Auto-Documentation: Maveryx Crowdsourcing!

Hi all!

I'm writing this post more as a crowdsourcing post to expand and improve on what I've built here in Auto-Documentation.

I wrote the idea piece here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/Documentation-of-Workflows-by-Alteryx/idc-p/1158603#M20877 -> Your likes & comments there are much appreciated as well!

I've built something barebones that everyone can see & play around with.

The first order of business was to get summary statistics of the tools we are using in any workflow. So I've done a report that counts the number of tools used, and groups them based on the Tool Palette category - I've also included special considerations for self-made Macros as long as they are named accordingly. What could be improved is the range of tools collected, and also a classification of the Macro type (Standard, Batch, Iterative) - I cannot seem to get that information from the tool itself, maybe I'm missing something.

I guess what would make documentation great is the following:

Get a good look at the configuration of each tool in a standard way.
Picture the process flow and have snapshots of the data's journey.
Understand the ingress and egress of the workflow and what file types are being dealt with.
Making it dynamic so that it can put on the Server, and can be signed off by a superior etc.

I think the old tool: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works/Auto-Documentation/ba-p/545827 is great, but it has not received an update for some time.

In my Idea post, @Rags1982 gave great ideas and they themselves have built something amazing with just XML alone. I'd like to share what I've done, and hope to improve on it further with the Maveryx community further.

I think this is why I love the community so much - it has bright minds that can come together to give ideas and expand on solutions together.

Thanks all!!!

AutoDocumentation_v1.yxzp

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Tips and Tricks

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All comments

Rags1982

Thanks @caltang

You're correct, you can't get the macro type from the xml of the tool. However, what you could do is use the macro location, which is in the tool xml, then bring that macro through as another xml, join on tool ID and get the macro type from the macro's xml.... hope that makes sense.

Unfortunately, I can't open your file as we're still using 2021.1

If it helps though, I have now created a workflow that will track all fields in a workflow, through all workflows in a directory and give tool information based on each tool that the field passes through. So, for instance, I can track a field from a raw dataset, through each tool, find out what happens in that tool, whether the field gets renamed etc, then follow that data through every other workflow to the end output. Unfortunately, it doesn't work too well on big directories as big workflows may have multiple work streams which causes problems. So, one of our workflows for instance had 19k possible tool streams (going from tool 1 to tool 500 in order, each combination). If you try passing that through an iterative macro, to track a field, it will not work as there will be way too many iterations. Works ok for smaller workflows though.

Anyway, if you do need any tips etc, feel free to let me know.

caltang

Yep! Basically chain the Macro's XML parsing to this main one to get its macro type. Interesting!

Yeah, I understand the load with the iterative macro, can appreciate where you're coming from. Unfortunate that you can't open the file - I'm on the new version for its control containers and other cool new features.

Hoping to spark the conversation here so that others may benefit as well.

Rags1982

Would love to have the new version. We're a little behind as we have to have the same version as Alteryx server and we can't update that yet.

As for the macro xml, you could filter out all tools that contain the xml "<EngineSettings Macro=", as that identifies it as a macro, then send the file path (which appears right after that string) from that node through another macro to parse out that xml to get that "tools" details, then bring it back through to your main workflow/macro.