XML to Procedure Document

[gautiergodard]

Hello Alteryx Community,

If like me, you've been developing in Alteryx for a few years, or if you find yourself as a new developer creating solutions for your organization - chances are you'll need to create some form of support procedure or automation configuration file at some point. In my experience, the foundation of these files is typically explaining to users what each tool in the workflow is doing, and what transformations to the data are being made. These are typically laborious to create and often created in a non-standardized way.

The proposal: Create Alteryx Designer native functionality to parse a workflow's XML and translate the tool configurations into a step by step word document of a given workflow.

Although the expectation is that after something like this is complete a user may need to add contextual details around the logic created, this proposal should eliminate a lot of the upfront work in creating these documents.

Understand some workflow may be very complex but for a simple workflow like the below, a proposed output could be like the below, and if annotations are provided at the tool level, the output could pick those up as well:

Workflow Name: Sample

1) Text Input tool (1) - contains 1 row with data across columns test and test1. This tool connects to Select Tool (2).

2) Select Tool (2) - deselects "Unknown" field and changes the data type of field test1 to a Double. This tool connects to Output (3).

3) Output (3) - creates .xlsx output called test.xlsx 

Sample.yxmd

[kotsanto]

Love the idea - this would save considerable time on documentation post successful implementation!

[marsha]

Cool idea!

[wakar]

Great idea… more time spent on development than on documentation 

[cgoodman3]

You should check out this open source code for documenting workflows - https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works/Auto-Documentation/ba-p/545827

It would be great if Alteryx just had an export documentation functionality without needing community built workflows.

[mtravo_]

Fully support the idea of establishing a standard and more efficient way of creating process documentation. Documentation plays an integral part  in being able to effectively transfer knowledge and manage change on a go-forward... would love for it to be easier!

[CoffeeBean1]

I like this idea, I was looking for this last couple of days and hmm surprised there is no such functionality yet.  Thanks!