Greetings from the Halloween 2025 event blog!
Share one Designer “trick” (time-saver, regex, macro) or one “treat” (a tiny sample data file or macro) in a single reply to this thread...if you dare!
Does it count to put the "reading files of different schemas" batch macro from The Ultimate Input Data Flowchart? 😊
Probably the most frequently referenced "tip" on the Community!
My favourite current trick has to be learning Control Containers. I appreciate these are a tool rather than a trick, but there's so much to unlock by learning how they can be used.
Also popping in a shameless plug for my Designer Tip/Trick Series.
Stick with me on this one, I presented this one with @TheOC during our 30 Tips in 30 Minutes session at Inspire this year:
When you're trying to get multiple steams to have exactly the same fields you have a few options in the Union tool, including giving a warning or an error. You can also Output all fields or a subset of the fields.
However, what if you want all streams to have the same fields, and each one should have 50 fields. And of course there may be 50 streams!
It can be a chore running the workflow to throw an error to see which ones are missing.
All you need to do is go place a Select tool on the stream that has all the fields you want, DESELECT "Unknown Fields" then copy and paste that select tools onto the other streams. This will then highlight all missing columns on each stream and you can handle them accordingly without having to re-run the workflow each time.
Simple.
M.
My favorite trick is to create my starting template and save it under Templates. This includes some base containers, comment boxes and coloring that adheres to our documentation standards. It gets me off to a great start when I'm building a new workflow and reminds me to document while I go.
My favorite trick is using question constants in macros or apps instead of action tools whenever possible. It makes the workflow look cleaner and you can set a test value in the Workflow -Configuration panel to test the flow without having to enter debug mode.
One of my favorite new tricks in Designer is we now have the ability to to change and save the default configurations for all Alteryx tools by changing the configurations, and then going to the pencil icon on the bottom left corner, clicking on the icon, and then selecting "Save As Default" (see attached screen shot).
I have done this with several tools in Designer. The example here is changing the default on the Union Tool from Automatically Configure by Name to Manually Configure Fields. Love this feature!
For big workflows, put everything in containers. Label them properly and now right click on the canvas and zoom to the container you are looking for. You can even put containers within containers to created nested groups.
always test run after you amend the workflow.
when require to update on huge workflow. I tend to copy the specific part and amend in new workflow. then mimic the change in original workflow.sometime these changes might cause like mismatch field name or field type. and sometime just a small change in a tool where in your experience, it has no impact at all. but it was.so always test run after amendment.
My favourite trick is using containers to group different parts of a workflow together. Keeps it all neat and tidy and you can move chunks around easily and disable bits you don't need to keep running.
When working with APIs, often times the first step is to generate a bearer token through the authentication API call. Making the authentication generation it's own macro so you only have to put in your credentials instead of rebuilding the entire workflow section is super helpful for scaling your workflows. Probably my favorite tip and definitely my most used lately.
Bacon
When making macros, use the Text Input tool dummy to stimulate the real data environment as closely as possible and leave it there in the Macro for you to run in .yxmc via Designer. Then you can test and have your own environment where nothing gets out and no data of value is stored.
My trick is always remembering to cache data sources if I'm testing workflows. This makes it so the data doesn't have to load from scratch every single time.
CTRL + F to pull open the Find / Replace window where you can change text values throughout the entirety of your workflow without having to manually trace. Not perfect, but very useful.
-Jay
My latest favorite trick is that you can add the sequence number "group by" with the latest Record ID tool. You don't need to use the Tile tool for that purpose anymore.
My favourite trick it in this blog being able to bring in more files types using sharepoint https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works/Bringing-in-Additional-File-Types-from-SharePoint/ba-p/1412395
My biggest tip is customizing the color of individual workflow connection lines between tools because it helps callout different types of data like sales from reserves as it progresses through the process during development. Also, if I'm helping to troubleshoot a user, we may color code the connection line to trace a potential data quality issue.
You can click on the canvas and in the Runtime menu you can select ' Disable All Tools That Write Output”. When this option is turned on, Alteryx temporarily disables every tool that writes data so you can safely test your workflow without overwriting existing files.
Ever create an iterative macro but get bummed out when you realize you only have a single input anchor that you are able to assign to iterate? What ever shall you do if you need 2 (or more) datasets to update with each iteration cycle through your macro? Well, luckily you can get around this with the handy dandy trick of reading from and later overwriting a given yxdb (or any file type really) file within the macro. You can even prep your initial file state before the macro executes for the first time in the workflow with an Output Data tool packaged with some control containers. Very handy for some Advent of Code challenges... and for normal use cases too I suppose 🤣
Tiny Trick, Big ReliefIt keeps you from getting frustrated retyping the same formula over and over.Easy to forget, but once you store your expression once, you can reuse it anytime.
