Alteryx | Hangout: There's more to Alteryx than you know

[TaraM]

We've all been there -  we see someone demo Alteryx and we stop them mid-sentence and say, "Wait a minute. Back up. What did you DO there?" They reply, "Oh you didn't know you could...xyz..?!" And in that moment your life has been A-L-T-E-R-E-D!!! Whoa.

 

Seriously though, Alteryx is a vast product and there are a bunch of hidden and not so hidden gems that need to be a part of your daily life. We'll show you some of the lesser known tips and tricks, shortcuts and subtle features that will make you more efficient in workflow creation. You can still use Alteryx without knowing these things, but why have and eat your cake without the icing?

Come hang out with:

• Margarita Wilshire @MargaritaW, Customer Success Team Lead and author of the ever popular Tips and Tricks series.
• Geoff Jones @GeoffJ, Director of Creative Services (User Experience Design and Technical Writing) focused on making Alteryx easy to use and intuitive to learn.  
• Cailin Swingle @CailinS, Solutions Engineer, Fuzzy Matcher and Predictive Analytics Troubleshooter.
• Andrew Lloyd @AndrewL, Customer Success Representative who knows how to Query the Scheduler Database from Alteryx.
• Mark Frisch @MarqueeCrew, Alteryx ACE and All-Time Stars leader in our Community.  Mark knows about saving time with Alteryx and he's probably already authored a solution for you.

We'll make you say, "No WAY! Since WHEN? How did I NOT KNOW THAT?!" 

Save the date! Download the invite and Tune back in to this page Thursday February 18th at 10am Mountain Time to view the livestream.

Got questions for the team or a tip to share? Register an account or sign in to the community to post comments & questions below, or tweet us @alteryx #AlteryxHangout during the event.

We look forward to having you join us!

[MarqueeCrew]

In the community, I didn't know that I could hide the answer with a SPOILER alert.  This way I could (operative word) give an open hint and not say exactly what the answer is.  As an example ....

How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Spoiler

None!  That's a hardware problem.

The answer is hidden by use of the spoiler tag as shown below...

See you next week!

[alex]

can you change the order in which the tool menus appear?  To show interface next to join tools?

[GeoffJ]

Hi Alex.

We currently don't support the re-ordering of tool categories. If that's something you'd like to see, please post a request in the Idea Center. Collecting ideas there helps us prioritze them.

Thanks,

Geoff

[s_pichaipillai]

can we have a Auto Arrange Tool to format the Alteryx tools used inside the Designer.

hope this will save Developer time for arranging the tools Manually  after designing a big workflow :) 

[GeoffJ]

Hi s_pichaipillai,

That's an interesting request, but also a challenging one. We might arrange tools in a way that worked for some users, but disappointed others. Please add the request to the Idea Center and we can look into it.

In the meantime, here are some workarounds you might consider:

• if you select multiple tools, you can align them horizontally by pressing Ctrl Shift -
• If you select multiple tools, you can align them vertically by pressing Ctrl Shift +
• You might also find that adjusting the grid snap might help you. Go to Options > User Settings > Edit User Settings. Choose the Canvas tab and then adjust the value under Grid Size.

I hope that helps and appreciates the feedback!

Geoff

[GeoffJ]

Here are the links I shared:

Application Shortcuts (from Alteryx Help):

http://help.alteryx.com/10.1/HotKeys_Shortcuts.htm

Canvas Navigation cheat sheet (from Documentation page):

http://downloads.alteryx.com/Documentation/Alteryx%20Designer%20Canvas%20Navigation.pdf

[cbridges]

I loved, loved, loved this hangout and took copious notes, so thank you!

Spoiler alert, because my tips will be in my Inspire presentation too. These have probably been covered elsewhere, since all my revelations have come from other users.

• Use the community - I make it a regular habit to visit every section in the community and scan my unread posts - never know what you'll find
• Read blogs by people who are more experienced than you
• Do the self-paced training regardless of your level of expertise. There are a hundred ways to do any given thing, and some of them are better than the way you're doing it now
• The "handles" to browse results are in the results pane - you don't have to click on the tiny little green arrows (screenshot below)
• You can right-click your connectors to label them
• The order of operations can make a big difference. I turned a 90 minute workflow into a 10 minute workflow just by reversing the order of 2 tools.
• For extensive workflows, I've found it much easier to split them into multiple workflows and use the Runner macros to chain them
• Participate in as many trainings as you can, because a lot of gold nuggets are hidden in trainings that you wouldn't expect. For instance, I was blissfully ignorant of the "find nearest" geospatial tool until I watched a webinar on an entirely different topic. I also solved a major headache by modifying the principles I learned in the Chained Apps training.

[TaraM]

Resources mentioned on the Hangout today include:

• How to Install a Macro
• Alteryx Gallery | Macro District
• READ ALL EXCEL macro. If you are an Excel user, you NEED THIS!!
• Tips and Tricks 2015

[cbridges]

Ooh! Now I have another tip...re-read things you've read before. I've already browsed through Inspire 2015 Tips & Tricks, but now I have more experience under my belt, so my questions have changed.

Problem: I wish I could click from the runner macro to the underlying workflow

Solution: The Explorer box... and the answer was right there in Inspire 2015 Tips & Tricks the whole time!

Thanks @MargaritaW!