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Lesson 70

Building Reports with the Layout Tool

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Introduction

Welcome back! In our last two lessons, you mastered creating the fundamental building blocks of a report: formatted Tables and visual Interactive Charts. You learned how each of these tools produces a "reporting snippet" — a self-contained piece of a larger report.

However, a report is rarely just a single table or a single chart. The real power comes from combining these elements to tell a complete story. This lesson addresses the crucial next step: combining various reporting elements into a single report using the Layout tool. We'll explore how to take your separate snippets and arrange them into a professional, cohesive document. This skill is central to building the dynamic, multi-part reports required for the Alteryx Advanced Certification.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to arrange multiple tables, charts, and text elements vertically or horizontally, preparing them for final output.

Alteryx Workflow and Output Report using the Layout Tool
This image illustrates the end goal: an Alteryx workflow that combines diverse elements like an image, a chart, a table, and a map into a single, polished report.

1. The Core Reporting Workflow: Union First, Then Layout

Before we dive into the Layout tool itself, we must understand a critical concept in Alteryx reporting. The Layout tool, like many Alteryx tools, is designed to process a single stream of data. However, your report will likely be built from snippets created on different branches of your workflow (e.g., one branch for a summary table, another for a chart).

So, how do we get these separate snippets into one stream for the Layout tool? We use a Union tool.

The standard workflow is:

  1. Create each reporting element (Table, Chart, Text, etc.) in its own stream.
  2. Use a Union tool to stack these snippets into a single data stream. Each row in this new stream will contain one reporting snippet.
  3. Feed this combined stream into the Layout tool for arrangement.

The following video provides an excellent demonstration of this foundational process.

Alteryx Layout Tool Demonstration

Watch the first part of this demonstration from AB Data Consulting. It clearly shows why the Union tool is necessary and how to use it to combine three separate table snippets before they enter the Layout tool.

Watch from the beginning to 01:58. Pay close attention to how the three separate table snippets cannot be connected directly to the Layout tool, necessitating the use of a Union tool to create a single input stream.

This "Union-then-Layout" pattern is one of the most important concepts in Alteryx reporting.

2. Configuring the Layout Tool

With your snippets combined, you can now use the Layout tool to define their arrangement. The configuration panel offers several key options to control the final appearance of your report.

Alteryx Layout Tool Configuration Panel
The configuration panel of the Layout tool, where you define the mode, orientation, and specific attributes of each reporting element.

The official Alteryx Help documentation provides a comprehensive overview of all the settings. Let's review the most important ones.

Layout Tool - Alteryx Help

Please read the following sections from the Alteryx Help documentation for the Layout tool. This will give you a detailed understanding of the main configuration settings.

First, read the section that starts with 'Layout Mode' to understand the difference between 'Each Individual Record', 'Each Group of Records', and 'All Records Combined'. Then, read the 'Layout Configuration' section to learn about 'Orientation', 'Layout Width/Height', and other formatting options. Focus on understanding the purpose of 'Vertical with Section Breaks'.

Let's summarize the most critical settings:

  • Layout Mode:

    • Each Individual Record: This is the most common mode. It treats each incoming record (which contains a reporting snippet) as a separate element to be arranged.
    • Each Group of Records: This is for batch reporting. It creates a separate layout for each group of records based on a field you select. For example, you could generate a separate report page for each sales region.
    • All Records Combined: This combines all snippets into a single layout object.

  • Orientation: This defines how the snippets are arranged.

    • Horizontal: Arranges snippets side-by-side.
    • Vertical: Stacks snippets on top of each other.
    • Vertical with Section Breaks: This powerful option also stacks snippets, but it inserts a "break" between them. This is how you create multi-sheet Excel files or multi-page PDFs. The break is defined by a field you specify in the Section Name property.
      • In Excel (.xlsx), each unique Section Name creates a new worksheet.
      • In PDF or Word (.pdf, .docx), each unique Section Name creates a new page.

Now, let's see these settings in action.

Alteryx Layout Tool Demonstration

Continue with the 'Alteryx Layout Tool Demonstration' video. The second half covers the configuration panel in detail, including orientation and, most importantly, using the 'Group By' and 'Vertical with Section Breaks' options to create a multi-sheet Excel report.

Watch from 01:58 to the end. Observe how changing the orientation affects the output and how grouping by the 'sheet name' field with section breaks results in a report with three distinct tabs.

3. A Practical Example: Combining a Chart and a Map

In previous lessons, you've seen the article from Databasyx. It also contains a great, simple example of using a Layout tool to combine a map and a chart. This reinforces the concepts in a slightly different context.

An introduction to Alteryx Designer's reporting tools

This article provides another clear, step-by-step example of combining reporting elements. It uses a Join tool instead of a Union, which is also a valid (though less common) method when you have exactly one of each snippet type.

Read the section under the heading 'Once we have our multiple reporting elements, we now need to bring them together into a single view.' Notice how the Layout tool is configured for a vertical orientation to stack the map and chart.

4. Hands-On Practice

It's time to combine what you've learned in the last three lessons. You will create a simple, two-part report by arranging a table and a chart.

Sample Data:
Use a Text Input tool to create the same dataset from our last lesson:

Month Category Sales
2023-01 Hardware 45000
2023-01 Software 80000
2023-02 Hardware 48000
2023-02 Software 85000
2023-03 Hardware 52000
2023-03 Software 91000

Your Task:

  1. Create a Title Snippet:

    • Use a Report Text tool (from the Reporting palette).
    • In the configuration, simply type "Monthly Sales Report" and check "Attach Text to Existing Field". Choose New Field and name it ReportTitle. This will create a text snippet.

  2. Create a Table Snippet:

    • Use a Summarize tool to group by Month and find the Sum of Sales.
    • Connect a Table tool to this output. Configure it to display the month and the sum of sales.

  3. Create a Chart Snippet:

    • Use another Summarize tool to group by Category and find the Sum of Sales.
    • Connect an Interactive Chart tool to create a bar chart showing total sales by category.

  4. Combine and Layout:

    • Use a Union tool to combine the outputs from the Report Text, Table, and Interactive Chart tools.
    • Connect a Layout tool to the Union tool's output.
    • Configure the Layout tool to arrange the snippets vertically.
    • Use the up/down arrows in the Per Row Configuration to ensure the order is: Title, Table, Chart.

  5. View the Result:

    • Attach a Browse tool to the output of the Layout tool and run the workflow. You should see your three elements arranged into a single report page.

This exercise directly applies the core workflow and will solidify your understanding of how these tools work together.

Conclusion

In this lesson, you've learned how to bridge the gap between creating individual reporting elements and assembling a complete report. The Layout tool is the conductor of your reporting orchestra, arranging each piece into a harmonious whole.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Layout tool's primary function is to arrange multiple reporting snippets.
  • Before using the Layout tool, you must combine your separate snippets into a single data stream, typically with the Union tool.
  • The Orientation setting (Horizontal vs. Vertical) is fundamental to your report's structure.
  • The Vertical with Section Breaks orientation, combined with a Section Name field, is a powerful technique for generating multi-page PDFs or multi-sheet Excel workbooks automatically.

Preview of the Next Lesson:
You've created the individual elements and arranged them perfectly on a page. The final step is to save your report as a tangible file. In our next lesson, we will cover the Render tool, which takes the output from the Layout tool and produces a finished report in formats like PDF, XLSX, and DOCX.