Alteryx Designer is a self-service analytics platform to prep, blend, enrich, analyse and deploy data. In other words, it’s a life changer and time saver for any analyst or analytic consultant needing to edit, process and perform analytics. However, if you’re anything like me, efficient and effective is my middle name and I’m always searching for the easiest and quickest ways to get to my destination.
Here are 5 tips and hacks I’ve pick up to make my Alteryx Designer experience even easier than before.
1. Browse Shortcut
One of Alteryx Designer’s best functionality is how you can view the data at any point in the workflow by simply connecting the ‘Browse’ tool. The fastest way to connect a ‘Browse’ tool is Ctrl + Shift + B. Add multiple ‘Browse’ tools by selecting multiple tools and pressing Ctrl + Shift + B.
2. Add and remove favourite palette tools
Upon initial run Alteryx Designer will provide it’s top 15 most used tools in the ‘Favourites Palette’. If you’re like me and prefer the ‘Tool Container’ tool over the ‘Comment’ tool, you can click on the star icon on the top right-hand corner of each tool to customise your palette.
3. User settings
As Alteryx Designer is a US based software, its default unit settings are in miles. However, as an Australian data consultant, my world revolves around kilometers instead. We can easily adjust the default unit settings in ‘Options’ -> ‘User Settings’ -> ‘’Localization’ -> ‘Default Distance Units’. From now on, distances will be automatically set to the more familiar kilometers.
4. Search bar
As a new user to Alteryx Designer, you won’t remember the categories of all the tools. Instead of clicking and searching through each tab, save time by using the search bar to find your tool. The best part is that search bar also brings up relevant community discussions and similar answered questions from the community. Stand on the shoulder of giants with the help of the Alteryx community.
5. Annotations + Content box
“Why did I put that there again?”
How many of you have created a workflow, put it away for a moment, and then forgotten why they put a certain formula, tool or process? Changing the name and placing annotations can allow users to clearly understand ins and outs of the workflow created.
