Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

The Dynamic Input tool fails when attempting input a set of Excel files with the following error:

Error: Dynamic Input (1): The file "Test2.xlsx|||<List of Sheet Names>" has a different schema than the 1st file in the set.

 

Each spreadsheet contains two tabs and all tabs contain the same columns.

 

The root cause of the schema error is that maximum sheet name length in the two spreadsheets is different.  The first spreadsheet uses "East" and "West" for sheet names.  The second spreadsheet uses "North" and "South" for sheet names.  The Dynamic Input tool uses the longest sheet name when defining the effective Schema.

 

Excel limits sheet name length to 31 characters. It would be helpful if the Dynamic Input tool used 31 as the minimum string length when defining a schema from Excel sheet names.

 

The Input Data tool exhibits similar behavior when using a wildcard in the filename and the "Import only the list of sheet names" option.

 

A batch macro can be used as a workaround.

It seems that currently the Python tool is raising a `FileNotFoundError` exception in Python when there is not data incoming on an input connection. I have, for example, a Filter tool before the Python tool and sometimes there is just no data coming to Python tool - as it is intended.

 

Unfortunately, the Python tools gives my an error message in those cases with this message before the error:

 

This is only the case when there is no data incoming. In all other cases, the tool works fine.

 

Since this is not really an error, a way to either catch this before using `Alteryx.read("#1")` or just having `Alteryx.read()` return an empty data.frame (as I would expect it to do) would be appreciated.

The Python tool has been a tremendous boon in being able to add capability that is not yet available in the Alteryx platform.

 

It would make the Python Tool much more usable and useful if you can define the inputs explicitly rather than just relying on the good behaviour of both the user; and also the python code that reads the inbound data (Alteryx.Read('#1'))

 

This is not something that the Jupyter notebook code-interface may handle directly (because the Jupyter notebook has no priveledged knowledge of the workflow outside it); so this may be best handled by the container itself.

 

The key here is that if my python app requires 2 inputs - it should be possible to define these explicitly so that we can test; and also so that we can prevent errors and make this more bullet-proof.

 

The same would apply on the outbound nodes for the Python tool.

 

In the Test tool, the default is for the "don't report errors if there are other errors in the workflow" box to be checked. I think the default should be for it to be unchecked - it is very aggravating to think that you have found the problem with the workflow only for another to pop up.

In the dynamic input tool,

Where you “Read a List of Data Sources”, there should be a radio button below the “Action” field, to   

 

“INCLUDE FIELD OF DATA SOURCES”,

 

Then you’d have an output field with the isolated name from which the data was sourced. You wouldn't be required to "include full file path" then parse out the sheet the data came from. 

it would  particularly interesting to develop a WMS support in Alteryx.
To include other Maps like bing, google, HERE instead of CloudMade to display geo informations.

 

Mathias

Hi Team,

 

Download tool is not updated their encryption policy. This stool still support SHA-1 but as per the organization requirements they want higher encryption mechanism. As in my case we are using SFTP connection and we want to download the data but my SFTP server using SHA-2 encryption due to which we not able to configure the workflow. 

Please upgrade the Download tool for better experience in alteryx.

 

Regards,

Kaustubh 

Can we get a more robust read.Alteryx function for mode="data.frame"?   If it is reading the stream as a data frame, can we have the option  stringsAsFactors = FALSE?

 

I am getting tripped up a lot because the code will execute in R Studio, but will get mysterious behaviours when it runs within the R Tool.   I am manually converting variables to character strings in my R Tool code which I don't have to do in R Studio.   However, I'm not a highly detail oriented R developer, so I will miss variable data type conversions and have spent a lot of time going down the wrong path.  Also, It makes it difficult to maintain two different scripts for the same routine.

 

I have started using the glimpse() function in R Tool code, to help catch some data conversions since it writes the output in the message log.  

 

Rob Campanell

Hi!

 

So Dynamic Select is a wonderful tool - but in Formula mode it effectively acts as a filter. It drops all of the other fields which don't match the filter and they disappear - floating in the workflow ether, dreaming of the Join tool or other way they can be given XML life anew.  It would be super cool if in stead of just having those Fields which are true exit and continue into the workflow if the False fields could be launched back into the workflow space via a False anchor like on a filter tool....

 

Hypothetical situation - I'm looking to isolate some fields and convert them to a different format based upon name or other characteristic. I'm doing this not to jettison my data set, but to improve it. I run dynamic select and multi-field tool, and suddenly I'm scratching my head. How do I rejoin my workflow with my new and improved data easily? The most direct, albeit stylistically immature way is apparently to a a new_ to my newly created new type fields, join the old fields versus the datastream and drop both of the old fields in place of the New_ versions (soon to shed their prefixes in a dynamic rename)... It works, but it could be much easier.

