Alteryx Designer Knowledge Base
Definitive answers from Designer experts.Tips and Tricks - Bringing your Data In
These Tips and Tricks are an excerpt from the2017 Tips and Tricks Book.
Clickclickhereto download the full version
Lookingfor even more inspiration? Browseprevious year’s books below:
Bringing your data In
Different ways to Bring-In Data to Match your Style
We’ve seen our users bringing in their data using different techniques. Here are theones we’ve seen the most that are the most fascinating. Try one of these or come upwith one that matches your own style!
Standard Drag and Drop
This is the one you will see on Alteryx training videos. Find the tool you need on thetool palette, click on it to select and hold it, then drag and drop it into your canvas.
Insert tool in canvas
One of our Grand Prix winners used this oneduring competition and under lots of pressure!!Right-click on the desired place on the canvas thenchoose Insert. This will present you with all the toolcategories - navigate to your tool from there.
Explorer Box
This handy dandy toolallows you to point toa directory to showall the files contained.From there (as explainedabove), drag one or morefiles from the list anddrop them to the canvas.
Set New Record Limits
The Record Limit setting in the Input Data Tool can be very helpful at workflowdesign time.Limiting the number of records coming in while building your workflow will speed uptesting. This will return the top records.
When in need of just themetadata, Record Limit to -1.
Record Limit set to 0 returnsthe maximum size of an Int64.
No Data File type… No Problem!
Want to open a non-data file type? Bring it on!
One common use case is an Alteryxworkflow (.yxmd). In the Open a Data File dialogbox, make sure to select AllFiles (* *) forFiles of type.
For the Resolve File Type dialog box,use \0 as the delimiter and uncheckthe First Row Contains Field Namesbox.
All your data will be placed in onefield, therefore, make sure to set theField Length (in the Input DataConfiguration) to a much bigger size toaccommodate all the data.
