Creating an Analytic App in Alteryx!

Alteryx analytics is a self service data analytical software which helps us to work on data preparation and advanced analytics, you can read more here. Today we will work on creating "analytic app" in Alteryx. An analytic app is a workflow with a user interface where an app user will be able to execute the workflow using their own data and parameter without creating workflow by themselves.

Analytic app will be created using the "Interface tool" palette available among the many available tools in Alteryx designer as shown in the below image.

I am using "Superstore Subset.csv" file for this requirement, where the input data tool is used to load data and a Select tool is added to convert data types of columns.

Next, I have added a filter tool to limit the data for limiting data for a particular region. Here my aim is to create an app where user will be able to change the region based on available options. For that user should get available region values through a list box, drop down, etc.

After this filter, you can add all your required processes.

I have used a summarize tool where I am getting data in the aggregated way and that can be taken as an output file.

You can see the output using the browse tool.

This is a normal workflow which is getting us an aggregated result, now to convert it into an analytic app, we have to use the Interface tools. I have added a "dropdown tool" on the canvas and have added 4 values as East, West, South and Central. These are the four values which I want user to select from dropdown when they will execute this app. There are different ways to getting the input values which can be checked in "List values".

Next, We need to connect the dropdown tool to the filter tool, as soon as you connect you get another tool called "Action tool". Action tool allows you to set the action type, update the values. Notice, how I have highlighted the expression and have checked option "Replace a specific string" to replace East. This value will be replaced by the selected value from the dropdown by user.

Now the app is ready to execute, for running this app you have to click on the magic wand(highlighted in the image) which is available on the right corner of the designer.

After clicking on the magic wand, you will the below screen which is alerting you that you have not defined the output of the app.

So you have to add the "Output data" tool, I have taken the output as Alteryx Database format i.e, yxdb. Now you execute this app again and select the required region from the dropdown which will give below output screen.

Clicking on "OK" will show you the aggregated data output of the summarize tool. While saving this app, it will be saved as .yxwz file which differentiates it from regular workflows or macros.

Congratulations, your analytic app is ready to be saved and shared with your users. This is just a small implementation of analytic apps, there are many other ways where you can apply this in your Alteryx requirements. I hope this article would be useful for many people who want to create Analytic apps using Alteryx designer.

Happy Learning!