows.
Developers can write their own code and leverage .NET and
C++ APIs to make calls to the Alteryx Engine. Using the SDK,
IT developers are empowered to write their own custom
code in C and C++ to further enhance Alteryx to support their
company-specific requirements. Writing custom code to assist
with data blending further enhances Alteryxs support of the
analyst during the time-consuming data access, preparation,
and cleansing stages. For example, you could write a separate
application to leverage and incorporate the reports generated
from Alteryx workflows.

Consider Spatial Analysis

Spatial analysis is the value-added element to business equations that can make a big difference. Being able to target a
business question to a specific geographic location instead
of across a broad category allows business decision makers
to make key decisions to open new stores or launch campaigns in areas with favorable conditions. Spatial analysis
makes information actionable, providing information to decision makers that they can act upon. Data analysts have long
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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

wanted spatial analysis capabilities, but they did not want to
code custom spatial features themselves or to enlist IT to do
the programming. In other cases, data analysts simply did not
have the spatial data available even if they did have access to
spatially aware analytics.
Alteryx Designer brings spatial analysis to the data analyst in
two ways. First, Alteryx enables easy access to external data
sources such as Big Data, social media, and mobile devices that
provide spatial data. Using data blending features in Alteryx
Designer, the analyst blends the spatial elements needed into
the larger dataset used for analysis. Second, Alteryx provides
prebuilt macros that support spatial analysis so that the data
analyst doesnt need to handcraft complex spatial functions.

Leverage Analytic Apps

One of the great benefits of the cloud is the capability to access
the right application to perform the job you need, when you
need it, and to do so quickly and securely. Using the Alteryx
Analytics Gallery of apps, your data analyst has access to
the Alteryx cloud of prebuilt analytical applications (apps).
The analyst browses the Gallery in the cloud to find an app
that does the job the analyst needs, and then the analyst
simply downloads and executes that app. Because the app is
downloaded to the analysts workstation, no data is passed
into the cloud, so the analyst knows that the process is secure.
Analysts have the capability to customize or tweak the app as
needed for the specific task at hand. Plus, analysts can even
write their own apps to upload (publish) to the Alteryx Analytics
Gallery to be securely shared within their company or industry.
You may also choose to deploy Alteryx Server as an effective
way to share analytic apps with your employees. In addition to
offering the data processing power of a server-based analytic
architecture, Alteryx Server gives everyone in your organization
the power and flexibility to run their own analytic apps and
customize the output to their specific needs while keeping all
components of the analytic process behind your corporate
firewall.
Leveraging analytic apps is another smart way to avoid rein
venting the wheel. Analysts can build on the efforts of others
in the form of analytic apps so they can better focus on their
data analysis duties.
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Chapter 5: Ten Things to Consider with Data Blending

43

Incorporate Visualization
Many analytical tools perform number crunching well, but the
results are output as raw data or in a format that is difficult
for nontechnical people to understand. Business decision
makers are often visual people so the capability to display
output in a graphical format is important. In the past, data
analysts have imported that data into presentation tools such
as Microsoft Excel to render more user-friendly graphics.
This process works, but the time has come to evolve past this
tedious process.
Alteryx Designer supports generating output into a wide
variety of formats, including Excel, Extensible Markup
Language (XML), and Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
Furthermore, the data analyst can generate output to Tableau
and QlikView visualization products.
Visualization products allow data to be more easily understood
and relationships to be identified and explored, thus allowing business decision makers to more quickly identify new
opportunities. However, visualization tools are not as strong
with advanced data blending and preparation, and they lack
predictive and spatial analytics capabilities. Therefore, using
a combination of Alteryx to perform the data blending and
advanced analytics with the output displayed within visualization tools leverages the individual strengths of the tools to
deliver a successful combined outcome.

Improve Business Analyst

andITRelations
Data blending can change the relationship for the better
between business analysts and IT. Rather than relying on IT
for all the data, the analysts are more empowered to access
more data. However, with that empowerment comes a greater
collaboration between IT and analysts in support of data
governance. Both parties must work to ensure that the data
of the company and that of the customers is used in compliance with the data governance standards appropriate to their
environment.

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Data Blending For Dummies, Alteryx Special Edition

Drive Down IT Support Costs

Its no secret that hardware, software, and support infrastructures are complex and expensive. Additionally, tools supporting deep data analysis, reporting, and business intelligence
(BI) are themselves highly specialized and expensive.
Compounding the cost of IT hardware and software is the cost
of large staffs of highly trained people to manage IT. Often the
IT staff is so busy simply supporting the existing infrastructure that they cant help the business and data analysts use
the tools they have.
Alteryxs direction toward reducing IT costs focuses on empowering end users to be more self-reliant, moving away from custom
and complex coding, automation and reuse of workflows, and
analytic apps published to Alteryx Server or the Alteryx Analytics
Gallery. These Alteryx features reduce the amount of IT support
required (lowering personnel costs) and allow consolidation and
elimination of pricy data analysis, reporting, and BI tools.
Beyond reducing IT costs, data blending also frees up IT to
work on other important projects instead of directly supporting data analysts. Reducing the requirement to support data
analysts allows highly skilled IT folks to work on the more
complex technical tasks that the company needs.

Feed theDownward Stream

The most common output of data blending is either a report
or a visualization; after all, odds are that the analyst is trying
to support a key decision with this data. However, a datablending effort may not feed directly into a processing cycle
followed by a formatted report. Instead, data blending may
result in a dataset that will be used as part of a larger analytic
process with multiple steps, sub-steps, and processes.
Data blending can conceivably generate input to an existing
predictive model or to data that is written to a data warehouse so that every data analyst has access to the same
blended data. Thinking outside the box to consider how data
blending can serve larger processes in addition to its more
traditional roles leads the analyst to be more creative and
more effective.
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These materials are 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

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