Engine Works
Under the hood of Alteryx: tips, tricks and how-tos.
You may have noticed that almost all built-in tools in Alteryx have an example workflow you can open from the right-click menu:
But have you ever wondered why there’s no way to add an example to your own macro? Well… You actually can! Let me show how.
1. Craft a (very serious) macro
I’ve created an incredible macro that doubles any number:
The patent is pending on this one—please don’t steal my groundbreaking design.
Save this macro into your macros folder, so it appears in your Designer tool palette:
2. Create an example workflow
Here’s the important part: this workflow must be saved inside your Alteryx installation’s Learn One Tool at a Time folder:
C:\Program Files\Alteryx\Samples\en\02 Learn_one_tool_at_a_time
💡 If you’re using Designer in a language other than English, replace ‘en’ with your language code (e.g., ‘fr’ for French).
I created a new folder in here and saved my example workflow as:
C:\Program Files\Alteryx\Samples\en\02 Learn_one_tool_at_a_time\OC_Examples\Doubling_Example.yxmd
3. Edit your macro file
Right-click your macro file in File Explorer and choose Edit with Notepad (or Notepad++, if you know, you know)
Inside the <MetaInfo> section, look for these lines:
Replace them with something like this:
The key here is to set the file path to be a relative path from the Learn One Tool at a Time folder.
4. View your example workflow
Boom. Now, when you right-click your macro in Designer and choose the Description text above, your custom workflow will open exactly like Alteryx’s built-in tools:
That’s it! You’ve now just unlocked an extra layer on top of your macro building skills. This is fantastic for:
- Documenting your macros for teammates (We all know a Steve who needs guiding through a macro 3 times)
- Provided guided demos alongside tools
- Document edge cases/usages of your macros.
If you do try this, let me know what creative examples you add to your macros. I’m currently 2 days of development into a ‘triple any number’ macro, so that will be my next.
