Make Columns Tool
Official Support for Make Columns Tool
As of the 2024.1 release, Alteryx officially supports the Make Columns tool. The tool is now accessible via the Transform tool category in Designer.
One Tool Example
Make Columns has a One Tool Example. Go to Sample Workflows to learn how to access this and many other examples directly in Alteryx Designer.
Use Make Columns to take rows of data and arrange them into multiple columns. You can specify how many columns to create and whether you want to arrange records horizontally or vertically.
This tool is useful for reporting or display purposes where you want to organize records to fit nicely within a table. For example, if you don't want to display a list of 50 records, you can use Make Columns to organize those records into a table of 5 columns and 10 rows.
Configure the Tool
Number of Columns: Specify the number of columns to create. For each existing field, the tool creates a new column with "Column_#" pre-pended to the column name.
If the input contains 2 fields and you specify 2 columns (with no group specification), 4 columns come out of the tool.
If the input contains 2 fields and you specify 2 columns in addition to one group field, 3 columns come out of the tool.
Choose to arrange records horizontally or vertically:
Arrange Horizontally: Designer orders records by their incoming position and populates cells from left to right until they fill your specified number of columns. After that, Designer wraps records to the next row and continues arranging them from left to right.
Arrange Vertically: Designer orders records by their incoming position and populates cells from top to bottom in rows. Designer wraps to the specified number of columns.
If there isn't an exact match of records, [Null] values fill the set.
Grouping Fields (Optional): When you specify a group field, Designer sorts the records by the Group value and arranges them according to their incoming record position across columns for the particular group. You can use the All and Clear buttons to select all fields or clear your selections.
Examples
Ungrouped
Food |
---|
Apple |
Banana |
Cherry |
Date |
Asparagus |
Broccoli |
Carrot |
Daikon |
Column_1_Food | Column_2_Food |
---|---|
Apple | Banana |
Cherry | Date |
Asparagus | Broccoli |
Carrot | Daikon |
Column_1_Food | Column_2_Food |
---|---|
Apple | Asparagus |
Banana | Broccoli |
Cherry | Carrot |
Date | Daikon |
Grouped
Group | Food |
---|---|
Fruit | Apple |
Fruit | Cherry |
Fruit | Banana |
Fruit | Date |
Vegetable | Asparagus |
Vegetable | Carrot |
Vegetable | Broccoli |
Vegetable | Daikon |
Group | Column_1_Food | Column_2_Food |
---|---|---|
Fruit | Apple | Banana |
Fruit | Cherry | Date |
Vegetable | Asparagus | Broccoli |
Vegetable | Carrot | Daikon |
Group | Column_1_Food | Column_2_Food |
---|---|---|
Fruit | Apple | Cherry |
Fruit | Banana | Date |
Vegetable | Asparagus | Carrot |
Vegetable | Broccoli | Daikon |