Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base

Definitive answers from Designer Desktop experts.
If you’ve gotten accustomed to having headers and sub-headers (fields/sub-fields) in your tables, much like those you can build with the “Merge & Center” Excel feature, you’ll be happy to hear with just a couple formatting steps we can build the format in this article
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Welcome to the addictive world of predictive analytics. We have the perfect platform for you to start exploring your data.
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This article covers how to use Run Command events to run a workflow.
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Error being returned via the Select Tool functionality for field names with updated case type.
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Sampling weights, also known as survey weights, are positive values associated with the observations (rows) in your dataset (sample), used to ensure that metrics derived from a data set are representative of the population (the set of observations).
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Tableau Function Translation Guide
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Time series forecasting is using a model to predict future values based on previously observed values. In a time series forecast, the prediction is based on history and we are assuming the future will resemble the past. We project current trends using existing data.
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Here in Customer Support, we often get asked from new users how they can add total sums for every column onto the bottom of their datasets. There are several ways to do this.
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A guide to omit a record if the fields are null
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The Auto Field tool examines your data, and automatically optimizes the field type and length.  Take a look at your data with a Select tool, follow this up with an Auto Field, and follow that up with another Select tool to see what kind of changes you’ve made.  After you run the module, you can examine each Select tool to garner a before-and-after view of the adjustments made to the fields.  You can even take this a step further, and add a few Browse tools to see how your database actually decreases in size, you may be surprised by how much! In the below view, the file size was reduced by about 40% with the Auto Field tool, on just 50,000 records and one field. Now consider running a file of millions of records and the amount of the size decrease becomes really substantial! Before Auto Field View: After Auto Field View:
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Alteryx provides GUI tools that offer similar functionality to many SQL commands. Although minimal SQL scripting may be necessary in order to properly configure tools, the amount required to complete analysis is significantly reduced.
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There are a handful of ways to search for a particular string within a data field.  If you want to perform a query, identifying records with a particular string field within a data field: Use the Filter tool: the result will be two streams - those records that meet your filter criteria and those that do not. On the Functions Tab, expand the string tree and select FINDSTRING(String, Target) Replace the `String` parameter with the field name Replace the `Target` parameter with the value you are looking to identify Finish the expression with !=-1 which will separate the true values from the false ones. Example - If you are trying to identify all of the customers with Joe in a data field [Name] : FINDSTRING([Name], "Joe")!=-1 The records that meet this criteria will be output from the True anchor ([Name] contains the value "Joe"). All other records will be output from the False anchor. This function can also be used in the Formula tool; if for example you want to populate a different data column based on the [Name] field, you can use the FINDSTRING in an IF statement.  Example: You would like to classify your data in a new field based on the instance of customers with Joe in a data field [Name] :   IF (FINDSTRING([Name], "Joe") != -1) THEN "JOE Customer" ELSE "Other" ENDIF   This will populate a new data field with "JOE Customer" if the field "Name" contains "Joe" otherwise it will populate that field with the value "Other" In the Formula tool, add a new field by selecting + Add Column, or choose an existing field to update. Make sure the appropriate Field Type and Size is also specified On the Functions Tab, expand the Conditional Tree and select IF c THEN t ELSE f ENDIF On the Functions Tab, expand the String tree and select FINDSTRING(String, Target) to replace c Replace `String` with the field name Replace `Target` with the string you are looking to identify Finish this part of the expression with !=-1 which will separate the true values from the false ones Replace "t" with the desired value to populate the new field if the condition is met: "JOE Customer" Replace "f" with the desired value to populate the new field if the condition is not met: "Other"
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Configuring batch macro output fields horizontally
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how to use Generate Rows tool to fill in missing months
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Does "Dictionary Sort Order" always place lower case letters before capital letters?
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How can you calculate the standard deviation of the population (SDpop) rather than standard deviation on the sample data (SDsample)?
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How do I calculate the number of business days between two dates?
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When writing expressions that evaluate NULL conditions, it is a common mistake to write the syntax as: IF [FieldX] = NULL() THEN ...   After all, this is how you would write the expression in SQL.  However, the actual syntax needs to be: IF ISNULL([FieldX]) THEN ....   Keep writing those expressions!
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Errors from the R tool, and macros using R, such as the Association Analysis tool, can be a challenge to troubleshoot.
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