Alter.Nation
Community news, customer stories, and more!
When I saw this XKCD webcomic (https://xkcd.com/2456/) and its many derivations, I naturally thought of Alteryx. And in the style of https://www.explainxkcd.com/ I thought I’d explain my thoughts around each of the titles.
Date conversion - Because there are many ways that a date can be formatted, many users have experienced a problem getting their date data into the ISO format YYYY-0M-0D that Alteryx uses. The DateTime tool in the Parse toolbox is very helpful for these kinds of issues. However, even that tool won't parse Roman numerals.
Can you attach a workflow? - There is an expectation that when someone offers a suggestion on Community, that the recipient will attempt that suggestion before asking for more help. In this example, using the Summarize tool is the answer. The person receiving the advice should look in the help file for more assistance before asking the responder for a full workflow.
Input file formats - One of the beautiful things about Alteryx is that it can accept so many different file formats. That said, there are legacy and/or rare file formats that Alteryx does not support. In those instances, you can either a) post an Idea to add the format or b) export the data from the originating software into a more generic or modern format that Alteryx does recognize.
Please Input Halp - First off, this is not meant as an insult to the many Alteryx users for whom English is a second language. This is mainly subtle (?) encouragement to please be specific in your subject heading. The better the information you give us, the better we can assist you.
Python - The solutions that are being created with a mix of Alteryx and Python are ever increasing. That said, the code that you write in Python is something completely different than Alteryx and you would be better served posting that question on a Python-related forum.
Excel - As much as it pains me to write this, Microsoft Excel is still the lingua franca of data file formats. Therefore, a lot of questions on Community are about Excel. Therefore, your question has probably been answered before. Please spend some time searching the community for an answer before requesting assistance. You will likely get your question answered quicker.
Do my work for me - Sometimes a post will contain very little information other than a screenshot of input and a screenshot of output. Now sometimes, this is appropriate as the user is asking how to use a specific tool. But other times, it is clear that the user has not done very much work on the problem and is simply looking for someone else to do their work. Don't be that person.
Error message - Since Alteryx is such a great 'glue' to interact with other systems, sometimes error messages from other systems end up in Alteryx. Make a note that anytime that Alteryx interacts with another system, the error may be outside of Alteryx. In this example, the user seems to have entered incorrect credentials and should investigate that route first before asking the Community for assistance.
Data types - This example is probably obvious, but there are many questions on Community that reference mixing data types. In short, numbers are treated differently than text in Alteryx. Whenever you are trying to do math, all of your component data have to be numeric.
Tag shotgun blast - Sometimes a user will tag their post with many tags that don't have anything to do with their post. They include these spurious tags in hopes that more people will see the post. However, this only serves to add noise into the community and degrade the overall experience for everyone. Please only include tags that are relevant to your post.
RegEx - While there are many experienced RegEx users on Community, please make an attempt to figure out the expression before posting by using Regexcoach.com and other websites first.
URGENT!!! - We get it. Your boss is breathing down your neck and you are on a short timeline. However, shouting at the Community (and on the Internet in general) is bad form. Please just ask for help in a calm manner.
I’d also like to direct you to some previous and excellent posts on this topic:
Thanks for reading and a very deep thank you to the stellar ACEs who suggested titles.
Banner image by ninita_7
