Standard Macros - Accept Arguments

[KenMorrill]

Consider, for a moment, Standard Macros as old-school Subroutines in which you would have a library of Subroutines that could be invoked from numerous code sets.  Each Subroutine could have any number of arguments, and when the Subroutine is invoked, the calling code provides the arguments and their values to the Subroutine.

You can do this in Alteryx - but with a very large but.  The source field names being passed to the Standard Macro have to be the same field names the Standard Macro is expecting.  To make the Standard Macros more "library friendly" - allow the calling workflow to alias fields in the dataset for the sole purpose of sending them to the Macro.

Example:  Standard Macro that returns a Vendor ID based on a Location and Item Number.

Macro Input: Location ID, Item Number

Calling Workflow has: Purchase Location and Item Code

The Macro on the calling workflow would have a mapping:

Data Set Object	Macro Input Object
Purchasing Location	Location ID
Item Code	Item Number

[patrick_digan]

Hi @KenMorrill! I think you can do what you're looking for currently. On the macro input, you would need to check the "show field map" button: 

Then when you use the macro, you would need to map the fields:

Purchasing Location and Item code are coming from my dataset, and Location ID and Item Number were my field names in my macro. Mapping the fields actually changes them from their workflow name (Purchasing location/item code) to the macro's names (Location ID/Item Number). That way all the logic in the macro works. Since most users would expect the Purchasing Location and Item Code to come out of the macro, you can connect the macro input to a select tool via an action tool:

The reverse field map just means that it will switch the fields back to the names from the workflow (Purchasing Location and Item Code for this workflow).

If you want more info, I have a tool mastery article and @MarqueeCrew put together a short video walking people through the reverse field map concept.