Halloween 2025: Alteryx or Treat Tip

[AlteryxMatt]

Greetings from the Halloween 2025 event blog! 

Share one Designer “trick” (time-saver, regex, macro) or one “treat” (a tiny sample data file or macro) in a single reply to this thread...if you dare!

[alexnajm]

Does it count to put the "reading files of different schemas" batch macro from The Ultimate Input Data Flowchart? 😊

Probably the most frequently referenced "tip" on the Community!

[TheOC]

My favourite current trick has to be learning Control Containers. I appreciate these are a tool rather than a trick, but there's so much to unlock by learning how they can be used.

Also popping in a shameless plug for my Designer Tip/Trick Series.

[mceleavey]

Stick with me on this one, I presented this one with @TheOC during our 30 Tips in 30 Minutes session at Inspire this year:

When you're trying to get multiple steams to have exactly the same fields you have a few options in the Union tool, including giving a warning or an error. You can also Output all fields or a subset of the fields.

However, what if you want all streams to have the same fields, and each one should have 50 fields. And of course there may be 50 streams!

It can be a chore running the workflow to throw an error to see which ones are missing.

All you need to do is go place a Select tool on the stream that has all the fields you want, DESELECT "Unknown Fields" then copy and paste that select tools onto the other streams. This will then highlight all missing columns on each stream and you can handle them accordingly without having to re-run the workflow each time.

Simple.

M.

[lwolfie]

My favorite trick is to create my starting template and save it under Templates.  This includes some base containers, comment boxes and coloring that adheres to our documentation standards.  It gets me off to a great start when I'm building a new workflow and reminds me to document while I go. 

[SPetrie]

My favorite trick is using question constants in macros or apps instead of action tools whenever possible. It makes the workflow look cleaner and you can set a test value in the Workflow -Configuration panel to test the flow without having to enter debug mode. 

[mkeiffer]

One of my favorite new tricks in Designer is we now have the ability to to change and save the default configurations for all Alteryx tools by changing the configurations, and then going to the pencil icon on the bottom left corner, clicking on the icon, and then selecting "Save As Default" (see attached screen shot).

I have done this with several tools in Designer.  The example here is changing the default on the Union Tool from Automatically Configure by Name to Manually Configure Fields.  Love this feature! 

 

[Imaizumi]

For big workflows, put everything in containers. Label them properly and now right click on the canvas and zoom to the container you are looking for. You can even put containers within containers to created nested groups.

[PangHC]

always test run after you amend the workflow.

when require to update on huge workflow. I tend to copy the specific part and amend in new workflow. 
then mimic the change in original workflow.
sometime these changes might cause like mismatch field name or field type.  

and sometime just a small change in a tool where in your experience, it has no impact at all. but it was.

so always test run after amendment.

[Bobbyt23]

My favourite trick is using containers to group different parts of a workflow together. Keeps it all neat and tidy and you can move chunks around easily and disable bits you don't need to keep running.