Alteryx can be a tricky thing to get your head around initially, so it’s handy that the lovely people of Alteryx have given us a series of tutorials to go through! These cover everything between the very first steps of preparing your data, to the more advanced things like in-database description.

To find the tutorials, simply head to the Help drop down in the main menu, go to Sample Workflows and then Tutorials.

In each of these tutorials, Alteryx provides the steps and a backdrop to help guide you; for example, in the Build an App tutorial, the initial workflow screen looks like this:

You are provided with the skeleton workflow at the bottom, and then steps with how to build the app on to the existing workflow. An extra little bonus with this is the greyed out tool icons next to the steps, this ensures that you know which tool is related to which step, and that the layout you create is nice and clear. Additionally, the skeleton workflow is only ever made out of tools which have been explained in the previous tutorials, so nothing should come as a surprise.

So, after you’ve loaded this initial screen, just work through all the steps and you’ll be left with a screen looking a little something like this:

And you’re done – you’ve built an app! Or whatever it is that you’re building…

To make the most of this feature, it’s best to go back over the workflow once you’ve built it and actually make sure you understand what it is that you’ve just built, and why you’ve taken the steps you did. Unfortunately, Alteryx do not explain the reasoning behind the steps, so if you’re wanting to imitate something similar to using a data set of your own it is vital to make sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing. If there are any parts which do seem completely random to you, then check out the Alteryx community page to see if anyone else has had a similar question; if they haven’t, then post your question yourself! This way you’ll get an answer, and you’ll be helping other people who might be confused about the same thing, so it’s a win-win situation!

Even if you do understand everything in the tutorials, you should check out the Alteryx community page anyway; it’s a great place to find out information about Alteryx events, blogs, discussions etc.. It also has some really useful training videos, so you’ll be an Alteryx expert in no time!