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Drag a formula onto another formula to combine formula tools

Hello!

I am just making a quick suggestion, specifically for the Formula tool within Alteryx.

 

Often when I am working on a larger workflow - I will end up optimising the workflow towards the end. I typically end up removing unnecessary tools, fields, and rethinking my logic.

 

Much of this optimisation, is also merging formula tools where possible. For instance, if I have 3 formulas - its much cleaner (and I would suspect faster) to have these all within one tool. For instance, a scaled down example:

TheOC_0-1638886556192.png

 

to this:

TheOC_1-1638886598494.png

 

This requires a lot of copy and paste - especially if the formulas/column names are long - this can be two copy and pastes, and waiting for tools to load between them, per formula (i do appreciate, this sounds an incredibly small problem to have, but on what I would consider a large workflow, a tool loading can actually take a couple of seconds - and this could burn some time. Additionally, there's always potential problems when it comes to copy/pasting or retyping with errors).

 

My proposed solution to this, is the ability to drag a formula onto another - very similar to dragging a tool onto a connection. This integration would look like:

TheOC_4-1638886826166.png

 

Drag to the first formula:

 

TheOC_5-1638886837420.png

 

 

Release:

 

TheOC_6-1638886865299.png

 

Formula has been appended to the formula tool:

TheOC_7-1638886879753.png

 

 

I think this will help people visually optimise their workflows!

Cheers,
TheOC

 

 

15 Comments
DavidP
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

I'd also like to be able to move (drag) or copy (Ctrl - drag) formulas from one tool to another.

kelly_gilbert
13 - Pulsar

Until this gets implemented, if anyone does have the need to move formulas from one tool to another, copying the XML speeds things up a lot. Not as convenient as just pasting the tool, but until then, it's better than re-creating the fields from scratch!

 

  1. Go to the formula tool you want to copy FROM, then click the XML View icon in the config pane:
    kelly_gilbert_0-1657734435622.png

    If you don't see the icon, go to Options --> User Settings --> Edit User Settings --> Advanced tab --> check Display XML in Properties Window

  2. Each field in the formula tool = one FormulaField element (one row in the XML). Select and copy the fields (rows) you want to move over to a different Formula tool.

  3. Go to the formula tool you want to copy TO, then click the XML View icon in the config pane.

  4. Click Edit in the upper right corner.

  5. Paste in the rows you copied (just make sure they're inside the <FormulaFields> </FormulaFields> tags).
    If the calculations you're pasting are dependent on other calculations, you may need to reorder them, but you can do that after step 7.

  6. Click OK

  7. In the config pane, click the gear icon (above the XML icon) to go back to the "normal" view, and you should see the fields you copied.
    kelly_gilbert_1-1657734877785.png
DavidP
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

Editing the xml is a great tip and a very cool idea @kelly_gilbert - definitely something to play with! 

TheOC
15 - Aurora
15 - Aurora

awesome little 'hack', thank you @kelly_gilbert !

AlteryxCommunityTeam
Alteryx Community Team
Alteryx Community Team
Status changed to: Accepting Votes