Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Currently, if the same Excel file is being updated on the workflow, but different sheets within the file, it will error out if the saving process overlaps one another. And there are some cases that using the tool Block Until Done will not work because there are two data streams (for example if you have a filter and is saving the data from the two outputs on the same file).

It would be great if we could output to the same Excel file more than once on the same workflow. 

Hi,

It would be very useful for me If I could consolidate in the same output two different inputs: 1- the whole output flow; 2- The summarize from the output. That would save some time from doing pivot table analysis for instance. 

Thanks

Currently if I read multiple files through Directory Tool +Dynamic Input, I will not know which final records is from which file, which can be extreme useful.

I also know, the files need to be the same schema (a second limitation), but the filename itself will be handy

One feature in the input tool that would be great to have added to the already existing "Output file name as field" option would be to set the field at the beginning of the data set or end (i.e. you could set your default, click a check box or select from two options). Because with large data sets sometimes you need to do data manipulation on that field and it can be easier to work with right away if at the beginning of data set. Right now you have to drag in a select tool to fix it.

Dear Alteryx Community,

I've tried my best to make sure this suggestion wasn't posted before so hoping I haven't missed a feature already present in Alteryx or re-posting an idea already submitted.

In any case, there is one operation I do so much that I wonder if it could be made easier.  I would consider myself a very basic Alteryx users so many of my workflows usually end in either Excel files, CSV, or Alteryx Database files. In any case, here is what I would love (if possible)

In my workflow, I wish I could Right-click on my Output Tool using a file-based output such as Excel, .csv, .yxdb and have a R-Click menu option which said "Start Workflow".  This would open a new Workflow with one input tool already present with a the path being the same as what was in the Output tool that I right-clicked on.

So many times I create an output and then need to use that output.  This usually means I have to copy/paste the path, create an Input Tool and paste that path in.  Would be so many easier if a few of these steps could be done automatically.

Otherwise, if the community knows a simpler/better way...I'm would love to know.

Thanks in advance

Amar

Would be interested if it was possible to turn off individual output tools individually rather than also disabling tools that write output, as it would be good to choose which output tools can write output, instead of placing them in a tool container for all of the output tools.

I notice that at least my Output files are tied up "being used by another program" after the workflow is closed.  I have to actually close out of Alteryx to release the file.  The file s/b released as soon as the workflow using it is done running.  Failing that, as soon as the workflow is closed vs having to close Alteryx completely.

...or is this just my issue?

In the Output Data tool, when the file type is YXDB, one of the options is to Save Source & Description.

Splitting these into "Save Source" and "Save Description" -- independent options -- would be useful.

Sometimes I don't want the file recipient to know how a field was derived but I want to include a description.

Right now there is no easy way of doing this.

Occasionally, the Calgary Loader tool will not write out all fields passed to it.  This seems to happen after writing out a certain number of fields then later, when rerunning, adding a new output field.  Very annoying because you don't know it will happen until processing is complete and you examine the result.  I usually manually delete the calgary files prior to rerunning, to avoid the versioning, but it still happens.

Also, please make the versioning optional with a check box, default off.

Hello,

I work with alteryx databases a lot to store some historical data so I don't have to pull it in the future. It would be great if there was a way when creating the database, where I could lock them for editing and can only be edited by select usernames and passwords.

Thanks,

Chris

Hello All,

I received from an AWS adviser the following message:

_____________________________________________

Skip Compression Analysis During COPY
Checks for COPY operations delayed by automatic compression analysis.

Rebuilding uncompressed tables with column encoding would improve the performance of 2,781 recent COPY operations.
This analysis checks for COPY operations delayed by automatic compression analysis. COPY performs a compression analysis phase when loading to empty tables without column compression encodings. You can optimize your table definitions to permanently skip this phase without any negative impacts.

Observation

Between 2018-10-29 00:00:00 UTC and 2018-11-01 23:33:23 UTC, COPY automatically triggered compression analysis an average of 698 times per day. This impacted 44.7% of all COPY operations during that period, causing an average daily overhead of 2.1 hours. In the worst case, this delayed one COPY by as much as 27.5 minutes.

