Moving Beyond the Spreadsheet for Analytics

Fern Halper

TDWI Research Director for Advanced Analytics

August 14, 2014

Sponsor

3

Speakers

Fern Halper

Research Director,

Advanced Analytics,

TDWI

Matt Madden

Senior Product

Marketing Manager,

Alteryx

Agenda

• The analytics continuum

• Limitations of the spreadsheet

• Trends in analytics

• The analytics life cycle

• Getting started with analytics

The Analytics Spectrum

5

Excel

Dashboards and reports

Other BI

Visualization

Advanced Analytics

Often becomes more algorithmic

Benefits of spreadsheet

• Easy to use – for simple operations

• Nice charts

• Cheap

6

Limitations of the spreadsheet

• Error prone

• Data limitations

• Analysis limitations

• Management limitations

7

pros

cons

The Analytics Spectrum

8

Excel

Dashboards and reports

Other BI

Visualization

Advanced Analytics

A lot of value to be gained!

Analytics Drive Value

9

Including advanced analtyics!

10

45% Measured

Impact

Analytics trends worth noting

1. Ease of use

2. The emergence of the business analyst as

model builder

3. Data blending

4. Analytic platforms

11

1. Ease of Use

• Drag and drop interfaces- no scripting

• Iterative analysis

• More advanced analytics supported

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2. The emergence of the business analyst

Traditional Predictive User:

• Statistician/Modeler

Moving towards:

• Critical thinker with

knowledge of the business

• e.g. business analysts

The Business Analyst Rules

14

(source: TDWI Best Practices Report Predictive Analytics for Business Advantage, 2014)

With an Evolving Skill Set

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This ranks low

3. Data Blending

Combining data from multiple sources without

integrating it into a data warehouse or other

system of record

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Predictive analytics process

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Problem Identification

•Framing problem

• Identifying data elements

Data Access

• Integration

•Blending

Data preparation

•Cleansing

•Transformation

Data analysis

•Exploration

•Collaboration

•Validation

Deployment

•Sharing

•Scoring

•Operationalizing

Model Management

•Evaluation/Monitoring

•Actual Management

Framing the problem

• Ability to formulate a question

• Comfortable creatively thinking in numbers

and attributes

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Blending data together

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ID_Number Cust_ID

Data preparation

Data quality

Data transformation

Data restructuring

Data filtering

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Data analysis

• Many different kinds of tools

– Reporting

– Visualization

– More advanced

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Analytics deployment and monitoring

Visual workflow

Schedulers

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4. Platforms are becoming popular

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83% in next 3 years

Getting started

• Pick a problem with a known metric

• Start with a POC

• Work in steps

24

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Data Blending &

Advanced Analytics

Matt Madden- Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Alteryx

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Analytics Solution Must Deliver

Business Insight Through Those Who Know the Business

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Rise of Analysts in Line of Business

• Understands business requirements

• Analytic thinker

• Accesses data, blends

and analyzes

Expansion of Data

• Bigger datasets & more sources

• More Responsibility, ad-hoc analysis

& reporting

Relying on Spreadsheets

• Right Skillset – do more with less

• Not built for heavy

processing/analysis

Data Analyst

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Intuitive

workflow for

data blending

and advanced

analytics leading

to deeper

insights in hours,

not weeks

Through Intuitive Workflow

Deeper Business Insight

In Hours Not Weeks

27

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Report

The Alteryx Solution For Analyst Enablement

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All Relevant Data

Access, cleanse, and

blend data with unique

packaged data options

Rapid design of

predictive analytics

with unique spatial

understanding

Packaged Market &

Customer Data

Consumerize the use

of sophisticated

analytics

Enrich

Analy

ze

Ble

nd

T

ex

t

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Data Preparation/Cleansing

• 60-80% analysts time

• Typically need IT, Data Specialist, or

SQL to ensure the quality of data

• Restructure, reformat, re-condition

• Missing data or erroneous

data/manual entry

• Full dataset vs. Sample

• Preparing data for further analysis

• Reporting, database,

visualization

• Traditional analyst tools limited

capabilities

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© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Data Preparation/Cleansing in Alteryx

• Drag and drop icons to manipulate

and alter formats of the data

• Transformations to help summarize

and aggregate your data

• Deal with missing data

• Incorporate spatial aspects in data

• Create formulas for if/then

statements

• Filter on records that pertain to

your analysis

• Automatically set the field types

you need

• And much more

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© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Joining Data– Most approaches

• Multiple spreadsheets

• Vlookups, formulas or manual

processes

• Require writing SQL

• Traditional IT focused Data

Integration tools

• Slow processes

• Other tools may do simple joins that

focus on one field

• Good, but what happens if you

have 3-4 data sources

• Joining spatial data may require even

another tool

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© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Joining Data in Alteryx

• Drag and Drop Tools

• Join data of any type and any

level

• Record and Row level

• Multiple key fields

• Spatial matching- based on

spatial characteristics-

customer points, find nearest

• Non-identical data

• Fuzzy matching (match two

datasets based on non-

matching data-names, address,

etc.)

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© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Usefulness of Spreadsheets

• Data Entry, Reporting

• Basic analysis

Where organizations/analysts

struggle

• Sales Forecasting

• Geo-spatial analysis

• Predictive Analytics

Advanced Analytics makes data

more manageable

Advanced Analytics

60+ built-in tools for spatial and R-

based predictive analytics

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

34

Demo Data Blending, Processing

and Data Cleansing

© 2014 Alteryx, Inc. |

Confidential

Deeper Insights Hours vs. Weeks Intuitive Workflow

Major US Healthcare Provider uses Alteryx to pull data from

various sources, integrate, clean, and deploy reports

Medicare administrators

Now able to improve

Regulatory

Compliance Issues Through data they

previously were not able

to access

Preparing and blending

client data from

12 data files

3.5M records

Entire report now runs in

37 Minutes vs.

2 days For one section

35

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Alteryx blue and tints

for headings and main

graphics

Secondary palette:

For support in charts,

graphics, and callouts

Accent colors (use

sparingly)

© 2013 Alteryx, Inc. Confidential.

Try it for yourself..

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Download the Alteryx Trial today to begin

creating your own analysis

www.alteryx.com/download

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Questions?

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Contact Information

If you have further questions or comments: Fern Halper, TDWI fhalper@tdwi.org

Matthew Madden, Alteryx mmadden@alteryx.com