Do you know that you can add a link to another workflow in your workflow?
I presented this as one of the 10 tips at Tokyo Alteryx User Group Meeting held on 2025-10-02.
Link to my post for TAUG #25
If you are happy with opening it from File Explorer, you can safely skip this post.
And if you find any practical use case of this tips, please let me know.😝
.html file
Explorer Box Tool refers to this file.
Set the path to the workflow and (if you want to use a button) the path to the image file for the button.
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <body> <a href="file_path_to_your_workflow.yxmd"> <img src="file_path_to_image.png" style="border-style: none"/> </a> </body> </html>
Explorer Box Tool
Set the path to the .html file in [URL] field.
Sample files
To see how it works, extract the files in the attached .zip file and open Eulerex_31_workflow.yxmd.
Click the button below and you will be directed to Euleryx_30_YFujimori.yxmd.
Video
@Yoshiro_Fujimori that is a great tip!
One practical application is in chained apps. Having the box link directly to the additional apps in the chain would make it easier to open them up for editing.
If the author didn't note down that the app is chained, it would help identify the chained app as well.
The Count Records macro will output a 0 if there are no records (unlike using count in the summarize tool). If you make a boolean off this field with a formula
[Count]>0
and attach this to the Target input of an append fields tool (with your original data attached to the Source input). You now have a guaranteed row of data passing through your workflow with a boolean field that you can use in downstream processes (e.g. messages, control containers, filters...)
Upload Hyper File option with Tableau Output Trick!
We use the new Tableau Output tool a LOT and found that for very large datasets are not handled as well as the old Publish to Tableau Server tool.
Use the "Upload Hyper File" option in Tableau Output to avoid memory problems, but beware to pass only 1 column and record with the filepath+filename 😎
Block Until Done Example:
One could also use the new Control Containers feature (instead of Block Until Done) and simply use a Text Input tool with the filename as described in the Tableau Output Help Page
My favorite one is cache and run workflow, which saved me a lot of time during debug.
My favorite trick is to use cross tab, transpose and summarize tool to get the sum of unknown fields which are sometimes present and sometimes not there. This just helps in keeping the whole workflow dynamic.
If your dataset includes fields named like 2025, 2026, etc., and you want to select them automatically, try this: Use the Dynamic Select tool, choose "Select via a Formula", and enter:
REGEX_Match([Name], "\d{4}")
This will select any field with a 4-digit name — perfect for year-based data that grows over time.
One of my newest tricks recently discovered is to use *.xlsx and a simple macro to bring in all files and sheets from a folder.
I'll do two.Document!Use the titles of Tool Container to say what the tools inside are for. Use Comments when you're bouncing around or it's Friday afternoon and you just had great idea, and want to try something on Monday. I use Comments to show where a wireless Connection starts and ends.
Run Command!I use Run Command to run a .bat file to run a PowerShell file. It's help me a lot; from getting Active Directory data to starting a process on a different server by using Invoke-Command in PowerShell.
My favorite tool is using "Basic Table" to edit columns, we can change font, size, add background color, and apply rules. So my output is colorful, can easily to catch what is the different value, what is the same group.
My recent favorite trick since I started using Alteryx Co-Pilot is asking Co-Pilot to document my entire workflow (event the big ones) and like that, Co-Pilot puts out a detailed explanation of all the nodes and into relevant sections. I can now just copy that info and use in my external documentation for posterity and SOX governance purposes. Saves so much time!
Would love to see an example of this @SPetrie Seen this done a bit but definitely a good move
I thought I would share one more tip and trick that I like to use.
If you need to remove leading and trailing whitespace from a String field, you can accomplish this by simply using the Trim function and specifying the field name to trim. When you use the TRIM function without specifying a specific character to trim away will automatically trim away both leading and trailing whitespace from a String field. Example - Trim(address).
I will sometimes use a Formula tool or a Multi-Field Formula Tool with the TRIM function as opposed to using the Data Cleanse Tool to eliminate leading or trailing whitespace.
@JoshuaB This is a very quick and dirty example, but I hope it helps. I included most of the interface tools to give the broadest examples I could think of.
I renamed all the tools using their Annotations tab to make them easier to reference. I can manually add a value in the Workflow Config screen, and it will be used in the running of the flow when I need to test the macro.