Recommendation

Implement either of the following two options to improve COPY responsiveness by skipping the compression analysis phase:
Use the column ENCODE parameter when creating any tables that will be loaded using COPY.
Disable compression altogether by supplying the COMPUPDATE OFF parameter in the COPY command.
The optimal solution is to use column encoding during table creation since it also maintains the benefit of storing compressed data on disk. Execute the following SQL command as a superuser in order to identify the recent COPY operations that triggered automatic compression analysis:
WITH xids AS (
SELECT xid FROM stl_query WHERE userid>1 AND aborted=0
AND querytxt = 'analyze compression phase 1' GROUP BY xid)
SELECT query, starttime, complyze_sec, copy_sec, copy_sql
FROM (SELECT query, xid, DATE_TRUNC('s',starttime) starttime,
SUBSTRING(querytxt,1,60) copy_sql,
ROUND(DATEDIFF(ms,starttime,endtime)::numeric / 1000.0, 2) copy_sec
FROM stl_query q JOIN xids USING (xid)
WHERE querytxt NOT LIKE 'COPY ANALYZE %'
AND (querytxt ILIKE 'copy %from%' OR querytxt ILIKE '% copy %from%')) a
LEFT JOIN (SELECT xid,
ROUND(SUM(DATEDIFF(ms,starttime,endtime))::NUMERIC / 1000.0,2) complyze_sec
FROM stl_query q JOIN xids USING (xid)
WHERE (querytxt LIKE 'COPY ANALYZE %'
OR querytxt LIKE 'analyze compression phase %') GROUP BY xid ) b USING (xid)
WHERE complyze_sec IS NOT NULL ORDER BY copy_sql, starttime;

Estimate the expected lifetime size of the table being loaded for each of the COPY commands identified by the SQL command. If you are confident that the table will remain under 10,000 rows, disable compression altogether with the COMPUPDATE OFF parameter. Otherwise, create the table with explicit compression prior to loading with COPY.

_____________________________________________

When I run the suggested query to check the COPY commands executed I realized all belonged to the Redshift bulk output from Alteryx.

Is there any way to implement this “Skip Compression Analysis During COPY” in alteryx to maximize performance as suggested by AWS?

Thank you in advance,

Gabriel

Good afternoon,

I work with a large group of individuals, close to 30,000, and a lot of our files are ran as .dif/.kat files used to import to certain applications and softwares that pertain to our work. We were wondering if this has been brought up before and what the possibility might be.

Yeah, so when you have 15 workflows for some folks and you've actually decided to publish to a test database first, and now you have to publish to a production database it is a *total hassle*, especially if you are using custom field mappings.  Basically you have to go remap N times where N == your number of new outputs.  

Maybe there is a safety / sanity check reason for this, but man, it would be so nice to be able to copy an output, change the alias to a new destination, and just have things sing along.  BRB - gotta go change 15 workflow destination mappings. 

Hi all,

I often feel like workflows can easily become overly cluttered with Browses, especially around Join and other multi-output tools. I need to see the output of most of the data streams, so I can't necessarily just delete the Browses and be done with them (as I'll like need to see them over and over again).

To solve this problem, Alteryx could potentially add a "nested browse" view or tool. I've attached a picture to show what I mean. This would unclutter the area right after multi-output tools significantly.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed any neat trick or functionality that can already do something like this?

Nested Browse View Idea

There should be an option to not update values with Null-values in the database, when using the tool Output Data, with the options:

• File Format = ODBC Database (odbc:)
• Output Options = Update;Insert if new

This apply to MS SQL Server Databases for my part, but might affect other destinations as well?

I would love to see the ability to have a hyperlink (or even more formatting options) in my app output message. 

Currently I when I have an app that runs and I want my users to move off to a different web location they have to copy and paste the url that I have rather than just clicking a link and going to the external report.

When outputting files, it is usually beneficial for characters that would cause trouble with formatting/syntax to be properly escaped. However, there are situations where suppressing this behavior is desirable.

Of particular importance for such a feature is in the outputting of JSON files. Currently, if a file is output as JSON it will always have quotations escaped if they occur within a field, regardless of whether this conforms to the JSON standard. There are a variety of current workaround for this, including pre-formatting all fields to look like JSON and then outputting as a \0 delimiter CSV, but in many cases there is no need to escape any characters when outputting a JSON.

A simple toggle--as was created for suppressing BOM in CSVs--to disable character escaping would make the creation of JSON objects simpler and reduce the amount of workarounds required to output proper JSON.

Please add a tool to edit different cells in table randomly and update the source after editing. Similar to the "Edit Top 200 rows in SQL". That would be very much helpful

On the output data component, when outputting to a database, there are Pre & Post Create SQL statement switches.  This allows for the execution of a SQL statement in the DB but only after a create table action.  To use this functionality you must have populated a table using the 'create new table' or 'overwrite' option, which is no good if you're using the Update or Append options.  Change these switches to Pre & Post SQL Statements as per the Input Data component.  This will allow you to execute SQL statements in the DB either before or after the population action.  Can be really handy if you need to execute database stored procedures for example.  

Please note:  You can already work around this by branching from your data stream and creating or overwriting a dummy table, then use the pre or post create switch for your SQL statement.  This is a bit messy and can leave dummy tables in the DB, which is a bit scruffy.