From announcements about Alteryx Designer in the Cloud to a new relationship between Alteryx and McLaren that will leverage word-class analytics to empower the competitive edge on the Formula 1 circuit, the Alteryx Virtual Inspire event was incredible. It was exciting, filled with energy, and provided an opportunity for the Alteryx community to come together and celebrate all things Alteryx.
For me, the best part of the Alteryx Inspire event was to work with several client speakers and partners to record and tell their stories about how they leveraged Alteryx to create breakthroughs for themselves, their organizations, and the communities they serve. Although Inspire was not a public sector driven event, there were plenty of stories coming from our clients in this space that I would like to share.
First, was the story of how analytics automation revitalized the delivery of unemployment benefits in the State of Florida during the Covid-19 pandemic.
I thoroughly enjoyed the session with the U.S. Census Bureau where we discussed how they deployed an innovative advanced analytics solution using satellite image analyses from Reveal Global Consulting and Alteryx to digitally transform data collection, analyses, and dissemination processes for the U.S. Construction Indicator. U.S. Census data is one of our most valuable national assets. It must be accurate, timely, protected, and used wisely to effectively allocate over $675 billion in federal funding to states, local communities, and businesses.
For the past several decades, Census has relied heavily on costly manual processes and antiquated tools to collect, process, analyze, and report data on the population, housing, businesses, workforce, public finance, resources used, etc. The sheer volume, velocity, and veracity of Census’ big data is hard to manage with legacy systems. With Alteryx, the U.S. Census Bureau has reduced its reliance on labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly manual surveying and data processing.
Another great story about the value of analytics automation in helping with the delivery and availability of public health services comes from across the pond. In the United Kingdom, the Collaborative Procurement Partnership (CPP) is using analytics automation through Alteryx to streamline reporting and empower their team of analysts to support the mission of the National Health Service (NHS).
Throughout the past year, public health organizations have been at the frontline of the pandemic and organizations like CPP have quickly realized the need to transform data-dependent processes to cut time, supplement resources, and optimize funding. As an organization responsible for the delivery of procurement and contract services to the NHS Supply Chain, CPP is leveraging data-driven insights powered by Alteryx to experience true analytic breakthroughs.
Watch the CPP Inspire Session
Sometimes the delivery of contracts to the federal government can be as complicated as government operations themselves. The analytic teams at General Dynamics know the importance of picking the right tool for that task at hand. During this session, Paul Hockel cited that choosing the wrong analytic tool can waste valuable time and effort with little to show for your efforts. He also knows that by choosing the correct tool you can more easily accomplish tasks, but you can also be surprised with additional things you can complete using the same tool and skills. Such was the story when General Dynamics set out to deliver critical financial and performance data to program managers responsible for delivering on 4,000+ contracts across their enterprise.
Watch the GDIT Inspire Session
I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from the University of Dayton (UD), a private, Catholic research university and the largest private university in Ohio, serving over 11,000 students. Like all higher education institutions, UD is required to report hundreds of data points each year to various agencies on the demographics of students, outcome measures, financials, and more. This process is cumbersome at any school, as it requires the merging and cleaning of large volumes of data from disparate sources. UD has been leveraging Alteryx for years and built a series of workflows to gather the data necessary for regulatory reporting.
During the session, Dana Sellers, Executive Director of Enrollment Strategies, University of Dayton, and Jen Cox, from HAI Analytics, described how Alteryx has been used at UD for reporting and how recent enhancements have been made to further optimize this process, saving additional time and ensuring accuracy of the data.
For me, one of the most inspirational stories came from Change Grow Live (CGL) in their session, “Changing Lives with Analytics.” CGL is a nonprofit organization based in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of medical, physical, mental health, housing, job, and educational services to help people with substance abuse disorders get their lives back on track.
A lot of data is needed to coordinate with a vast ecosystem of care providers, staff, and volunteers to service the needs of over 100,000 people. When the pandemic hit, CGL was challenged with creating the insight needed to prioritize outreach and services to those people most at risk. With Alteryx and analytics automation, GLC was able to create actionable insights in minutes to provide the wrap around care needed to protect and improve the lives of the people they serve.
Watch This Next.
There was so much great content at the 2021 Alteryx Inspire event that I am still going back to catch the things I missed. You can view all the content — from keynotes to training and customer sessions — on demand here.