Find field by name within data with large number of columns

[gerbaudo]

It would be great to have a way to find a column by its name.

This feature would be particularly useful when exploring with data sets having a large number of fields.

This feature would be useful within several tool, in particular with the "Browse" tool and with the "Input" tool.

Ideally the user should be able to  "Ctrl-F" and jump to the column matching the name being typed.

Alternatively, the user could be able to sort the columns alphabetically.

Thank you for considering this feature suggestion.

Davide Gerbaudo

P.S. I understand from this discussion that such feature is not currently available.

[derekbelyea]

I would find this useful at times. 

When I need to sort out all the fields I will sometimes use this hack:  copy the metadata into a format I can manage easily.  Designer supports the copy and pasting of metadata like this:

Copy metadata to clipboard

I usually have a spreadsheet open.  Paste it in your spreadsheet and you are good to go.   Find.. sort.. etc.  Then keep this open in another window if needed.

[jpoz]

In an upcoming release, you will have the option to find field names in the Find Tool dialog. Thank you for suggesting this!

[gerbaudo]

Great, thank you @jpoz 

[jpoz]

Thank you for this suggestion! The Find Tool dialog now allows you to search for Column Names, among many other improvements. This functionality is available in the 2019.4 release: https://downloads.alteryx.com

[gerbaudo]

Great! @jpoz thank you for implementing this feature!

[brandowd]

This is a very handy feature and saved me the pain of exporting and doing the CTRL+F in something else. It would be extremely helpful if, as @derekbelyea mentioned to be able to take you to the field (or item) or highlight it on screen (similar to how you use 'Find' with Chrome). I had a table with more than 250 columns and took a while to find it. The difficulty I had was trying to to estimate where along the scroll bar I should be. In the end it was a bit of a dichotomy searching technique. 

Still as is, it's a very handy tool so thank you.

cheers