 

Thanks!

Hi all,

 

As per the post here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Data-Preparation-Blending/Dynamic-input-not-respecting-data-sort/td... - there are situations where you need to use something like a dynamic input to query data, but need it to be brought back in the order that you specified on the input stream.

 

The Dynamic Input too sorts the input stream deliberately, to check for duplicate queries so that it doesn't waste time bringing back duplicate data.

 

It would be great if we can extend the dynamic input tool to allow users to specify that they wish the data unsorted, and that they are OK with the consequences of possibly running the same query twice.    Even if this is a setting that can only be set through XML, it would still be helpful.

 

Many thanks

Sean

The dynamic input tool allows some fairly complex transformations to the underlying query - but it's not always easy to debug this when it doesn't behave as expected.

Could we add the ability to inspect the resulting query (just like you can on the InDB queries using the dynamic output component?)

 

It is currently possible to see this in the results / messages pane, but I can't find a way to get this into a data-stream to persist it or manipulate it.

It would be incredible helpful if Alteryx canvases auto-populated some metadata about each canvas to track its origination and updates.

 

The metadata fields I'm specifically thinking about are:

-Author

-Date Created

-Date Last Updated

Similar to how there is a functionality to use pip through the ayxinstallPackages, there needs to be a way to upgrade python itself. There are important packages such as keras that have errors in Python 3.6 that are not present when used with 3.7 so it should really be up to the user as to which python package to use. Another solution could also be to allow the user to point to their own local installation of Python so that the user can maintain consistency between their own local site-packages and the one that Alteryx has.

 The Download tool is so much more than Downloads. Think about the situation where you are using the Download tool to upload invoices and try explaining that to co-workers. "Oh yes - I'm going to implement the API to upload the invoices using the Alteryx download tool..." Could we call it the Curl tool or something?

Hi all,

Just to give you some context, we have a customer that requires that for every Tableau workbook we deliver, we must add extra documentation, as for instance, for every calculated field, in which views it's used, and the formula of that field (yes, I know exactly what you're thinking right now :P)

So I decided to take a shortcut and do a workflow that extracts the basic (I mean VERY basic) data from the .twb file, so I can save a lot of time. 

 

Then I came with this idea...

 

Having a lot of Tableau's under the hood experts in this Community, It would be great to gather some of them and create a Tableau Documenter Macro.

 

I'd love tho hear what you think, and who's being able to help.

 

There are times where new versions of Alteryx come out, but there are situations where you cannot keep the Desktop and Server versions in sync.

 

As an example, at his time of the year, we are getting ready for year-end and al the workflows located on the server have been tested and signed off on. Now there is a new version of desktop with new features, but advise everyone to stay on the current version in case we need to make a fix. Typically, if we updated Designer desktop and try to publish the server -- you will get a versioning error.

 

I propose that when saving to the server, I can choose the compatible version and Designer/Server can let me know if there is any features I am using that will not work. If I don't use any features from a newer version, the workflow will publish.

 

So, let's say my server and Designer are at version 2022.1 and I decided to download version 2022.2. Typically, if I open and make any change with the new version -- I would get an error saving to the server - even if I am not using new features. However, what I am saying is that there is an option asking me what version I would like to save the workflow to the server as and I can choose 2022.1. Designer or server can check if I did or did not use any incompatible features, and if not, can save to the with the appropriate version.  

 

Thanks,
Seth

I got to know that in version 9.1 Alteryx will have Unique Tool with "Unknow"check box to make it dynamic. I want to suggest same logic for Summarize tool for making it Dynamic.
Please add Unknow like functionallity in Summarize Tool

Thanks,
Pratik Gujarathi 

When dealing with very large tables (100M rows plus), it's not always practical to bring the entire table back to the designer to profile and understand the data.

 

It would be very useful if the power of the field summary tool (frequency analysis; evaluating % nulls; min & max values; length of strings; evaluating if the type is appropriate or could be compressed; whether there is whitespace before or after) could be brought to large DB tables without having to bring the whole table back to the client.

Given that each of these profiling tasks can be done as a discrete SQL query; I would think that this would be MASSIVELY faster than doing this client-side; but it would be a bit of a pain to write this tool.

 

If there is interest in this - I'm more than happy to work with the Alteryx team to look at putting together an initial mockup.

 

Cheers

Sean

It would be really great to have Dynamic Detour tool where you could specify the detour direction as an input to the tool rather than an imbedded control.

 

This would allow workflow branching.

 

Using a filter for this passes a dataset with no rows in it which causes dynamic in-db or dynamic input tools to error.