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Error – Spotfire Could Not Publish

Our Spotfire admin is on PTO this week, so I am walking in my old shoes this week. A user reached out when he received the error message “Spotfire could not publish”, and he was unable to save in the Spotfire library. Nine times out of ten, this error is related to temp files being deleted while Spotfire is open. But that wasn’t what happened in this case. This time, the user was trying to save a DXP that was larger than the library limit, which only became a problem when he added on-demand controls to his project. Read on to learn why on-demand caused the problem and how we fixed it.

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Use IronPython to Navigate Spotfire Pages

A user reached out to me on LinkedIn last week with questions about an IronPython script he found in the TIBCO Community. The script attaches to a drop-down property control and helps users jump from page to page. Buttons are usually my go-to navigation medium, but if you have a lot of pages, they take up a lot of space. Using a drop-down maximizes real estate while giving full navigation capabilities. Read on to learn how to use IronPython to navigate Spotfire pages.

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How To Create Drop Downs in Spotfire Text Areas

After 5 years of blogging about Spotfire, I’ve written very little about using property controls, which is a shame because they are one of Spotfire’s best features. It’s time to fix that with a 7 part series on how to create each of the different types of property controls. This week, we’ll start with what is perhaps the most used property control, the dropdown. Read on to learn how to create drop downs in Spotfire text areas.

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Find & Add New Alteryx Tools

I’ve learned a whole lot with Alteryx over the last two years, but I haven’t done much with or from the Alteryx Gallery, until now. I didn’t even realize how much you could easily access from the File menu. And that is a travesty because it’s super easy to find and add new Alteryx tools, and there are a ton of great tools out there. That’s why this post is going to show you how to download tools and templates from the Alteryx Gallery via the File menu. Read on to learn more.

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Using An Output as An Input in Alteryx

Using a workflow output as an input in the same workflow can be tricky. How do you make sure the output is completely written before being used as an input? A few months ago, I showed how the CReW macro tool, Parallel Block Until Done, can be used to control the order of operations in a workflow so that the output is fully written before the input is used. The CReW macro creator, Mark Frisch, reached out to me recently to tell me that my solution wasn’t wrong, but that there was a simpler way to achieve the same task. He bestowed some sage Alteryx wisdom upon me, and now I want to share it with you. Thanks Mark! Read on to learn more.

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Runtime Settings To Make Workflows Run Faster

There have been several occasions when I have thought a particular topic wasn’t important enough to write about. But, some of my simplest posts have been the most popular. That’s the theme for this one. More specifically, I want to draw your attention to a few settings in the Runtime tab that might speed up your workflow or development cycle.

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Remove Columns with Zeros or Nulls from Alteryx Workflows

Last week, I wrote a post showing how the Auto Field tool could be used to reduce the size of data sets. This week, I’m going to show how the same tool can be used to programmatically remove columns with zeros or nulls. This can also help reduce the size of your data sets and get rid of columns. Read on to learn how.

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How to Reduce the Size of an Alteryx Data Set

I love that I can run huge amounts of data thru Alteryx. However, I also have to think about how much data I’m going to take from Alteryx and push to a BI application like Spotfire or PowerBI. As a general rule, less is more. Now, you may think you can’t do anything to reduce the size of your data set without cutting columns or rows, but that’s not true. Read on to learn two quick tricks to materially reduce the size of your data set.

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Why Do Counts Aggregate Differently in Spotfire?

Last week, I wrote a post on using Axis Names on Cross Tables. My examples calculated the difference in Amounts between two scenarios on a cross table. I also needed to know the difference in well counts between scenarios, this time on a bar chart. But, when I changed the aggregation from a Sum to a CountDistinct, the calculations didn’t work anymore. That is because counts aggregate differently than the other aggregation methods. Read on if you want to get your counts right!

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