I did my first Alteryx certification four days before it was officially scheduled because I wanted to see, how it is. But  unfortunately, I failed. In this post I share my experiences and give some insights, which are hopefully helpful for passing the core certification test.

You can do and repeat the core certification as many times as you want, it doesn’t cost anything; the only restrain is, that you have to wait seven days after failing until you are allowed to do the certification again. So if you have the time and energy, I think it is quite a good idea to try it out before the official scheduled date. But what is definitely not a good idea, is to do it less then seven days before the scheduled date so that you cannot participate at the official one. And that’s exactly what I did: I did my first try on Monday, so I couldn’t participate on the following Friday; while everybody else was doing the certification, I could do nothing else then studying and crossing fingers for my colleges.

What I find also not recommendable, is to do the certification at six a clock in the evening after a whole day of studying- what I also did.

You have two hours for the certification and you have to answer 80 questions of which you need 80% to pass. Two hours for 80 questions is not much time and leaves you with just 90 seconds per question.

There are four different types of questions with different points. There are those plain multiple choice questions, where you have two, three or four possible answers and just one is correct; these questions bring you one point. Then you have multiple choice questions, where one or more answers are correct; these questions bring more points and they are much more difficult. The third type of question is the one, where you have to assign the correct answer from a drop-down-menu (for example for a question about the data formats of Alteryx files).

In addition to those theoretical questions, you are confronted with seven practical ones, where a dataset ( an excel-file ) is provided, that you have to download to solve the question.

My first question was exactly one of those and I was already confused, what to do, because I wasn’t prepared to download something. It would have actually helped me to know, that I have to download the excel file and open it in my Alteryx. So be prepared for practical questions, what means, have your Alteryx open and ready. I would also think about the fastest way to open the file in Alteryx, because it took me too much time.

I also recommend working with at least two screens. One you need for the questions itself, one for Alteryx and one for googling those questions, you don’t know; try out, what works best for you, what you place on which screen and what order is most convenient for you.

As mentioned above, you have 80 minutes; but of course you will need more time for the practical questions and for those multiple choice questions with more then one answer possibilities. It is also wise, to spend more time on those questions, because they bring three points instead of just one for the simple multiple choice questions. That also means, that it is good, not to spent too much time on the simple questions. You have the possibility and you are allowed to google, but it will take time, depending on how fast you are in googling. Just be aware, that you can’t copy the question-text, as the questions are images, so you have to type in the question-text yourself.

What was also quite challenging for me, was to concentrate for such a long time. After one hour I already felt, that I have to read each question three times. Also you have to read the questions carefully; Some might sound very easy, but then they include a difficult twist.

The topics of the questions seem sometimes very appropriate when they deal with the abilities of the tools but sometimes they seem to be- to be honest- really completely unimportant to know. I remember I felt really frustrated about some questions because I thought, that I never need to remember those, as I will always just google it when I ever again need to know while using Alteryx.

But the questions about the tools are quite good. For that I can say, you really have to know the tools. Really study, what each tool can do. That doesn’t just mean, to have an idea, what each tool can do. In the examen, you’ll be confronted with very specific questions about the tools; that includes the possibly of changing different settings what may be settings, you haven’t used until now. But the nice thing about those kind of questions is, that this knowledge really helps you in your every-day life with Alteryx, and the better you know your tools, the more fun it is to use Alteryx.

All in all I think its not an easy examen but doable. The more challenges you do, the better you’ll be prepared. And at least, don’t be discouraged, if you don’t pass the first time- from seven people in my cohort who did the examen, just two passed the first time, but I’m sure, the other five- including me- will pass soon, too.