Macro sharing - Best practice

[DataBlender]

Hi

Does anybody have any advice for the best way of sharing macros within an organisation? Ideally we'd like to be able to do some sort of combination of the following:

- Push latest macros to users/automatically ensure that users are using the latest version

- Include macro pack as part of installation procedure for new users

We also want to ensure that macros within macros are correctly recognised. I've read elsewhere about packaging nested macros within the exporter, but is there a better way?

Thanks

[JordanB · Accepted solution]

Hi @DataBlender

Push latest macros to users/automatically ensure that users are using the latest version

Alteryx Designer Desktop

Working with colleagues and sharing macros?

Within the Alteryx designer you can create your own macro ‘Parent Category’. When specifying a file path, you can choose either a local or a network/mapped drive. If you are building macros within a team and looking to share or update macros dynamically, having a mapped location will allow you to reflect any changes on everyone’s machines.

As a best practice when overwriting a macro it would be best to update the Meta-data tab (Within workflow properties tab) within the macro to add initials or details of what has changed. This can help you track who edited each version. Unfortunately, if you choose to use an overwrite function, you will be unable to control the version of the macro overtime.

Therefore, you may choose to add “V1” etc. to the macro when saving it to the network location. This macro parent category could then be used as a development location and then you could have another macro parent category where you publish production ready macros.  

Alteryx Server

The Alteryx Server can adopt a similar outline to that of the Alteryx Designer however, it has a greater flexibility in terms of version control. When building a macro you can publish it with a description.

Then when a change is made to the macro you can press the save icon and add another description.

Within the gallery this is then reflected when you click on the macro and click on the version number.  You then have the capability of running & publishing up and down versions.

Include macro pack as part of installation procedure for new users

You could zip all the macros together and get a user to extract them to their own macro folder (Mentioned above).

Or to the Admin (C:\Program Files\Alteryx\bin\RuntimeData\Macros) or Non-admin (C:\Users\jbarker\AppData\Local\Alteryx\bin\RuntimeData\Macros) folders.

If you use the metadata tag when building the macro workflow it can land in that parent category as well.

Best,

Jordan Barker

Solutions Consultant 

[tom_montpool]

@DataBlender -- your post reminded me of a couple ideas that I wanted to submit -- thanks!

Here are links in case you're interested:

Macros from the Gallery

Set Macro Path when Installing

For macros within macros, you can use a folder called "SupportingMacros" to hold the 'inner' macros. That way, the 'master' macro is displayed on your Tool Palette. When you package the macro, or upload to a Gallery, you need to be sure that you include workflow assets.