40 Tips in 40 Minutes

[Joe_Lipski]

When @estherb47 and I proposed the idea to @TuvyL & @MindiG a few months ago to present 100 tips in 40 minutes, they were like...

And Esther and I responded like…

They eventually came to their senses and reluctantly agreed to let two crazy ACEs from New York and London present this session in Sydney at Inspire APAC.

We compromised on 40 tips in 40 minutes and the tips were broken down into the following 5 sections:

Tip Category	Start Time	ACE
Introductions	00:00	Both
Prep & Blend	05:00	Esther Bezborodko
Documentation & User Settings	14:13	Joe Lipski
Navigation & Shortcuts	20:10	Joe Lipski
Input & Output	25:57	Esther Bezborodko
Lifesavers	32:30	Both

Enjoy the video below! A full list of tips that we planned to get through is listed below the video, although I’m sure we missed a couple and snuck a few more in!

Prep + Blend

• Save field confiuration in Select tool
• Select tool - remove/add prefix
• Forget missing fields in Select tool
• Join versus Find/Replace
• Union only matching fields
• Use copy + paste from Results window to get a text input
• Use IIF instead of IF/THEN/ELSE
• Use "[" in formula tool to find fields
• Use Tile tool to create groups within groups
• Use Summarize tool to sort as well

Documentation + User Settings

• Add Images in comments
• Double click comment or tool container to edit text
• Explorer Box for help, input files, web pages, etc.
• Set Location & Map Base Layer
• Always show connection progress
• Show Macro Indicator
• Insert already opened macros with right click
• Use Metadata to put macro into an existing tool category
• Workflow Metainfo - particularly useful for gallery

Navigation + Shortcuts

• Hover over tab for file path
• Right click tab to open directory
• Right click output link for directory
• Mouse wheel to scroll through categories and tools
• Ctrl + Tab to cycle through workflows
• Add or Remove categories from tool bar
• Pin Category to tool palette favourites
• Right Click to show Depricated Tools (preparation)
• Right click paste for exact paste location rather than ctrl + V
• Right click and drag to zoon to certain part of workflow
• Double click scroll wheel to zoom to all tools & ctrl + 0 to zoom to full workflow

Input + Output

• Drag and drop files
• Drag & drop apps
• Drag & drop folders for Directory tool
• Start input on line n
• Disable all output tools
• Add a Browse tool (Ctrl+Shift+B)
• Use a Browse tool for output
• Output to different sheets/files
• Convert Browse tool to Output Data tool
• Convert Output Data tool to Input tool with same data connection

Lifesavers

• (Esther) Align tools - Ctrl+Shift++ vertical, Ctrl+Shift+- horizontal
• (Esther) Duplicate workflow to debug/troubleshoot
• (Esther) Name tools
• (Esther) Ctrl+F to find tools (really useful in use with naming tools)
• (Joe) CReW Macros
• (Joe) %Temp%
• (Joe) ZoomIt for Demos & Training
• (Joe) Getting Started Template C:\Program Files\Alteryx\Samples\en\Start Here\