User-friendly download tool

[SeanAdams]

Hi there,

The download tool is currently very cryptic, and difficult for most users to grasp..   This is due, at least in part, to the fact that it tries to be generic and serve all needs instead of being broken into smaller tools which fit the need.

Could we please break the download tool into:

- Input FTP tool.   This would allow you to download from FTP or SFTP sites, and work in a wizard fashion to get you to the file / files you wanted and take you through FTP authentication

- Input: Web API call.   This would be much easier if there was a wizard where you could put the API you wanted to call, and then you could add the parameters using a wizard

- Input: Web-download:   This would allow you to download frames or pages from the web.   this would be a good place to do what so many users have asked for and which Excel does natively - i.e. allow you to see the site in a wizard in a browser, and pick the elements you want to download.   Must allow for authentication and walk you through this with the wizard.

- Output; FTP put.   AS above - splitting this out makes it more sensible

There are probably other variants, and we can keep the Download tool for super-complex or bespoke uses - but if we break this down into smaller tools with simpler capabilities, we'll get a higher usage.

Thank you

Sean

[danielkresina]

I definitely agree that FTP should be broken out as it's own connector since people use FTP so frequently.

[SeanAdams]

Not only FTP - but the API integration is also fairly cryptic to use.

The key challenge with the download tool is that it tries to solve ALL problems - instead, why not keep this but then create additional specialised tools that address the specific items in a more focussed way.

for example - the web page downloader in Excel beats the Alteryx one hands down - and the one in AutomationAnywhere just destroys it.

Given how much of our data will be external as we move forward, it only makes sense to split these out into specialized tools which are tuned and tailored for the specific use-case.

+ @samN @JoshKushner @ydmuley @Arianna_Fuller @Ari_Fuller @MPistone @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur

[SeanAdams]

Hey @TashaA

This is the post that relates to our discussion at Inspire this week about breaking the Download tool into smaller and more focussed tools (Rest API; Web Scraping; FTP).   This would make the tool much richer and much easier for people to learn and understand.

[GreggD]

Hey @TashaA 

I agree with @SeanAdams about breaking down the Download tool into smaller and more focused tools (Rest API w/SSL support; Web Scraping; FTP/FTPS).   In many corporate environments self-signed Certificates are not allowed, so the Download tool cannot connect to a domain with SSL turned on.

[KylieF]

Thank you for your feedback! This idea is being updated to Revisit at this time. While we do have plans to review and update the Download tool in the future, these updates are not on the near future roadmap. We'll update this idea again once our Product team is able to re-evaluate the idea and place it on the near future roadmap.

[Mmisiji60]

@KylieF  Hello Kylie,

Could you check for us if this idea be revisited soon , please? 

I recently had to find out why the download tool crashes when our customer upgrated to a higher than SHA1 security protocol, and was amazed to see  community is flooded with people trying to find workarounds

and they are not the most elegant and user-friendly ones, such as run command, batch scripts...

It would be great to know after 4 years someone is working on this.

Here is a similar  'new idea' post 

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Enhancement-to-the-DOWNLOAD-tool-for-SFTP/id...

Best Regards,

[DanielG]

Yes please move this up the priority list.

[TheOC]

I would like this to be revisited.
API connections are one of the only parts of Alteryx that feel a step more difficult than it needs to be. This could do with the Assisted Modelling treatment that predictive workflows received. *

* While keeping it part of the base product